An­drea Perez-Sobers

Se­nior Re­porter

an­drea.perez-sobers@guardian.co.tt

The jour­ney was nev­er fast, nev­er script­ed and nev­er guar­an­teed. For An­ge­lo Daniel Austin, who has spent just over 11 months as CEO of Xtra Foods, the climb from su­per­mar­ket floor staff to the ex­ec­u­tive suite was de­lib­er­ate­ly an­chored in ser­vice, dis­ci­pline, men­tor­ship and an un­wa­ver­ing be­lief that de­tails mat­ter.
Austin grew up in Brazil Vil­lage, one of six sib­lings in a house­hold where mon­ey was tight but val­ues were firm­ly root­ed. Those ear­ly lessons, he told Sun­day Busi­ness Guardian last Fri­day, shaped not on­ly his char­ac­ter but his ca­reer.
“I came from a very hum­ble home,” Austin re­called. “My par­ents taught us sim­ple things: if some­body gives you some­thing, al­ways say thank you. Al­ways say, “Have a nice day.”

Those man­ners would lat­er set him apart in an un­like­ly place: the su­per­mar­ket floor. At just 15-and-a-half years old, Austin en­tered the work­force out of ne­ces­si­ty. His first job in­volved pack­ing bags, push­ing trol­leys, and as­sist­ing cus­tomers, which he nev­er imag­ined would be­come the foun­da­tion of a cor­po­rate ca­reer.
“It was nev­er fast or script­ed,” he said. “I start­ed from the very bot­tom, pack­ing bags and push­ing trol­leys and just be­ing kind to peo­ple.”
That kind­ness, he ex­plains, be­came his dif­fer­en­tia­tor. Cus­tomers no­ticed. Some trav­elled from dif­fer­ent parts of the coun­try, specif­i­cal­ly ask­ing for “the boy called Austin,” the young em­ploy­ee known for his friend­li­ness and at­ten­tion.
“That’s how my ca­reer re­al­ly start­ed,” he said. “Peo­ple would ask, ‘How come this guy is so nice?’ Those sim­ple lessons made me an out­lier.”
Com­ing from a large fam­i­ly with lim­it­ed re­sources al­so in­stilled re­silience.

“Hum­ble be­gin­nings teach you how to stretch, how to cre­ate and how to keep try­ing,” Austin said, adding “Noth­ing hap­pens by chance. If you do noth­ing, noth­ing will hap­pen.”
That mind­set, he be­lieves, is what sep­a­rates am­bi­tion from achieve­ment. “You have to get up every sin­gle day, re­gard­less of how you feel, and go out there and win,” he said. “Win­ning is what you do best, once you do the work.”

Men­tor­ship and earn­ing the role

Austin’s rise with­in Xtra Foods was me­thod­i­cal rather than me­te­oric. He learned every lay­er of the busi­ness, build­ing ex­pe­ri­ence over time rather than leap­ing ti­tles. Cen­tral to that jour­ney was men­tor­ship, par­tic­u­lar­ly from Anand Naipaul, the com­pa­ny’s cur­rent chair­man.
“He be­lieved in my po­ten­tial long be­fore I ever had a ti­tle,” Austin said. “He nur­tured it with guid­ance, trust and very high stan­dards.”

Naipaul, Austin not­ed, drilled in­to him a re­tail phi­los­o­phy that still guides his lead­er­ship.

“Re­tail is all about de­tail,” Austin said. “And don’t ex­pect to al­ways in­spect.”
That prin­ci­ple be­came more than a slo­gan. It shaped how Austin man­aged peo­ple, fol­lowed up on in­struc­tions and ap­proached ac­count­abil­i­ty.

“If you give some­one in­struc­tions, you al­ways have to check back,” he ex­plained. “Those lessons stayed with me.”
The men­tor­ship went be­yond ad­vice. Naipaul in­vest­ed di­rect­ly in Austin’s de­vel­op­ment, spon­sor­ing his MBA, which Austin com­plet­ed with dis­tinc­tion.

“There are not many peo­ple like him in this world,” Austin said. “Peo­ple who tru­ly see your po­ten­tial and take the time to de­vel­op it.”

He is un­apolo­getic about ac­knowl­edg­ing that sup­port. “I am a prod­uct of Xtra Foods and what the Xtra Foods phi­los­o­phy is all about,” he said.

“I sin­cere­ly thank him and the en­tire Xtra Foods fam­i­ly for shap­ing who I am to­day.”

By the time Austin as­sumed the role of CEO on Jan­u­ary 1, 2025, he had spent years learn­ing the busi­ness from the ground up. That back­ground made his first Christ­mas sea­son as chief ex­ec­u­tive par­tic­u­lar­ly mean­ing­ful.

“Hav­ing start­ed from the floor and now be­ing CEO this Christ­mas re­minds me that lead­er­ship is not about a po­si­tion. “It’s about show­ing up, sup­port­ing your teams and be­ing present.”

