Economic Transformation Series: Are Oil And Gas Smothering The Private Sector In Trinidad and Tobago?

Mr. Ronald Hinds President of the Trinidad and Tobago Chamber of Industry and Commerce, a position he has held since March 2017. In that role, he oversees the strategic, fiscal and programmatic goals for the Chamber and serves as its chief spokesperson for economic development and business in Trinidad and Tobago. Before becoming president, Mr. Hinds served as Vice President and Senior Vice-President.

He joined the Chamber in 2011 with an objective to advance the country’s business sector, particularly by promoting integrity in businesses and strengthening opportunities for entrepreneurs. An economist by training, Mr. Hinds’ goal reflects his moral code and his longstanding interest in innovation and economic diversification.

Mr. Hinds is the founder and Executive Chairman of Teleios Systems Limited, a Port of Spain based software company. Under his leadership, Teleios has grown into one of the largest dedicated software firms in the English-speaking Caribbean. It has won numerous awards for its solution innovations, including the prestigious Microsoft Application Development Partner of the Year for Latin America in 2016. Its technology solutions have been successfully deployed in multiple countries and across various sectors, including telecommunications, financial services, government and energy and extractive industries.

Mr. Hinds has had a distinguished career in the local business sector, having served as the chairman of the Trinidad and Tobago stock exchange and as chief executive at a local brokerage services firm and a major life insurance company. He devotes considerable time to various civic and public-good causes, serving on the board of several, charitable, private sector and government organizations.

He is a global director of Congress Corporate, a global network of business leaders and businesses with chapters in over 20 countries, promoting ethical business practices and values-based leadership. He also served as Chairman of the Trinidad and Tobago e-Business Roundtable, a public-private sector partnership mandated to develop strategy for Trinidad and Tobago’s economic growth using Information and Communication Technologies in business and government.

He has a bachelor’s in economics from the University of the West Indies and in 2011, received the UWI Distinguished Alumni award for his role in fostering entrepreneurship, leadership development and corporate social responsibility the realm of business.

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Andrew Aleong, 54, has been an independent Director since June 2005, and is a citizen of Trinidad and Tobago. He holds an MBA from the Richard Ivey School of Business, University of Western Ontario, Canada. Mr Aleong is Group Managing Director of the Albrosco Group of Companies, Trinidad and Tobago, and has served the Trinidad and Tobago manufacturing industry for over 25 years. He is a former President of the Trinidad and Tobago Manufacturers’ Association. Mr Aleong also serves as a Director of a number of private companies. He was elected a Director of Sagicor Life Inc in 2005, and is also a Director of a number of other subsidiaries within the Group.

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Moonilal Lalchan is the Vice-President – Finance and Administration at Atlantic LNG Company of Trinidad and Tobago, where he has the responsibility of leading the Finance, Administration, Treasury, Risk, Administration and Property Services, Information Technology, Procurement and Supply Chain Departments. Moonilal has over 28 years experience in planning, accounting, budgeting, internal and external auditing, finance and administration, project management, performance management and information technology. He graduated from Emile Woolfe College in England as a Chartered Accountant and from Auburn University USA with a Masters of Business Administration. He is also a graduate of Harvard Business School in Boston USA. He is a Fellow Of the Chartered Association of Certified Accountants of the UK and a Member of the Institute of Internal Auditors of USA. Moonilal has spoken and presented papers at several oil and gas forum in the USA, UK and Middle East. He is on the Board of Governors of the National Energy Skills Center, an alternate Director of Atlantic LNG Company of Trinidad and Tobago and a Member of the Board of Directors of the Trinidad and Tobago Chamber of Industry and Commerce. He attended St. Stephens College in Princes Town and Iere Government School during his early years. Moonilal is married and has five children – two boys and three girls. In his spare time he plays cricket, football and music.

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Prof. Avinash D. Persaud, is a former nonresident senior fellow at the Peterson Institute, professor emeritus of Gresham College, nonexecutive chairman of Elara Capital Plc and Chairman of Intelligence Capital Ltd, a company specializing in analyzing, managing and creating financial liquidity in investment projects and portfolios. Persaud holds a number of nonexecutive board positions. He was formerly senior executive at J. P. Morgan, UBS, State Street Corporation, and GAM London Ltd. He is also presently, Non-Executive Director of RBC Latin America & the Caribbean.  His research is widely published in academia and the printed press globally focusing on matters of both global and Caribbean concern ranging from exchange rate policy, financial market crises and regulation, and economic growth and the obstacles to growth.  Apart from his globally reknowned works on the financial crisis, his work on the presence of “anti-growth coaltions” is an uncompromising as Dr. Terrence Farrell’s “underachieving society” in diagnosing economies in the CARICOM region.

 

Formerly he was governor of the London School of Economics.  A Fellow, of the London Business School; Visiting Fellow, CFAP, Judge Institute, Cambridge University;chairman of the regulatory subcommittee of the UN Commission on Financial Reform, chairman of the Warwick Commission, member of the UK Treasury’s Audit and Risk Committee, and member of the Pew Task Force to the US Senate Banking Committee during legislation of the Dodd-Frank Act. He was a visiting scholar at the IMF and the European Central Bank and distinguished advisor for the Financial Sector Law Reform Commission of India. He was elected director of the Global Association of Risk Professionals and the Royal Economics Society. He was the 2010 president of the British Science Association (Section F). He won the Jacques de Larosière Award in Global Finance from the Institute of International Finance, an Amex Bank Review Prize, and was voted one of the top three public intellectuals in the world on the financial crisis by a panel for Prospect Magazine.

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