Fay­ola K J Fras­er

From his of­fice in Port-of-Spain, TSTT Chief Ex­ec­u­tive Of­fi­cer Kent West­ern speaks with the calm clar­i­ty of some­one deeply an­chored in pur­pose.

A proud hus­band and fa­ther of three boys, West­ern has spent the past two decades jug­gling these roles mas­ter­ful­ly, not just find­ing his pur­pose and lead­ing in the cor­po­rate space—but pow­er­ful­ly lead­ing his sons, and nur­tur­ing a lega­cy with­in his fam­i­ly unit.

“Strong peo­ple come from strong fam­i­lies,” he says, which is some­thing he has seen both in his own fam­i­ly and with­in the or­gan­i­sa­tion.

West­ern, who has been the CEO of TSTT for just over two years, and a fa­ther for just over 20, ap­proach­es both roles with in­ten­tion, fo­cused on the need to con­tin­ue to learn, adapt and mod­ernise his ap­proach­es. 

De­scrib­ing him­self as “100 per cent Tri­ni”, West­ern was born and raised in Diego Mar­tin and at­tend­ed Fa­ti­ma Col­lege. Up­on leav­ing sec­ondary school, he jumped straight in­to work and then re­alised he need­ed to fo­cus on ed­u­ca­tion. That re­al­i­sa­tion led him to earn an MBA from An­glia Ruskin Uni­ver­si­ty, and a ten-year ca­reer in the air­line in­dus­try, which, he says, “helped me build sol­id prin­ci­ples to stand on”. In late 2004, West­ern left the air­line in­dus­try to join the telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions in­dus­try and has been in tele­coms ever since. 

Not on­ly did he leave the air­line in­dus­try in 2004, but he al­so got mar­ried and has been hap­pi­ly mar­ried to his wife, An­na, for the last 21 years. West­ern’s fa­ther­hood jour­ney be­gan soon af­ter, and the cou­ple, then liv­ing in Saint Lu­cia, be­came preg­nant with their first son, Er­ic. This brought them back to Trinidad and they lived in cen­tral Trinidad for the first ten years of their mar­riage.

Af­ter be­com­ing a fa­ther, West­ern re­flect­ed on his own fa­ther and how he was raised. He de­scribes his fa­ther as “very ground­ed, and very in­ten­tion­al, like my wife and I are. He want­ed us to grow up with grit, but not to be hard­ened. In some ways, I want­ed to raise my sons with some of the same foun­da­tion­al prin­ci­ples I grew up with, but I have a re­spon­si­bil­i­ty as well to mod­ernise fa­ther­hood.”

West­ern is now the fa­ther of three boys–Er­ic, who is 20 years old, Talon, who is 17, and Ax­el, who is 11.

“I’m one of four men liv­ing in a house with my wife,” he laughs. “The en­er­gy is re­al in our house, and my wife is man­ag­ing a house of testos­terone all with dif­fer­ent per­son­al­i­ties.”

One of West­ern’s key ap­proach­es to fa­ther­hood is the recog­ni­tion that all his sons are dif­fer­ent, and there­fore re­quire dif­fer­ent par­ent­ing styles– “a com­bi­na­tion of strength and soft­ness and struc­ture and flex­i­bil­i­ty,” he says.

Er­ic, the el­dest, is study­ing Com­put­er Sci­ence abroad. “He’s smart, fo­cused, opin­ion­at­ed—clas­sic Com­put­er Sci­ence kid,” West­ern says with a chuck­le. “They all bring some­thing unique.”

Talon, the mid­dle child, is the fix­er. “He is in­quis­i­tive and full of love, al­ways ready to help. Ax­el, the youngest—he’s a leader. Lots of grit and a lit­tle at­ti­tude. I see my­self in him.”

West­ern leads them each dif­fer­ent­ly, teach­ing each one in tan­dem about strength, soft­ness and struc­ture. Each child car­ries “Kent” as their mid­dle name—a sym­bol of lega­cy and be­long­ing.

