GEISHA KOW­LESSAR ALON­ZO

In a world that con­stant­ly de­mands more—more hours, more vis­i­bil­i­ty and more con­ces­sions of the self—Mala Bali­raj is nav­i­gat­ing the cor­po­rate land­scape of T&T by chart­ing a dif­fer­ent course: step­ping back in or­der to move for­ward.

Bali­raj is prov­ing that the most pro­found in­flu­ence is not found in the vol­ume of one’s voice, but in the clar­i­ty of one’s vi­sion.

The jour­ney for the CEO of Massy Wood Group Ltd reached land­mark heights in 2024 when she was ap­point­ed chair of the En­er­gy Cham­ber of T&T, a role that po­si­tioned her at the helm of one of the na­tion’s most crit­i­cal eco­nom­ic en­gines.

Her as­cent to this lead­er­ship peak is par­tic­u­lar­ly res­o­nant giv­en the cur­rent glob­al cli­mate.

As In­ter­na­tion­al Women’s Day 2026 ar­rives to­day, car­ry­ing the glob­al man­date “Rights. Jus­tice. Ac­tion. For ALL Women and Girls,” along­side the evoca­tive cam­paign theme “Give To Gain,” the rel­e­vance of Bali­raj’s lead­er­ship phi­los­o­phy be­comes even clear­er.

For her, a vet­er­an of the en­er­gy sec­tor for more than two decades, these themes align per­fect­ly with her own ap­proach to lead­er­ship—one ground­ed in re­flec­tion, in­ten­tion­al­i­ty and pur­pose.

The give-to-gain phi­los­o­phy res­onates deeply with her own jour­ney—the idea that by giv­ing of one’s au­then­tic self and mak­ing space for oth­ers, the en­tire in­dus­try gains re­silience.

“My se­cret sauce is that I keep a backscript run­ning: that the things that brought me here will not car­ry me there. I be­lieve that if I want to live my life with a thriv­ing mind­set and not a sur­viv­ing one, that I must be will­ing to al­ways look at my­self deeply and be will­ing to change and trans­form – be will­ing to make changes, be will­ing to give things up and make space for new things – new thought process­es and new be­hav­iours,” she shared.

This in­ter­nal dri­ve for trans­for­ma­tion is not a re­cent de­vel­op­ment, but a thread that runs through her en­tire life.

From her roots in Cunu­pia and Ch­agua­nas to the high-pres­sure en­vi­ron­ment of the pri­vate sec­tor, she has built a ca­reer ground­ed in the be­lief that per­son­al trans­for­ma­tion is the most pow­er­ful en­gine for pro­fes­sion­al suc­cess.

This com­mit­ment to evo­lu­tion is what led her to ac­cept her lat­est chal­lenge at the En­er­gy Cham­ber.

For Bali­raj, the de­ci­sion to lead was a di­rect re­sponse to the call for ac­tion em­bed­ded in this year’s IWD theme.

“I ac­cept­ed the role of chair to be of ser­vice and bring my style to con­tribute to the sec­tor,” she ex­plained.

Mea­sur­ing progress: The glass ceil­ing

T&T en­ters 2026 as a re­gion­al anom­aly—a coun­try that has seen women hold the high­est con­sti­tu­tion­al of­fices, in­clud­ing the Pres­i­dent, Prime Min­is­ter and Leader of the Op­po­si­tion.

How­ev­er, Bali­raj of­fered a sober­ing as­sess­ment of the cor­po­rate sta­tus quo for women in the work­place.

“We have cer­tain­ly put a dent in­to that glass. It is ad­mirable that we have made sig­nif­i­cant progress in key na­tion­al po­si­tions, but there is still more room in the cor­po­rate world in the mid­dle man­age­ment and C-Suite roles, for us to have greater bal­ance,” she stat­ed.

A vi­sion for so­cial eq­ui­ty

For Bali­raj, achiev­ing bal­ance isn’t just about board­room quo­tas; it is about ex­tend­ing dig­ni­ty to every cor­ner of the com­mu­ni­ty

While her pro­fes­sion­al fo­cus is in­dus­tri­al, her vi­sion for the fu­ture is deeply so­cial.

When asked what sin­gle change she would im­ple­ment in T&T, Bali­raj point­ed to­ward the right of the pi­o­neer gen­er­a­tion: se­nior cit­i­zens.

