An­drea Perez-Sobers

Se­nior Re­porter

an­drea.perez-sobers

@guardian.co.tt

Ma­jor­i­ty state-owned TSTT yes­ter­day an­nounced a sig­nif­i­cant re­struc­tur­ing of its ex­ec­u­tive lead­er­ship as part of a broad­er trans­for­ma­tion strat­e­gy to repo­si­tion the com­pa­ny from a tra­di­tion­al tel­co to what it calls a “techo.”

In a memo is­sued to staff yes­ter­day, the com­pa­ny’s act­ing CEO Keino Cox out­lined a new ex­ec­u­tive struc­ture, which he de­scribed as “the start of an im­por­tant new chap­ter in TSTT’s trans­for­ma­tion jour­ney.”

“The telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions sec­tor is evolv­ing rapid­ly, and to suc­ceed, we must en­sure our struc­ture, lead­er­ship ca­pac­i­ty, and de­ci­sion-mak­ing

process­es are fit for the fu­ture,” Cox said.

“Our re­aligned ex­ec­u­tive struc­ture is de­signed to re­move in­ef­fi­cien­cies, elim­i­nate over­laps, and en­hance our abil­i­ty to de­liv­er in­no­v­a­tive, cus­tomer-fo­cused so­lu­tions. It’s about en­sur­ing that TSTT is ready to thrive in a tech­nol­o­gy-dri­ven world, where agili­ty, ac­count­abil­i­ty, and cus­tomer-cen­tric­i­ty are not op­tion­al; they are es­sen­tial.”

The po­si­tions that have been added to the new or­gan­i­sa­tion­al ex­ec­u­tive chart are: chief in­for­ma­tion and cy­ber se­cu­ri­ty; chief da­ta and en­ter­prise port­fo­lio of­fi­cer; se­nior man­ag­er strate­gic projects and in­ter­na­tion­al af­fairs; vice pres­i­dent spe­cial projects; vice pres­i­dent dig­i­tal, prod­uct de­vel­op­ment and in­no­va­tion; vice pres­i­dent cor­po­rate ser­vices; chief mar­ket­ing of­fi­cer; chief le­gal of­fi­cer, chief busi­ness sales and vice pres­i­dent of tech­nol­o­gy.

Guardian Me­dia was in­formed that the roles not in­clud­ed in the new ex­ec­u­tive struc­ture are the chief pro­cure­ment of­fi­cer and the as­sis­tant vice pres­i­dent of ex­ec­u­tive sales, cur­rent­ly held by Dar­ryl Duke.

Al­so, the po­si­tion of as­sis­tant vice pres­i­dent of con­sumer sales, Kashif Greaves, is not in the new struc­ture.

TSTT em­ploy­ees told the Trinidad Guardian that they were con­cerned that an­oth­er re­struc­tur­ing could hap­pen be­fore the end of the year.

Con­tact­ed for com­ment on the move, Min­is­ter of Pub­lic Util­i­ties Bar­ry Padarath con­firmed the Gov­ern­ment’s full sup­port for the re­struc­tur­ing ex­er­cise, which he said is in­tend­ed to make TSTT more ag­ile, ef­fi­cient and aligned with glob­al tech­nol­o­gy trends.

“When we came in, we found du­pli­ca­tion of roles and some dys­func­tion­al­i­ty in key ar­eas,” Padarath said.

“The re­struc­ture is about stream­lin­ing, re­brand­ing and po­si­tion­ing TSTT for new op­por­tu­ni­ties be­yond telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions in­to ar­eas like ar­ti­fi­cial in­tel­li­gence and da­ta ser­vices.”

He em­pha­sised that the new struc­ture on­ly af­fects top ex­ec­u­tive roles and will not lead to wide­spread job loss­es.

“Let me lay any fears to rest: there is no in­ten­tion to send home em­ploy­ees. This is not about lay­offs, it’s about growth,” Padarath said.

“We are look­ing to cre­ate new op­por­tu­ni­ties and even ex­pand em­ploy­ment in ar­eas like AI and tech ser­vices.”

The min­is­ter added that fur­ther an­nounce­ments are ex­pect­ed by year-end, out­lin­ing TSTT’s new ar­eas of in­vest­ment and ex­pan­sion as it evolves in­to a di­ver­si­fied dig­i­tal ser­vices provider.