Latest / Corie Sheppard Podcast / Episode 246 | Marc Jardine

Transcript

Episode 246 | Marc Jardine · Corie Sheppard Podcast

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: David Wells said to say that my name is Corey Shepard and I have with us today Mark Jardine, Managing Director and VP Commercial Banking at RBC Trinidad and Tobago Limited.
• 0:14
  Speaker 2: RBC, royal Bank Trinidad and Tobago.
• 0:15
  Speaker 2: Limited Kendra is going to be on us, you know.
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: Managing Director and VP Commercial Banking at RBC Royal Bank Trinidad and Tobago Limited.
• 0:27
  Speaker 2: we good I love that how you doing, brother.
• 0:30
  Speaker 2: I love you actively managed.
• 0:33
  Speaker 2: Actively managed as you see, yeah, as you see we come with teams.
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: We come with teams.
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: Here's a fella.
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: Used to talk by solo meal, you know, used to talk, but now things have changed a bit.
• 0:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah, how's life how's things?
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: talk by solo meal, you know, but now things have changed a bit.
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I was like how things going not bad.
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: You know um growing up, and growing up fast, right great so yeah, a lot of that.
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: A lot of that, you know, not too much time to reminisce and um to lay back right.
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: So there's a lot going on.
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: It's extra boat all the time.
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: Well, we could take some time to reminisce.
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: Today we have plenty reminiscing all right, I'm okay with it yeah, I have to tell people, despite the introduction and all the formality and so on, I had a long speech planned about two.
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: We were in polos today but I said maybe it's kendra and man, I didn't see this man in a blazer.
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: I'm taking a long time after looking important that affiliate bit dude, but I had to tell people that, despite all those things, one of the coolest people I've ever been around or ever met or ever interact with.
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: I have a few of those interactions I want to talk about today, but let me start by congratulating you on this new role.
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: New-ish right, it's about 2024?.
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: New-ish.
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: New-ish.
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we have some movements in the commercial space, but yeah Right, new-ish all around.
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: And once in the commercial space.
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: But yeah, right, newish all around.
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: And when I do the introduction, it sounds like two separate roles, is it?
• 1:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah, the managing director aspect of it deals with the regulatory aspects, the management of the country.
• 1:52
  Speaker 2: You know how you're looking at strategy, how you're looking at aligning all the business units Right.
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: And then the commercial side covers everybody from a parlour to the government attorney.
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Correct.
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: So it's from SME all the way to Everybody.
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah, this was really exciting From sole trader.
• 2:09
  Speaker 2: Sole trader up how are you functioning?
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: I've seen you laughing and talking all this time.
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: If I was you, I couldn't laugh and talk.
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah, bro, it's pressure right.
• 2:17
  Speaker 2: So you have to learn how to deal with it right, and you grew up in a realm where you strive for perfection, but at the same time, you have to know how to manage your own personal expectations and don't be too heavy on yourself.
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: You have to be able to dial back and understand.
• 2:35
  Speaker 2: All right, these are the things I can't control.
• 2:37
  Speaker 2: I can't control and don't chest trap all the pressure.
• 2:41
  Speaker 2: You flick it on.
• 2:41
  Speaker 2: You do like sit down and pass it, take a on.
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I suppose you have teams.
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, you have lots of people I would imagine.
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: I would imagine.
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: So let me go back to some of that now.
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: In terms of your own personal life, I would have met Mark and Fatima days.
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: How important is your life in Fatima and how has it influenced what you're doing?
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: um, I mean, I would say fairly important, right?
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: I mean, those are the friends that, in my opinion, you kept forever.
• 3:06
  Speaker 2: Of course you've expanded that circle, but what you learned and what I've learned inside of there was, um, priceless.
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, you, you normalize inside of that sort of environment.
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: I mean, fatima has done well, continues to to grow, continues to expand and you get a lot of, I I guess, depth coming from it.
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: You know I owe a lot to some of the teachers there.
• 3:29
  Speaker 2: Mrs Hubbard, even though she gave me a lot of stress.
• 3:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah, boy Geography, zachary Geography Her daughter is in HR by us now.
• 3:39
  Speaker 2: I always sing her praise, father Gregory.
• 3:42
  Speaker 2: All of these people are really influential in how I developed inside of.