The re­spon­si­bil­i­ty, he not­ed, now ex­tends far be­yond per­son­al suc­cess. “I feel a strong sense of du­ty to­wards our staff, our sup­pli­ers and the com­mu­ni­ties we serve,” Austin said. “Suc­cess is nev­er about do­ing it alone. It’s al­ways a col­lec­tive ef­fort.”

Lead­ing with pur­pose

As CEO, Austin’s vi­sion is root­ed in cul­ture as much as com­merce. “My vi­sion is to build a busi­ness where ex­cel­lence is nor­mal, care is vis­i­ble, and peo­ple are re­spect­ed,” he said.

In­ter­nal­ly, that trans­lates to stronger sys­tems, ac­count­abil­i­ty and con­tin­u­ous im­prove­ment. Ex­ter­nal­ly, it means stores that cus­tomers trust. “I want Xtra Foods to be known for how we treat peo­ple, not just for sell­ing gro­ceries,” he said. The com­pa­ny now has sev­en stores in Trinidad.

That vi­sion is be­ing test­ed in a chal­leng­ing eco­nom­ic cli­mate. The on­go­ing for­eign ex­change crunch has af­fect­ed the abil­i­ty of re­tail­ers to source in­ter­na­tion­al goods, and Xtra Foods has not been im­mune.

“The forex sit­u­a­tion cre­at­ed chal­lenges,” Austin ac­knowl­edged. “But as with every­thing else, we adapt.”
The com­pa­ny has re­spond­ed by work­ing more close­ly with sup­pli­ers, plan­ning fur­ther ahead and plac­ing greater em­pha­sis on lo­cal and re­gion­al sourc­ing.

“Con­straints force dis­ci­pline,” he said. “And dis­ci­pline makes the busi­ness stronger over time.”

Austin said rev­enues can­not be com­pared to pre­vi­ous Christ­mases as there are a few more days left and the su­per­mar­ket chain ex­pects the last-minute rush.

“We un­der­stand the sit­u­a­tion peo­ple are fac­ing,” he said. “That’s why we’re do­ing heavy dis­counts, give­aways and pro­mo­tions. We want to en­sure every fam­i­ly feels some lev­el of sup­port from our stores.”

Op­er­a­tional readi­ness has al­so been a pri­or­i­ty. Xtra Foods hired about 300 sea­son­al em­ploy­ees to man­age in­creased Christ­mas traf­fic. “Large crowds are com­ing,” Austin said. “The on­ly way to en­sure peo­ple get in and out quick­ly is man­pow­er.”

Ex­pan­sion re­mains firm­ly on the strate­gic agen­da. The new Xtra Foods site at Trinci­ty has at­tract­ed in­tense pub­lic in­ter­est, though Austin is de­lib­er­ate­ly cau­tious on time­lines.

“Trinci­ty is very much on our strate­gic map,” he said. “But I pre­fer not to give dates be­fore every­thing is ful­ly aligned.”

He con­firmed that traf­fic man­age­ment, flood­ing mit­i­ga­tion, and com­mu­ni­ty con­cerns are be­ing ac­tive­ly ad­dressed. “We are work­ing with en­gi­neers, the traf­fic branch and the min­istry. We like to work with the com­mu­ni­ties we are part of.”

Ser­vice and ex­pan­sion

In San Fer­nan­do, Austin said the com­pa­ny’s south­ern ex­pan­sion was dri­ven by long-stand­ing pub­lic de­mand.

“For years, peo­ple asked why Xtra Foods didn’t have a lo­ca­tion in the South land,” he high­light­ed. “When the op­por­tu­ni­ty came, we took it.”

Se­cu­ri­ty has al­so been strength­ened across lo­ca­tions amid wider crime con­cerns. “We have in-house se­cu­ri­ty at all our lo­ca­tions,” Austin said. “They are very vis­i­ble, and we’ve boost­ed light­ing in our car parks so peo­ple feel safe.”

Asked what dif­fer­en­ti­ates Xtra Foods from its com­peti­tors, Austin’s an­swer was im­me­di­ate. “Ser­vice,” he said. “Xtra Foods cares.”

He point­ed to wide aisles, high reg­is­ter avail­abil­i­ty, park­ing, se­cu­ri­ty and pro­mo­tions as part of a broad­er com­mit­ment to mak­ing shop­ping easy and stress-free. “It’s all the in­gre­di­ents that make the ex­pe­ri­ence sec­ond to none,” he men­tioned.

For young peo­ple as­pir­ing to lead­er­ship, Austin’s ad­vice is di­rect.
“Hard work, com­mit­ment, ded­i­ca­tion and God. “If you don’t do the work, don’t ex­pect good re­sults.”

As he set­tles in­to the role, Austin re­mains ground­ed by the path that brought him there.

“Noth­ing hap­pens be­fore its time. But if you stay con­sis­tent, stay hum­ble and do the work, the jour­ney will take you where you need to go.”