Six young en­tre­pre­neurs have been se­lect­ed as the 2025 Trinidad and To­ba­go co­hort of the U.S. De­part­ment of State’s Young Lead­ers of the Amer­i­c­as Ini­tia­tive (YLAI), as the pro­gramme marks its tenth an­niver­sary this year.

The U.S. Em­bassy an­nounced the Trinidad and To­ba­go co­hort this week, which in­cludes Do­minick Alexan­der, Nao­mi An­der­son, Dhar­nel Duprey, De­sir­ai John­son-Phillip, Shereesa Khan, and Si­mon Nep­tune. 

They will join young lead­ers from coun­tries in Latin Amer­i­ca, the Caribbean, and Cana­da for the hy­brid fel­low­ship, which launched with a kick-off event on De­cem­ber 9, 2024.  The pro­gram starts with a vir­tu­al en­tre­pre­neur­ial lead­er­ship cur­ricu­lum this month, Jan­u­ary 2025.  Fel­lows will then trav­el to cities across the Unit­ed States in May 2025 for a four-week pro­fes­sion­al place­ment with a U.S. host or­ga­ni­za­tion.  The pro­gram con­cludes in June 2025 with all fel­lows at­tend­ing a clos­ing fo­rum in Wash­ing­ton, D.C. 

YLAI pro­motes en­tre­pre­neur­ship and eco­nom­ic pros­per­i­ty across the West­ern Hemi­sphere, con­nect­ing en­tre­pre­neurs across bor­ders through an an­nu­al fel­low­ship pro­gram for 280 en­tre­pre­neurs from 37 coun­tries. 

Since YLAI’s launch in 2015, more than 1,750 fel­lows have built con­nec­tions with over 1,250 U.S. busi­ness­es and or­ga­ni­za­tions. The 2025 co­hort will bring the num­ber of Trinidad and To­ba­go fel­lows to 44. 

Af­ter com­plet­ing the pro­gram, fel­lows use the strate­gies they learned to at­tract new re­sources to their busi­ness and im­prove op­er­a­tions. 

YLAI pro­motes U.S. busi­ness mod­els, in­creas­es trade, en­cour­ages job cre­ation, and builds last­ing and sus­tain­able net­works of young en­tre­pre­neurs and busi­ness and so­cial lead­ers across Latin Amer­i­ca, the Caribbean, Cana­da, and the Unit­ed States.

About the Trinidad and To­ba­go co­hort for YLAI 2025

  ●   Do­minick Alexan­der, Busi­ness – Mr. Alexan­der works in the mu­sic sec­tor as the CEO of Lau­dem Mu­sic School.  The school pro­vides mu­sic ed­u­ca­tion for stu­dents of all ages and abil­i­ties.

  ●   Nao­mi An­der­son, Busi­ness – Ms. An­der­son works in the food and bev­er­age sec­tor as the own­er and head pas­try chef of Uni­cak­ery.  The com­pa­ny cre­ates cus­tom cakes and desserts.

  ●   Dhar­nel Dariel Duprey, En­vi­ron­ment – Mr. Duprey works in the agri­cul­ture sec­tor as the founder and op­er­a­tions man­ag­er of Grow­ing Es­sen­tials Agri­cul­tur­al Sup­plies and Ser­vices. The or­ga­ni­za­tion fo­cus­es on sus­tain­able agri­cul­ture, in­clud­ing hy­dro­pon­ics and bee­keep­ing.

  ●   De­sir­ai John­son-Phillip, En­vi­ron­ment – Ms. John­son-Phillip works in the agri­cul­ture sec­tor as the founder and CEO of Lead­ing Seedling and Ex­ot­ic Plants. The com­pa­ny pro­vides seedlings, plants, and agri­cul­tur­al ser­vices and is fo­cused on en­gag­ing a new gen­er­a­tion of agri­cul­tur­al lead­ers by at­tract­ing and em­pow­er­ing youth in the field.

  ●   Shereesa Khan, Busi­ness – Ms. Khan works in the beau­ty busi­ness sec­tor as the founder and CEO of Vor­tex Sen­sa­tions. The man­u­fac­tur­ing com­pa­ny cre­ates or­gan­ic prod­ucts for peo­ple with skin and hair is­sues. 

  ●   Si­mon Nep­tune, En­vi­ron­ment – Mr. Nep­tune works in the en­er­gy sec­tor as the founder of Nep­tune Biosys­tems. The com­pa­ny is fo­cused on de­vel­op­ing biore­finer­ies that con­vert land­fill waste in­to car­bon-neu­tral diesel fu­el.