Fay­ola KJ Fras­er

Jan­ice Lear­mond-Criqui has nev­er been one to fol­low a tra­di­tion­al script. A cer­ti­fied pro­fes­sion­al life coach, she is set to re­lease her book en­ti­tled He Said the Right Things but Did He Mean Them–A Woman’s Guide to Un­der­stand­ing the Game, Guard­ing Her Heart and Grow­ing Her Worth. She has de­vot­ed many years to shap­ing, sup­port­ing, and in­spir­ing peo­ple. How­ev­er, her sto­ry has tak­en var­i­ous un­prece­dent­ed twists and turns, and her abil­i­ty to sur­mount chal­lenges with grace and poise has been an in­spi­ra­tion in and of it­self.

Born the sec­ond of six chil­dren, she was raised by a de­ter­mined moth­er, Vic­to­ria Lear­mond-Criqui from Car­ri­a­cou, Grena­da, and a fa­ther, Jack Lear­mond-Criqui from Trinidad. Her ear­ly life was marked by strong Caribbean val­ues, shaped by dis­ci­pline, com­mu­ni­ty, and grit.

A proud alum­na of Bish­op’s Cen­te­nary Col­lege, Lear­mond-Criqui’s aca­d­e­m­ic jour­ney soon took her to Eng­land, where she spent two for­ma­tive years study­ing. But the pull of home proved ir­re­sistible. With her “navel string” be­ing buried in Trinidad and To­ba­go, she ex­pe­ri­enced life abroad and in­trin­si­cal­ly knew her des­tiny lay firm­ly on lo­cal soil.

Her pro­fes­sion­al life be­gan at TEL­CO, where she worked close­ly with the ex­ec­u­tive team and even­tu­al­ly be­came the ex­ec­u­tive sec­re­tary to the CEO. That ex­pe­ri­ence sharp­ened her or­gan­i­sa­tion­al skills and in­tro­duced her to the de­mand­ing world of cor­po­rate Trinidad. Af­ter a brief stint in the US, Lear­mond-Criqui re­turned home with even greater clar­i­ty that her con­tri­bu­tions would be best made serv­ing her home­land.

Not long af­ter, she found her way back to what had be­come TSTT—but this was short-lived. It was the dawn of the Mi­crosoft Of­fice era, and recog­nis­ing the op­por­tu­ni­ty, Lear­mond-Criqui quick­ly be­came one of the few pro­fes­sion­als equipped to teach cor­po­rate em­ploy­ees the soft­ware. This marked the start of her long­stand­ing in­volve­ment in in­for­ma­tion tech­nol­o­gy and cor­po­rate train­ing.

Far from be­ing a pas­sive user, Lear­mond-Criqui dove in­to teach­ing Mi­crosoft Of­fice pro­grammes, de­sign­ing data­bas­es, and work­ing with com­pa­nies in the en­er­gy sec­tor. Us­ing Mi­crosoft Ac­cess, she built cus­tomised sys­tems for track­ing op­er­a­tions. She was a woman ahead of her time—an ear­ly tech train­er and a cre­ator in a field dom­i­nat­ed by men.

But as the dot-com wave ush­ered in in­ter­net cafés and cheap­er train­ing op­tions, Lear­mond-Criqui recog­nised the busi­ness mod­el she had thrived in was shift­ing. She made the bold de­ci­sion to piv­ot and ac­cept­ed a role as ad­min­is­tra­tor at The Falls at West­mall dur­ing its cru­cial ren­o­va­tion phase.

There, she de­signed data­bas­es to man­age ten­ants, store sizes, rent, track em­ploy­ees, and an ac­counts payable sys­tem. She played an in­te­gral role in set­ting up var­i­ous in-house de­part­ments, but de­spite that, she was af­fec­tion­ate­ly known as the “rent col­lec­tor” at month-end.

For ten years, Lear­mond-Criqui was es­sen­tial to the mall’s op­er­a­tions and helped the or­gan­i­sa­tion tran­si­tion. She stud­ied to be­come an HR pro­fes­sion­al and com­mu­ni­ca­tor. Every year, she com­mit­ted to do­ing a course. It was her life­line to be­com­ing an all-round­ed in­di­vid­ual.

Then came an­oth­er tran­si­tion: the en­er­gy sec­tor. She took on roles as an ex­ec­u­tive as­sis­tant at com­pa­nies like BP, BG (now Shell), BHP Bil­li­ton, and Her­itage. In one of those roles, she was sta­tioned in Pe­nal and made gru­elling dai­ly com­mutes, pon­der­ing what was next in store for her. These roles were de­mand­ing on her time and en­er­gy, and even­tu­al­ly, she was faced with a sig­nif­i­cant health chal­lenge.

In 2023, Lear­mond-Criqui un­der­went a triple by­pass surgery. It was a turn­ing point—not just med­ical­ly, but men­tal­ly and emo­tion­al­ly. Her sis­ters helped cov­er med­ical bills and pro­vid­ed much-need­ed sup­port. Di­vine tim­ing saw her cred­it union loan ap­proved and the down­pay­ment paid one day be­fore her sched­uled op­er­a­tion.