“The one thing I would change in Trinidad is our priv­i­leges to our se­nior cit­i­zens. We can do more to in­cor­po­rate them in­to mean­ing­ful ac­tiv­i­ties in so­ci­ety as well as give them pref­er­en­tial treat­ment any­where they need to get in line,” she said, as she be­lieves a tru­ly just so­ci­ety ho­n­ours those who paved the way.

From the heart­land to the en­er­gy cor­ri­dor

Bali­raj’s jour­ney to the helm of a ma­jor pri­vate sec­tor or­gan­i­sa­tion did not fol­low the tra­di­tion­al draft­ing board of an en­gi­neer or the rigid bal­ance sheets of an ac­coun­tant.

Her foun­da­tions were laid in the heart of Cen­tral Trinidad, where she grew up as a mid­dle child nav­i­gat­ing the worlds be­tween her par­ents’ home in Cunu­pia and her ma­ter­nal grand­par­ents’ res­i­dence in Ch­agua­nas.

This du­al­i­ty of space—the con­stant move­ment be­tween two nur­tur­ing en­vi­ron­ments—pro­vid­ed a ground­ed per­spec­tive that she car­ried through her for­ma­tive years at St Au­gus­tine Girls’ High School and Poly­tech­nic Sixth Form Gov­ern­ment.

In a move that will in­spire hu­man­i­ties ma­jors across the re­gion, she pur­sued a Bach­e­lors in Lit­er­a­ture at the UWI St Au­gus­tine.

Though it seemed a world away from the in­dus­tri­al plants of Point Lisas, this lit­er­ary foun­da­tion be­came her com­pet­i­tive ad­van­tage.

It was an un­con­ven­tion­al choice for some­one who would even­tu­al­ly be a lead­ing voice in the en­er­gy sec­tor, rep­re­sent­ing near­ly 400 mem­ber com­pa­nies, but one that honed em­pa­thy, crit­i­cal think­ing and com­mu­ni­ca­tion skills which could be con­sid­ered vi­tal as­sets.

She for­ti­fied this cre­ative foun­da­tion with a Mas­ters in HR from the Arthur Lok Jack Glob­al School of Busi­ness, cre­at­ing a strate­gic blend of hu­man-cen­tric and op­er­a­tional ex­per­tise.

It is a for­mu­la that has sus­tained her through more than 20 years in the na­tion’s en­er­gy sec­tor.

Strate­gic ad­vice for next gen­er­a­tion

For the young women cur­rent­ly en­ter­ing the en­er­gy sec­tor—a field that re­mains one of the world’s most chal­leng­ing in­dus­tri­al en­vi­ron­ments—Bali­raj of­fers two cor­ner­stone pieces of ad­vice cen­tred on self-sov­er­eign­ty.

“First al­ways be true to your­self,” she sug­gest­ed, ac­knowl­edg­ing that trust­ing one’s own in­tu­ition is of­ten the high­est hur­dle to clear.

His­tor­i­cal­ly and so­cial­ly, women have been con­di­tioned to look out­ward for a “green light,” seek­ing per­mis­sion from ex­ter­nal sources to val­i­date their own sense of self.

“We over re­ly on oth­ers’ opin­ions, so­cial me­dia, gen­er­a­tional ex­pec­ta­tions etc. Very of­ten that caus­es us to take de­ci­sions that do not re­flect what we think will tru­ly make us hap­py,” Bali­raj said.

How­ev­er, find­ing one’s voice is on­ly half the bat­tle; the true test of au­then­tic­i­ty lies in know­ing when a par­tic­u­lar path no longer serves that in­ner truth.

In a world that wor­ships the grind and crowns those who en­dure at any cost, Bali­raj of­fered a rad­i­cal bene­dic­tion: the grace of the ex­it.

“We need to learn how to dis­cern when it is time to stop, step away, and just plain old give some­thing up,” she said, ob­serv­ing that many women stay in stag­nant roles or un­ful­fill­ing sit­u­a­tions too long, not be­cause they are hap­py, but be­cause they are sat­is­fy­ing some­one else’s ex­pec­ta­tions.

“If we are com­mit­ted to be­ing true to our­selves, it some­times means hav­ing the courage to give up on some­thing to find our hap­pi­ness.”

As the busi­ness world moves for­ward in 2026, Bali­raj re­mains a steady voice for a new kind of lead­er­ship—one that recog­nis­es that when women are em­pow­ered to be their au­then­tic selves, the en­tire na­tion stands to gain.