• 3:44
  Speaker 2: Praise, father Gregory.
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: All of these people are really influential in, you know, how I developed inside of there and it really shaped how I have given back to this school and continue to because it's important.
• 3:54
  Speaker 2: I mean, you have your skill sets, you can do certain things well, so harness that ability and do what you have to do.
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: Man.
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and we've reached a point now where both our sons and Fatima know Correct.
• 4:07
  Speaker 2: And again they're getting big.
• 4:08
  Speaker 2: They think they're grown, but I mean, they're puppies.
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: As far as they're concerned, this is the best era of Fatima ever that they're in now.
• 4:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so I mean I tried to explain to them.
• 4:18
  Speaker 2: You all are fairly tame, yeah, you know, yeah.
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: It's a big difference.
• 4:22
  Speaker 2: You all are fairly tame.
• 4:23
  Speaker 2: I said I mean I'm okay with it because I'm managing the outcomes right, but I mean they enjoy it.
• 4:28
  Speaker 2: They think it's the best time of their life and, to be honest, I think it can be if done well.
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think so.
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: You know, that idea of school days right is something that even in my comments on going to school, something that we always end up talking about how important school was for all of us because there's the classroom time and the courses and the subjects and so on trying to get my son to understand that you had to give it all there, but a big part of the experience really is always happen break time, always happen after school lunch time that was.
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: That's what school was for us.
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah, like I see him rush, he's called me at 220 sometime.
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: I hear any bell ringing and daddy outside I was like what's going on?
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: What time do you used to leave school?
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: Let me just man.
• 5:12
  Speaker 2: Depends on what depends on what is going on, right.
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: So if it's, raining.
• 5:16
  Speaker 2: I want to leave a little early because you can't play basketball.
• 5:19
  Speaker 2: You could play football.
• 5:20
  Speaker 2: You can't go in the river Right, so you know and you can't go up to the mall.
• 5:29
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so you know it's a correct yeah boy.
• 5:30
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you used to go all you can eat and they used to band us for that after a little while, right?
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: yeah, they say one man going to that plate whole table, whole table.
• 5:41
  Speaker 2: Pack up it with sweaty little men eating pizza so no, it is a different approach.
• 5:48
  Speaker 2: So I mean, luckily my son Elijah enjoys his school, and if you come late for him, that's fine.
• 5:54
  Speaker 2: Yeah, he's good with it, he's good with it, he's good with it and enjoys just enjoys the atmosphere, he enjoys the environment, has a lot of great friends there and gets to really broaden his horizon as you bring up basketball.
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: That was something and you're known for that right.
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: Maybe it's a high thing.
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: The expectation is there that you will play basketball.
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: That's something from small you always want to do, because you're playing basketball and fatima as well.
• 6:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah, because, or every single one of my friends played football so they threw me, you know, threw me inside a goal and it's pepper again.
• 6:24
  Speaker 2: But every Peppered every day, whole day.
• 6:25
  Speaker 2: He's just bullet all day and that's not fun, it's not a terrible.
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah, because I was a terrible footballer.
• 6:32
  Speaker 2: So these fellas, you know they're smaller than me, faster than me, so I mean, long drag is every day.
• 6:38
  Speaker 2: You pick up two brisk spanner and that's it Sweat done.
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: So is basketball my force.
• 6:45
  Speaker 2: My force.
• 6:46
  Speaker 2: You know my mother didn't let me play rugby.
• 6:51
  Speaker 2: She found that was too aggressive.
• 6:54
  Speaker 2: But that's something I'm, you know, have a real natural inclination towards right.
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: Do you rugby?
• 6:58
  Speaker 2: What?
• 6:58
  Speaker 2: That's what you wanted to do.
• 6:59
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, without a doubt, serious.
• 7:01
  Speaker 2: So I think I lied for about a year and a half about playing football, but it was really rugby practice, right?
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: But you use yourself.
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: Don't find that too rough.
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: You was cool enough.
• 7:09
  Speaker 2: I love it boy yeah, but I mean we have a couple of uncles that got roughed up in the space, so we didn't bother with that.
• 7:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah, in the end no in the end it ended abruptly with they had some, some fellas on the team.
• 7:23
  Speaker 2: We went form, one got injured and I'm like and this is like touch rugby Right and then still falling.