As her heart healed, an­oth­er long-term wound closed: the end of a painful mar­riage. Af­ter 20 years of mar­riage, her hus­band left the home, but rather than sor­row, Lear­mond-Criqui felt re­lief. “Los­ing a hus­band was a ma­jor plus,” she said with re­fresh­ing can­dor, re­count­ing that the ex­pe­ri­ence be­came an­oth­er chap­ter in her evo­lu­tion, re­in­forc­ing her com­mit­ment to self-worth and in­ner peace.

A mo­ti­va­tion­al speak­er long be­fore she earned the ti­tle, Lear­mond-Criqui start­ed us­ing her voice while ac­com­pa­ny­ing her then-hus­band to in­sur­ance con­fer­ences around the is­lands. But her orig­i­nal in­spi­ra­tion came from her moth­er, who, de­spite los­ing her sight in her 50s, pulled her­self out of de­pres­sion and be­came an in­sur­ance agent.

“My moth­er turned to books for mo­ti­va­tion and mind­set to go out there and hus­tle. Af­ter all, she had six mouths to feed and ed­u­cate. She went in­to de­pres­sion but was able to pull her­self back out of it to get to work.” That lega­cy of strength and hus­tle lives on in Lear­mond-Criqui.

In 2010, she be­came a cer­ti­fied pro­fes­sion­al coach–life, af­ter com­plet­ing a rig­or­ous Aus­tralian on­line pro­gramme in just two years. Her nat­ur­al em­pa­thy and sharp in­tel­lect made her a per­fect fit for the pro­fes­sion.

Life coach­ing be­came her pas­sion and her plat­form. She be­gan writ­ing up­lift­ing columns and men­tor­ing young peo­ple on soft skills, goal-set­ting, and lead­er­ship. Through in­sti­tu­tions, she be­gan shap­ing the minds of to­mor­row. “Young peo­ple need men­tors now more than ever,” she says. “They need to take the op­por­tu­ni­ty to find a men­tor to guide and in­spire them.”

Her coach­ing style blends tough love with rad­i­cal en­cour­age­ment—help­ing her clients dis­cov­er who they are, and who they could be. Every talk, every ar­ti­cle, every ses­sion builds on her mis­sion to cul­ti­vate peo­ple of worth.

Her ad­vo­ca­cy doesn’t stop there. A past po­lit­i­cal can­di­date in Diego Mar­tin West for the Pro­gres­sive Em­pow­er­ment Par­ty (PEP), she pas­sion­ate­ly be­lieves that po­lit­i­cal rep­re­sen­ta­tives should come from the com­mu­ni­ties they serve. Though the cam­paign was fi­nan­cial­ly de­mand­ing, she trea­sures the ex­pe­ri­ence.

“Be­ing in the com­mu­ni­ties, be­ing part of the ral­lies, meet­ing the peo­ple who put their trust in me to ‘not for­get them’ af­ter the elec­tions,” she re­flects. The ex­pe­ri­ence sparked some­thing deep­er: a need to help women shed the Cin­derel­la myth and be­come women of worth—and to in­spire and em­pow­er men us­ing a guid­ed jour­nal to re­claim pur­pose, pow­er, and pres­ence.

To­day, she stands on the cusp of au­thor­ship. Af­ter years of false starts, the time was fi­nal­ly right, and she was able to lean in­to writ­ing with­out any chal­lenges. “You have to trust the process,” she says. So mo­ti­vat­ed about be­com­ing an au­thor, she has two oth­er books in the mak­ing—Wor­thy to Be­come Her–a guid­ed jour­nal to rise, re­flect and re­claim your pow­er, and Em­pow­er­ment for Men–a guid­ed jour­nal to re­claim pur­pose, pow­er and pres­ence.

De­spite not hav­ing a for­mal IT de­gree, Lear­mond-Criqui has mas­tered plat­forms like Can­va, Copi­lot, Ama­zon, and No­tion on her own to sup­port her road to pub­li­ca­tion. Her gift is learn­ing by do­ing—a true dig­i­tal na­tive forged in the ana­logue world. As an Am­bas­sador for In­ter­Na­tions, she now con­nects lo­cals and ex­pats month­ly, build­ing bridges across bor­ders and shar­ing her Caribbean warmth with a glob­al net­work.

Jan­ice Lear­mond-Lear­mond-Criqui is not just a sur­vivor—she’s a rein­ven­tion­ist. From sec­re­tary to speak­er, from tech­nol­o­gist to life coach, from po­lit­i­cal hope­ful to pub­lished au­thor-in-progress, her sto­ry is one of end­less trans­for­ma­tion. But through every chap­ter, one thing has re­mained con­stant: her be­lief in pur­pose and her re­fusal to let cir­cum­stances de­fine her.

Her life’s mot­to?

“The pow­er of man­i­fes­ta­tion is re­al—once you know your worth, the world has no choice but to recog­nise it too.”