“We’re not just grow­ing up boys, we’re grow­ing up men,” he says, his voice tinged with pride and re­spon­si­bil­i­ty.

“Fair­ness, re­spect, and dig­ni­ty—those are val­ues my dad in­stilled in me, and I’m pass­ing them down. Some­times with words, but of­ten just through ac­tion.”

He re­calls an in­stance at Massy when he asked Talon to give mon­ey to a man in a wheel­chair, right af­ter say­ing no to a snack re­quest.

“He was puz­zled,” West­ern ad­mits, but the les­son stuck.

“Now he re­minds me to look out for that man.”

As CEO of TSTT, West­ern re­fus­es to com­part­men­talise work ver­sus fam­i­ly. “You don’t stop be­ing a fa­ther or CEO at five o’clock,” he ex­plains. “There’s a shared rhythm rather than sim­ply task shift­ing. The boys hear me on work calls, they see how I sup­port my team.”

When West­ern joined TSTT, he was mus­ing on what he could give to an or­gan­i­sa­tion that was al­ready so ma­ture.

“It’s the same thing I give at home,” he says, ref­er­enc­ing the need to treat his staff with com­pas­sion and un­der­stand­ing and en­cour­age them not on­ly to be present in their work but make re­al ac­com­mo­da­tions for them to be present in their fam­i­lies. At home and in the of­fice, his mantra re­mains the same: lead with love and in­ten­tion.

West­ern be­lieves the fu­ture of fa­ther­hood lies in find­ing the bal­ance be­tween strength and soft­ness, as well as com­mu­ni­cat­ing open­ly and ca­su­al­ly with his chil­dren about all things while en­sur­ing they are re­spect­ful of their par­ents as the lead­ers of the fam­i­ly. 

He talks to his sons on top­ics that were con­sid­ered taboo when he was grow­ing up, like men­stru­al eq­ui­ty–which was part of a cam­paign led re­cent­ly by TSTT. “They are liv­ing and grow­ing up in a time where things are dif­fer­ent,” he says.

When one of his sons asked him if he felt un­com­fort­able talk­ing pub­licly, he re­spond­ed in a man­ner to en­sure that his son un­der­stood that this was a hu­man top­ic and is­sue, and one that men should be in­volved in.

He rel­ish­es in learn­ing from his chil­dren too, as his 11 year old told him more about the dis­cus­sions on pu­ber­ty and health that he had in school. West­ern felt a pro­found sense of achieve­ment: that his son could have those con­ver­sa­tions with ma­tu­ri­ty and ease. 

Bal­anc­ing work and fam­i­ly is no small task, but West­ern cred­its his “home team” for keep­ing him ground­ed. “They let me know when I’m drift­ing. If I’m home, I need to be present and show up whole. And they hold me to that.”

It’s not al­ways easy for him, but he is grate­ful that even when he has to hone in­to a big project at work, his wife and sons show him grace, know­ing that once the project is over he will be able to pour more whole­heart­ed­ly in­to the home.

West­ern al­so ac­knowl­edges that he and his wife won’t al­ways get it right and part of par­ent­ing is lis­ten­ing, learn­ing, and be­ing okay with not hav­ing all the an­swers.

But he has a strat­e­gy–“What I don’t know, I find out on Chat­G­PT,” he laughs.

As West­ern con­tin­ues to raise his chil­dren, he said that as a fa­ther, the trea­sure of time is what he val­ues most.

“My el­dest is on­ly here four months of the year. So those mo­ments mat­ter more now. I’m teach­ing them to car­ry them­selves with pride, to be kind, and to ho­n­our their Caribbean iden­ti­ty.”

West­ern said, he is proud to lead TSTT but sim­i­lar­ly as proud to be a dad.

“My ti­tle doesn’t shape me. I shape it. And I hope when peo­ple look at my sons, they see some of the good my fa­ther passed on to me—and that I’ve passed to them.”