• 7:28
  Speaker 2: So, you understand what's going on, so I'm not trying to deal with that.
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: Got it, got it, got it.
• 7:35
  Speaker 2: So basketball you play all the way through up to up to up to senior level in Fat we did, but at the same time they had lockouts and stuff, but they did them times.
• 7:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah, correct, correct, correct, with um, the teachers, the union.
• 7:49
  Speaker 2: I see all right.
• 7:50
  Speaker 2: So you know, the side was hasani, people remember hasani sphinx yeah, yeah, these characters, yeah, you know, julian graves, all these characters.
• 7:59
  Speaker 2: So I mean we had a great side, but great, great, yeah, of course, of course, characters.
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: I see men doing a reunion just recently.
• 8:07
  Speaker 2: That was your year with them.
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: No, that's the year before.
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: Oh, that's the year before.
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, I see it was good to see Fatima.
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: Men coming back together, yeah, and just that camaraderie and that people knowing people.
• 8:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah, correct, so we have been.
• 8:19
  Speaker 2: I need to plan our year.
• 8:20
  Speaker 2: For years we are disorganized.
• 8:24
  Speaker 2: There's a group that nobody wants to take charge, and if nobody takes charge not getting done and I'm not doing it, I will attend.
• 8:32
  Speaker 2: Every group needs people like that.
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: You need people who will come through when you call the date.
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: But you need people to put it together.
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: We're in the same booth.
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: We never had something formal.
• 8:41
  Speaker 2: I think they did vote on, I think, bert and Brett.
• 8:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah, but I'm not holding my breath.
• 8:47
  Speaker 2: No, that's it.
• 8:48
  Speaker 2: No, not at all.
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: In them times Mark.
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: What were you seeing as career ambition back then?
• 8:56
  Speaker 2: I wanted to be an ornithologist, right?
• 8:57
  Speaker 2: What is this?
• 8:58
  Speaker 2: That's birds, studying birds, Birds with wings do I?
• 9:00
  Speaker 2: Birds with wings and feathers?
• 9:02
  Speaker 2: Those birds you know, I am happily married and I am very unsuccessful in that realm.
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: All of us.
• 9:15
  Speaker 2: No, so that's how I grew up.
• 9:16
  Speaker 2: I grew up embracing nature and really wanting to get into that realm, but as a career as you get a little older, a career in that field is not really one that's easy to achieve.
• 9:27
  Speaker 2: Also, to establish a family in a selected location as a non-ethologist is not the easiest thing in the world.
• 9:34
  Speaker 2: From what I remember, my sister, amanda, chose my subjects for Form 5 and that was that Serious yes, accounts economics.
• 9:44
  Speaker 2: Pure beer went down the business line and that was that Serious yes, accounts economics.
• 9:46
  Speaker 2: I went down the business line and that's where I anchored right.
• 9:47
  Speaker 2: The other was it?
• 9:48
  Speaker 2: Well, she picked, well, I mean, I think so, right, so I think that you know that is her doing.
• 9:55
  Speaker 2: I remember that clearly Right Now to think about it, and I just stayed with it.
• 10:00
  Speaker 2: So, leaving after Form 6, again, I took a year off because I I believe in that.
• 10:07
  Speaker 2: You know growth and development on your own.
• 10:09
  Speaker 2: I worked in angostura.
• 10:11
  Speaker 2: I worked in kiko.
• 10:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I packed bitters in a box with a green hair net on my head and I realized, worked, got you on the factory flow and I realized, well, this is not for me.
• 10:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah, right, uh, and did SATs and left.
• 10:25
  Speaker 2: I went to Morehouse College really because all of my friends went to play football.
• 10:30
  Speaker 2: So I said, well, all right, if you boys can go, I'm gonna go as well.
• 10:33
  Speaker 2: So got academic scholarship and went up, had a great time, really opened your eyes.
• 10:38
  Speaker 2: So the world and that is something that we, as Shandadians, need a little bit more to understand on a global scale, we are minute, yeah, yeah, yeah, you know we think we're super important when we're at home, but on the real scale we're adult.
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: I see it a lot traveling through the Caribbean Because again, somebody who born and grew here and all their time spent here you tend to get this idea that Trinidad advanced and we have have everything together.
