Don We­h­by, one of Ja­maica’s most re­spect­ed pri­vate sec­tor lead­ers, has died. He was 62.

In a state­ment, GraceKennedy said it was “with pro­found sad­ness” that the com­pa­ny ac­knowl­edged the pass­ing of its re­tired Group CEO.

“Don was a re­mark­able leader who em­bod­ied self­less ser­vice, un­wa­ver­ing in­tegri­ty, and a deep love for his fam­i­ly, GraceKennedy, and his beloved home­land, Ja­maica. His vi­sion­ary lead­er­ship and ded­i­ca­tion to na­tion-build­ing have left an en­dur­ing mark on our com­pa­ny and coun­try. His lega­cy will live on in the count­less lives he up­lift­ed and the gen­er­a­tions he in­spired.

“The en­tire GraceKennedy fam­i­ly ex­tends our deep­est con­do­lences to his loved ones and all who are mourn­ing his pass­ing at this dif­fi­cult time.”

We­h­by led GraceKennedy for 14 years be­fore step­ping down in Oc­to­ber 2024, cit­ing health rea­sons. Dur­ing his tenure, he over­saw a pe­ri­od of steady growth and in­ter­na­tion­al ex­pan­sion, and earned wide­spread re­spect for his calm, prin­ci­pled lead­er­ship.

His ca­reer al­so spanned na­tion­al ser­vice. He was ap­point­ed a gov­ern­ment sen­a­tor and served as Min­is­ter with­out Port­fo­lio in the Min­istry of Fi­nance dur­ing the Bruce Gold­ing ad­min­is­tra­tion. He stepped down from the min­is­te­r­i­al role in 2009 and re­turned to GraceKennedy.

Out­side the board­room and pub­lic ser­vice, We­h­by was a pas­sion­ate crick­et sup­port­er and long­time mem­ber of the Kingston Crick­et Club. Un­der his lead­er­ship, GraceKennedy deep­ened its spon­sor­ship of school­boy crick­et, and he fre­quent­ly ad­vo­cat­ed for stronger pri­vate-sec­tor in­volve­ment in the de­vel­op­ment of the game.

He served on the board of Crick­et West In­dies and chaired its Au­dit and Risk Com­mit­tee, lat­er lead­ing a task force on gov­er­nance re­form in re­gion­al crick­et. He was al­so a vo­cal backer of the pro­fes­sion­al first-class fran­chise sys­tem and oth­er mea­sures aimed at re­viv­ing West In­dies crick­et.