Econ­o­mist Kester Guy has been ap­point­ed as Trinidad and To­ba­go Se­cu­ri­ties and Ex­change Com­mis­sion (Com­mis­sion) chief ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer, ef­fec­tive De­cem­ber 1.

In a news re­lease yes­ter­day, the Com­mis­sion said Guy brings a wealth of ex­pe­ri­ence in the reg­u­la­to­ry land­scape of the fi­nan­cial sec­tor, hav­ing more re­cent­ly served as the CEO and Deputy CEO, of the Fi­nan­cial Ser­vices Com­mis­sion Bar­ba­dos and the CEO of the De­posit In­sur­ance Cor­po­ra­tion, Bar­ba­dos.

It said his pro­fes­sion­al jour­ney al­so in­cludes roles as as­sis­tant di­rec­tor at the Re­search and Eco­nom­ic Analy­sis de­part­ment at the Cen­tral Bank of Bar­ba­dos, as well as se­nior econ­o­mist at the Cen­tral Bank of Bar­ba­dos and econ­o­mist at the Cen­tral Bank of Trinidad and To­ba­go.

Guy has a sol­id macro­eco­nom­ic foun­da­tion, hold­ing a MSc from the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies (UWI) St. Au­gus­tine, and a BSc in Eco­nom­ics and Math­e­mat­ics (First Class Ho­n­ours) from UWI Cave Hill, com­ple­ment­ed by years of on­go­ing pro­fes­sion­al and ex­ec­u­tive train­ing.

The Com­mis­sion said it wel­comes its new CEO and looks for­ward to his lead­er­ship and over­all con­tri­bu­tions to­ward the dis­charge of our over­sight func­tion, as reg­u­la­tor of the lo­cal se­cu­ri­ties in­dus­try.

The Com­mis­sion, the en­ti­ty that reg­u­lates the lo­cal se­cu­ri­ties in­dus­try, was with­out a sub­stan­tive CEO for three years and four months. The last sub­stan­tive CEO was Ha­dyn Git­tens, whose three-year term of of­fice ex­pired on Ju­ly 31, 2020.

The Com­mis­sion's sub­stan­tive deputy CEO, Lystra Lu­cil­lio, act­ed in the po­si­tion of CEO be­tween the de­par­ture of Git­tens and the ap­point­ment of Guy.

The 2012 Se­cu­ri­ties Act makes clear that the Min­is­ter of Fi­nance must ap­prove the ap­point­ment of the Com­mis­sion's CEO.

At sec­tion 22 (1), the Act states: The Com­mis­sion may, with the ap­proval of the Min­is­ter, ap­point its chief ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer who

shall not be a Com­mis­sion­er.

(2) The Min­is­ter shall ap­prove the terms and con­di­tions of ap­point­ment of the chief ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer.

While the TTSEC has a new CEO, the Com­mis­sion has been with­out a prop­er­ly con­sti­tut­ed board since No­vem­ber 4.

Each of the six pre­vi­ous com­mis­sion­ers was ap­point­ed on No­vem­ber 3, 2021 and each served for a term of two years. The six pre­vi­ous com­mis­sion­ers, ac­cord­ing to the TTSEC web­site, were cer­ti­fied fraud ex­am­in­er, deputy chair Im­ti­az Ho­sein, Cen­tral Bank CFO Marie-Suzanne Bore­ly, at­tor­ney An­tho­ny Bul­lock, at­tor­ney Amerelle Fran­cis, fi­nan­cial ex­ec­u­tive An­gela Hor­datt and CEO of Port­fo­lio Cred­it Man­age­ment Ltd, David Thomp­son.

The com­mis­sion­ers are ap­point­ed by the Pres­i­dent, on the rec­om­men­da­tion of the Min­is­ter of Fi­nance and with the ap­proval of the Cab­i­net.

In Au­gust, the staff was in­formed of the de­par­ture of the then chair Enid Zephyrine, which oc­cured be­fore her tenure was sup­posed to end on No­vem­ber 2, 2023.

The TTSEC was with­out a chair and a board of com­mis­sion­ers for near­ly eight months in 2020. Dou­glas Mendes SC was ap­point­ed chair­man of the TTSEC on April 25, 2016.

He, and some of the com­mis­sion­ers ap­point­ed with him, served two, two-year terms, which ex­pired on April 24, 2020.

From then un­til De­cem­ber 2020, the TTSEC was with­out a board. The an­nounce­ment of a new TTSEC board was made by way of a no­tice on the com­mis­sion’s web­site on De­cem­ber 19, 2020.