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: And then you go and live in other countries and you see how fast some things move and all you know is is really a big difference.
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah, in terms of your love for nature, I read somewhere where you say your grandmother was grenadian.
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: I had you up early in the morning doing planting on them guys.
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: I think this is things I learned.
• 11:17
  Speaker 2: And now, yeah, no so yeah, so my grandmother, my mom's family, is from grenada.
• 11:22
  Speaker 2: I see my grandmother was into, I think, the president of the Horticultural Society, so she I mean we had what 11 grandchildren, but used to wake me up I mean, everybody else is sleeping right Wake me up to go in the garden and do what we have to do cut flowers and flowers to the church, and you know, you just get an appreciation for it and that is something that you know.
• 11:48
  Speaker 2: Being in Trinidad, being in Grenada, you embrace wholeheartedly because we have the environment for it, and then being able to roam.
• 11:54
  Speaker 2: I grew up in Petit Valley, so for me the DeGaumatin River was like a highway.
• 11:59
  Speaker 2: I can reach anywhere.
• 12:02
  Speaker 2: I need to reach through the river.
• 12:04
  Speaker 2: So I have to check a friend in Westmoreland.
• 12:06
  Speaker 2: It just takes a little longer but you're going to reach.
• 12:09
  Speaker 2: You want to go to Diamondville To play basketball?
• 12:12
  Speaker 2: You're going to reach through the river Because if your parents find you on the road there's pressure.
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and you know, you're so young then, and carefree you ain't studying river could come down and take you from up there.
• 12:24
  Speaker 2: Oh no, so I mean we used to look at that right and really try to understand.
• 12:27
  Speaker 2: Well, you know we can handle this water.
• 12:30
  Speaker 2: No, you cannot.
• 12:31
  Speaker 2: No hope, no hope at all.
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: We hear about by grace of God, we take some chances, correct.
• 12:37
  Speaker 2: And I mean the river was like a source of life for us as little fellas.
• 12:42
  Speaker 2: Right, you know you have Oscars, you're feeding Oscars with the fish.
• 12:45
  Speaker 2: You know you're having a good time.
• 12:47
  Speaker 2: You learn to light fires and sulfur.
• 12:51
  Speaker 2: You know your stink bombs and whatnot.
• 12:53
  Speaker 2: That's where you're experimenting on everything right and you learn to run fast too.
• 12:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you have to you have to and climb out right.
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah, real quick.
• 13:03
  Speaker 2: So that was just part of life and you know, embracing that and keeping that as part of who I am today is important, that that keeps my head set.
• 13:11
  Speaker 2: So we're going on a hike on saturday, oh yeah, that allows me to detach from monday to friday.
• 13:17
  Speaker 2: So it's a release from the pressure of the correct is a release slash appreciation.
• 13:21
  Speaker 2: You, you know, you have to always remember that at the end of the day, you know you're just but one of billions, yeah, so just, you know, take that into consideration, yeah take it in stride.
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: Correct so Mohaus was finance and economics.
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: What was he making?
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: Yeah?
• 13:38
  Speaker 2: finance and economics.
• 13:39
  Speaker 2: A minor in economics, a degree in finance.
• 13:42
  Speaker 2: From there I was up in New York for internships.
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: And internships is in banking too, at that time, correct.
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: So by that time you're set, yeah, you're locked in.
• 13:50
  Speaker 2: Okay, got it, you're locked in right, You're locked into the fancy shoes and that kind of thing, right.
• 13:55
  Speaker 2: But at the same time you know you're open to exploring certain things.
• 14:00
  Speaker 2: That is how I ended up in Houston in oil and gas on that side.
• 14:03
  Speaker 2: At that point you know your career is really doing well and they wanted me to move to Ponca City, Oklahoma, and that was a hell.
• 14:11
  Speaker 2: No, and nobody in Trinidad knows where.
• 14:13
  Speaker 2: That is not me for sure exactly so I'm not.
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: I'm not going, so that is how I ended up back in Trinidad so where oil and gas you were at the time, what company was it?
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: Conocophillips, I see you doing.
• 14:24
  Speaker 2: What finance too yeah, offshore oil economics got it and fuel oil trading and a real testosterone driven flow, 200 men and 2 women on the floor.
