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Tuesday, February 18, 2025

Chaconia Medal (Gold) winner: ‘I worked every Saturday, every holiday for five solid years’

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1065 days ago
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Sharon Christopher

Sharon Christopher

SHIRLEY BAHADUR

Her name has been syn­ony­mous with ex­cel­lence in the fi­nance sec­tor for decades.

Now, Sharon Christo­pher has been recog­nised for her con­tri­bu­tions to the busi­ness, bank­ing and fi­nance sec­tor with one of T&T’s high­est awards, the Cha­co­nia Medal (Gold).

The for­mer deputy chief ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer of First Cit­i­zens Bank, Christo­pher re­tired in 2016 and now works as a lead­er­ship de­vel­op­ment coach and mo­ti­va­tion­al speak­er through­out the Caribbean.

Christo­pher al­so sits on the board of Guardian Me­dia Lim­it­ed.

In an in­ter­view at her home on Wednes­day, Christo­pher said she start­ed her ca­reer at the So­lic­i­tor Gen­er­al’s of­fice un­der then-At­tor­ney Gen­er­al, Rus­sell Mar­tineau.

She al­so worked on the in­ter­na­tion­al fi­nance desk, as­sist­ing Min­istry of Fi­nance staff with ap­pli­ca­tions to bor­row mon­ey in­ter­na­tion­al­ly for ma­jor cap­i­tal in­vest­ments.

“That was my first job, which I loved. The hours were bru­tal, I left home in the morn­ing, I nev­er came home in the day­time, nev­er. I worked every Sat­ur­day and every pub­lic hol­i­day for five sol­id years and I loved every minute of it,” Christo­pher re­called.

From there, Christo­pher moved to the Cen­tral Bank to work as one of the at­tor­neys on the De­posit In­sur­ance Cor­po­ra­tion.

While there, three fi­nan­cial in­sti­tu­tions—the Na­tion­al Com­mer­cial Bank, Work­ers’ Bank and Trinidad Co­op­er­a­tive Bank—were set to be closed.

Christo­pher joined a spe­cial man­age­ment team tasked with cre­at­ing First Cit­i­zens Bank and re­mained there un­til she re­tired in 2016.

She said the first un­cer­tain months of FCB’s op­er­a­tions, when the bank lost hun­dreds of mil­lions of dol­lars in in­vest­ments.

But de­spite the naysay­ers, FCB’s op­er­a­tions flour­ished and Christo­pher said when the Ini­tial Pub­lic Of­fer­ing was made on the stock ex­change in 2014, she was over­joyed.

President Paula-Mae Weekes presents the Chaconia Medal (Gold) to Sharon Christopher while Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley looks on during the 2021 National Awards Ceremony, at President’s House, St Ann’s, Port-of-Spain, Wednesday, March 9.

President Paula-Mae Weekes presents the Chaconia Medal (Gold) to Sharon Christopher while Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley looks on during the 2021 National Awards Ceremony, at President’s House, St Ann’s, Port-of-Spain, Wednesday, March 9.

POOL PHOTOGRAPHER

“I would look at the young ones (em­ploy­ees) and they would be so ex­cit­ed be­cause they were so ex­cit­ed to be part of some­thing so grand. And for peo­ple like me, who knew that in the ear­ly days, peo­ple want­ed noth­ing to do with this bank, I think in the first six months we lost be­tween $400 or $500 mil­lion in de­posits. No­body want­ed to be part of that and to be there and see peo­ple want­i­ng to be a part of this bank, it was such an ho­n­our,” Christo­pher said.

How­ev­er, a scan­dal with the IPO short­ly af­ter it was launched cast a dark cloud on FCB and Christo­pher said she was sin­gled out as a scape­goat.

“And imag­ine this is now 2014 two years be­fore I re­tire, right? So I built an en­tire life in this or­gan­i­sa­tion. I’ve giv­en blood sweat and tears, I love the or­gan­i­sa­tion like my child. You know, my child talks about she’s a child of the First Cit­i­zens. And then I find my­self in this po­si­tion and it was a very, very low point,” she said.

She was even­tu­al­ly cleared but Christo­pher said she re­lied heav­i­ly on wis­dom passed on by her fa­ther and the kind­ness showed to her by strangers.

She re­called be­ing ap­proached by a union mem­ber at FCB, who told her the em­ploy­ees stood ready to as­sist her if they could.

“She came to my car and said, “You just tell us what you want us to do to sup­port you.” I mean, tears were run­ning down my eyes. And that is what sus­tained me and I want to see you know if I could say this to peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go, we at­tack peo­ple a lot. And we cut down peo­ple a lot but you need to un­der­stand there is noth­ing more up­lift­ing than just see­ing some­body in trou­ble. You don’t have to take sides and in­stead of cut­ting them down, reach out to them and show them that you care be­cause that those things mat­ter to me so much,” Christo­pher said.

And while that was the low­est point of her ca­reer, Christo­pher al­so rem­i­nisced on the high­est point of her life—the birth of her on­ly child Kathryn.

But even that joy was marred by the dis­crim­i­na­tion she faced be­ing a sin­gle, preg­nant bank ex­ec­u­tive.

Sharon Christopher and her daughter Kathryn Christopher pose for a photo.

Sharon Christopher and her daughter Kathryn Christopher pose for a photo.

SHIRLEY BAHADUR

“At that time it was quite a scan­dal there. You have an ex­ec­u­tive in a bank, you know, not mar­ried and hav­ing a ba­by. But no­body said any­thing about the men in the bank who had chil­dren, no­body even cared whether they had chil­dren mar­ried or un­mar­ried, but that’s the is­sue that we as women faced, but that that didn’t both­er me be­cause I tru­ly be­lieve again that God has had blessed me with Kathryn.”

Christo­pher said she has al­ways re­mained grate­ful for the bless­ings in her life. She now has a na­tion­al award to add to that list. She said she did not ex­pect to re­ceive the award.

“I am ho­n­oured that I’ve re­ceived the award and I felt very ho­n­oured and I felt even more ho­n­oured that the award would be pinned on me by a fe­male Pres­i­dent, who’s al­so a lawyer. But it’s re­al­ly like just I en­vi­sioned life would be for me and that is how it has be­come so it was tru­ly an ho­n­our and it was al­so hum­bling to think that you could be recog­nised among so many peo­ple that you would have ad­mired,” she said.

She of­fered some ad­vice for young peo­ple who are just start­ing out their ca­reers.

“You need to un­der­stand every­thing pass­es. So you start off, you de­cide what feeds you. Do not lis­ten to what peo­ple have to say. You get on your jour­ney. You look for sup­port, you know, find peo­ple who would sup­port, you men­tor or what­ev­er, find friends who would sup­port you and stay away from those who don’t be­cause a lot of peo­ple re­joice in your trau­ma,” she said.

Sharon Christopher poses for a photo with her Chaconia Medal (Gold).

Sharon Christopher poses for a photo with her Chaconia Medal (Gold).

SHIRLEY BAHADUR

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