• 14:35
  Speaker 2: So it got it got aggressive.
• 14:36
  Speaker 2: So I mean I was happy with that.
• 14:37
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, you like yeah, that was alright, you know that was all right, that was all right, you know.
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: No, I mean yeah yeah, but oklahoma is a no ah, nah, boy, yeah, that was a big no.
• 14:50
  Speaker 2: And I mean, you're not even in oklahoma city.
• 14:51
  Speaker 2: Are you in punk or that's a refinery town?
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: uh, gotcha nah you ain't doing it, not a chance.
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: So you're coming back into trinidad, straight into banking here too yeah, a friend of mine.
• 15:02
  Speaker 2: His dad was the cfo.
• 15:05
  Speaker 2: Lor leeroy collies, kendra was the cfo correct yeah, no, not black salin, though not black salina, I mean, god rest his soul and he put me on to the merchant bank down here and I fit in well.
• 15:18
  Speaker 2: I've been in that sort of construct since I left in 2017 to do a little bit of farming and came back in.
• 15:28
  Speaker 2: A little bit of farming, a little bit of farming.
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: Before we get to that little bit of farming, right random moment for me, right?
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: We started in business, my father and I, about somewhere around 2005, 2006.
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: And our business is outsource merchandising right for large manufacturers.
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: Outsourced merchandising right for large manufacturers.
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: So by nature of the business, you end up with a lot of employees for what is a small company, right?
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: So at the height of it we have 250 employees and at the height of it, boy, I'm frustrated Because at that point in time you don't have money to pay 250 employees, right.
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: What happens is that they pay us for the service, which would include the total cost of salaries um which would salaries and all the monuments or any uh, statutory payments and so on, right, and if they don't pay on time, we still obligated to pay by a certain date.
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: Wherever they say salaries is right.
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: And I remember this time I was in a bank car park.
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: I just went to the bank and I'm trying to figure out.
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: Okay, the client's already saying they're going to pay maybe $4,000 or $5,000 a month, which is a nightmare Salaries.
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: You understand what's going to happen, right, and I remember being frustrated and being you know, you're young and it's like what the hell is going on?
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: I can't get this done.
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: There's a second banker going to that we bank with and both of them, nah, we can't help you.
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: Your client had to pay and I remember going on Facebook and I just go on Facebook.
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: It must have a better solution than banking.
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: That's all I put in it.
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: I went back to it, that's all I put.
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: And maybe it was just me venting or being frustrated.
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: I didn't understand them times or the power of a network or, you know, not just walking in as somebody on the floor in any situation and not just banking, but maybe just trying to find a little more dig a little deeper is the world against me?
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: Kind of youth, you know, and I put that.
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: And then, within a minute or two, I see a Facebook message from Mark Jardy, who I hadn't heard from for many, many years.
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: We see each other in person them days.
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: I don't hold and whistle for me to come and look for you but just, and I remember saying, bro, what's going on, what happened, and we talk, and we talk and we get sorted out.
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: And that stood out to me a lot.
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: I learned a lesson there.
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: In other words, maybe just think about not just the obstacle, but think about more ways over it and who you might know and who you could help.
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: But I felt like it was pivotal for me in business that I reach out to do that and that's something that I've noticed that you don't hesitate to do.
• 17:49
  Speaker 2: Yeah, no, communication is key, right, and communication on multiple levels, not only for work, but just to try to be solution oriented.
• 17:59
  Speaker 2: Uh, trendadians, we naturally love to complain, right, we need to stop that yeah yeah, no, we have.
• 18:07
  Speaker 2: We have to stop that boy.
• 18:08
  Speaker 2: We have to stop that.
• 18:09
  Speaker 2: But, um, just being being there and being in a realm where you know you can help somebody right, right.
• 18:17
  Speaker 2: So take, for example, in the medical field, where you know you might have a friend that's a doctor and they can put you onto something.
• 18:23
  Speaker 2: If you are in need of X, y, z In the financial world, we can do the same, right.
• 18:28
  Speaker 2: But communicating and accessing the right channels is critical, right, and I believe in that.
• 18:35
  Speaker 2: I don't believe in you know always the formality and the process in it.
• 18:40
  Speaker 2: You know you processing it, you know you do it the right way.
• 18:42
  Speaker 2: But communication through multiple channels and being able to help on our spot on business is is critical for the environment, the ecosystem and how people view financial institutions, because we're low-hanging fruit.
• 18:54
  Speaker 2: Right, we can get hit hard by a lot of things, and I mean there are many things in in the, I guess, the market now that you know we can touch on.
• 19:03
  Speaker 2: But being able to communicate and being able to provide that solution through just basic discourse things that I would think are standard and easy to understand may be new for a client or potential client and being able to reach out is important.
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, lesson learned for me because back then I would have seen reaching out as circumventing the system or things like that, which it never did, is important, yeah, yeah, yeah, lesson learned for me because back then I would have seen reaching out as circumventing the system or things like that, which it never did.
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: We just talked through it and, just as you know what it was, more than anything else, something that I was in a dark about, that you had experience with, so you were able to talk me through, okay, and it was simple things you know, you grow up and you know, all right, I've hit this wall a few times, I know how to jump over the wall.
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: Now, yeah, and again I appreciate your general candle because I've never seen you put on, because banking there's a for the layman, there's a opinion about bankers or about banking.
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: It's seen as stiff, as proper, as you know.
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: I mean, and you call when he's like who is he client?
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: I was like xyz, he's like okori, if's your client, you can't be having a problem.
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: You know that's an A-list client and he kind of talked me through what we needed to do and within must be the day or the next day we could have paid his salaries.
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: But as you talk about banking, right, you can describe your industry as low-hanging fruit.
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: Let me pelt at some of hanging fruit now.
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: Let me let me start with with you because again, that opinion about banking and how it, as formal as it is, nine out of ten times I see you these days you have a backpack, jeans and a polo shirt.
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: Banking used to be trippy suit and waistcoat and you had to go.
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: You know these watches have anything.
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: You had to have one of them.
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: You, you abandon this.
• 20:40
  Speaker 2: You not abandon it, but at the same time, you have to evolve and you have to evolve with your personality as well.
• 20:47
  Speaker 2: Right, so there is a time for extreme formality.
• 20:50
  Speaker 2: You don't ever circumvent the process or the approach to it.
• 20:54
  Speaker 2: Everything is still there, the controls in there, you have your parameters you can work with.
• 20:58
  Speaker 2: Your delivery is what is up to your personality.
• 21:01
  Speaker 2: And, um, I mean, I, I think I have a bit of personality on me, so you, you, you, let that shine through a bit, not too much, right, but it's also based on the occasion, right?
• 21:12
  Speaker 2: So if you see me would probably be on a friday or during the, during the week, where I don't have much going on.
• 21:18
  Speaker 2: At the same time, I have a full suit in the office.
• 21:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah, in case you have to press the button, you know, like Batman, and head out.
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah, because when I see you in the media, yeah because that's what you have to do, right?
• 21:34
  Speaker 2: So you have to manage that imagery but, at the same time, you have to become reachable, accessible and you have to be able to translate that gap, because I think historically there has been a gap that we need to bridge a little bit better.
• 21:53
  Speaker 2: There is a level of, I guess, stiff inside of there.
• 21:56
  Speaker 2: I won't consider myself that, but I am still very process oriented and understanding what you can and can't do.
• 22:03
  Speaker 2: Now, how you relay that and how you interact with people.
• 22:08
  Speaker 2: That's up to your personality.
• 22:09
  Speaker 2: I mean, I do it a little differently.
• 22:12
  Speaker 2: Right, just say that, ever since, yeah, yeah, yeah, ever since.
• 22:16
  Speaker 2: So it's not, it's, it's not new.
• 22:19
  Speaker 2: You, you know where your boundaries are, but at the same time, where your boundaries are, but at the same time, it's about bringing that level of comfort and understanding to those around you as well.
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I would assume it has to come out in your own leadership.
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: Correct, I understand, I understand.
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: So the early days in RBC was in Merchant Bank, then there was Royal Bank.
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: Still, or, we don't switch to RBC.
• 22:38
  Speaker 2: No Royal Bank until 2008.
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: I see, so, then you will.
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: Where did you go from?
• 22:43
  Speaker 2: merchant banking Stayed in there until 2017.
• 22:46
  Speaker 2: So different, different areas inside of theirs.
• 22:49
  Speaker 2: So you looked at I think I, as I told people, I have been on every single rock in the Caribbean multiple times so you look at government financing ports, you look at heavy infrastructure, energy, that sort of thing.
• 23:03
  Speaker 2: So you have a really good understanding of the region, what it can do.
• 23:08
  Speaker 2: You know how do you look at how the region changed.
• 23:11
  Speaker 2: I mean, you're really entrenched in it.
• 23:13
  Speaker 2: So it was different roles in risk management, origination, capital markets, and you develop your mind so much and so fast inside of there you can appreciate, uh, a discourse from from various angles.
• 23:32
  Speaker 2: You know we can.
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: You can sense the nonsense really quick you've been always able to send the nonsense pretty quick from us for as long as I have known you and call it out yeah, and call it out.
• 23:48
  Speaker 2: I'll do that a little fast, a little fast sometimes, but yes yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 23:55
  Speaker 2: So I guess with that experience in those times you have your mind on top level leadership um, not really you, you know, because yeah you're doing what you have to do and you are focused on who you are, what you can learn and how you can make the environment around you a little better.
• 24:15
  Speaker 2: So, either through client development, personal development, development of the team around you.
• 24:21
  Speaker 2: So, um, you know you always have goals and aspirations, but at the same time I never sat down.
• 24:28
  Speaker 2: You know people will say they have a development plan and a focus board.
• 24:32
  Speaker 2: That's not me in any form or fashion.
• 24:34
  Speaker 2: You know you just put your head down and do what you're supposed to do, and then you do a little bit more, then you do a little bit more, then you do a little bit more.
• 24:42
  Speaker 2: You don't really stop.
• 24:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah, right To say that I wanted to achieve X, y, z, not particularly.
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: Not really.
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: Now.
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: Another random encounter many, many years after that first one.
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: Now I'm calling you.
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: I ain't hesitating at this point in time.
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, right.
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: And I remember calling about some random thing again.
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: And then we all of a sudden you ain't blue waters, let me double the any while I'm saying that.
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: Right, for clients sake, you know.
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah, no problem, big up to dominic so yeah I call your buddy singing randomly in blue waters and we're having a whole discussion about farming, something else.
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: I didn't know anything about where he was going to, so at that point you told me a kind of of out of banking, yeah, correct, and you were in Blue Waters.
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: What was you doing in Blue Waters at the time?
• 25:31
  Speaker 2: Formerly running agriculture.
• 25:33
  Speaker 2: So inside of there there was a 300-acre estate Right Entrance city.
• 25:38
  Speaker 2: You also looked at opportunities in Ghana, jamaica, belize, that kind of thing, and it was about the monetization of agricultural products in Trinidad, because that's something that we really need to do a lot better with.
• 25:53
  Speaker 2: We blow by the breeze, really, when we, when we compare ourselves to large producers in the region, we're nowhere close right, so we don't even want to specialize in our, I guess, the hot peppers and stuff like that that we need to do, we're getting better, I would say.
• 26:08
  Speaker 2: The information, the data, the approach is getting better.
• 26:13
  Speaker 2: A lot, a lot of work still to be done.
• 26:15
  Speaker 2: So it's something that I loved, right, environment was totally different.
• 26:18
  Speaker 2: I learned to drive a tractor Well, I do have a license, but I know how to move it right, you know.
• 26:31
  Speaker 2: And a forklift, yeah, you know.
• 26:32
  Speaker 2: Um, so with that, you know, you got to understand business from the ground up because, uh, you wanted to create that small business element of it, independent of the parent company.
• 26:44
  Speaker 2: So, uh, my mandate was very clear to make money off the farm and provide dividends from the farm.
• 26:50
  Speaker 2: So that is what I did.
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: So what makes you take that job, boy?
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: How come you're at the age of.
• 26:56
  Speaker 2: You're at the age where you can experiment a little bit, right, and it's something that has always and will always be with me.
• 27:03
  Speaker 2: Understanding agriculture, understanding how we eat, looking at the Caribbeanibbean region as a whole and our shortcomings yeah, so, seeing you know, what can I do to make this better?
• 27:15
  Speaker 2: And, uh, it went well.
• 27:18
  Speaker 2: It went well.
• 27:19
  Speaker 2: The job kind of shifted focus from agriculture back into real estate and property development and I'm like, look if, look, if I'm going to do bank work, may as well go back in the bank, I suppose.
• 27:30
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so, yeah, you know.
• 27:32
  Speaker 2: So that's how I went back.
• 27:35
  Speaker 2: But I mean, from the agricultural side of it, you really built a whole new network and appreciation of who we are, who does what.
• 27:45
  Speaker 2: From you know Coco, from you know Coco, from you know our food production, from Namdevco I was on the board for Namdevco.
• 27:51
  Speaker 2: You learn a lot, but you also want to do so much more.
• 27:56
  Speaker 2: So I still, I still will, will focus there.
• 28:02
  Speaker 2: There is time constraints on my issue, but there's a there's a tremendous love for it.
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: Yes, it's still a pull there.
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: Okay, yeah, for sure, some random questions about that, right?
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: Because, uh, when you bring up the hot peppers and cocoa in particular, it is a little bit of, maybe a sore point for me personally, because I feel as though we have the opportunity to make those things into.
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: In other words, you talk about your netheridad and Tobago to somebody abroad.
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: They're going to call it an oil and gas dependent economy.
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: Right, we have issues with that now production-wise, price-wise.
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: I'm not sure that 10 years from now we could still class Trinidad and Tobago as an oil and gas economy.
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: We will need to.
• 28:44
  Speaker 2: We will need to.
• 28:45
  Speaker 2: We will need to, oh yeah.
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: So where's the opportunity?
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: Are we missing opportunities like those to diversify?
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: Is that the space we should be looking at?
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: You feel me?
• 28:56
  Speaker 2: Yes, but when we're looking at the output from those spaces it can't really match the oil and gas output, but at the same time it does provide a lot of job stability, food stability and the branding of who we are as Shunan Tobago, to continue to resonate in that realm.
• 29:15
  Speaker 2: With respect to chocolate I mean, I'm a chocolate fiend we have, I mean, great producers and the product is world-class.
• 29:26
  Speaker 2: So, like Titi Fine, coco, these kind of things, copopel are amazing at what they do and we appreciate them in Trinidad.
• 29:35
  Speaker 2: Now they are exporting, they are doing what they need to do, but there's so much more.
• 29:39
  Speaker 2: And UWE, from the Coco side.
• 29:41
  Speaker 2: Uwe does a lot and has a lot of information, a lot of academic research.
• 29:46
  Speaker 2: It's putting that business engine behind.
• 29:49
  Speaker 2: It is what I think we need to focus on from the private sector as well as the government-based entities.
• 29:55
  Speaker 2: It's needed because I mean the output is amazing.
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah the quality of it, like I saw somewhere talking about some of the finest chocolates in the world and cocoa from right here which we might have never known.
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: You know, I don't know if the general public knows it or know what we have.
• 30:09
  Speaker 2: We are a lot better educated than we were, yeah, right.
• 30:13
  Speaker 2: The fact that we have local chocolate shops now, I mean when we were younger, yeah, never had that.
• 30:19
  Speaker 2: It's heavy jobs, you know, right, lots of jobs.
• 30:24
  Speaker 2: And I mean my mother from Grenada, and understanding how they develop their industry is a different aspect too.
• 30:32
  Speaker 2: So they have done a lot inside of that space as well Over the years.
• 30:36
  Speaker 2: You know, showing my age over the years, you realize, well, all right, these guys are doing things here, so you also have the Bayesian side of it, green Monkey, coming in.
• 30:46
  Speaker 2: So they're in Trinidad now.
• 30:48
  Speaker 2: So the region has it right.
• 30:50
  Speaker 2: Trinidad should be really the anchor for, I guess, that fine product.
• 30:55
  Speaker 2: I know work is being done.
• 30:58
  Speaker 2: I just think a lot more needs to be done, of course.
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: So when you say oil and gas, right, and we'll have to 10 years from now, I remember a recent I was a recent, was it Takri Driver?
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: I remember going to one of his conferences when he was still head of the energy chamber.
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: I'm not sure if he's still there.
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah, man, yeah, I remember him talking about the idea of diversification, shifted my thoughts on it a lot right, and he showed a slide right With our GDP.
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: I don't know you should be too, with and without oil and gas, and total industry right compares to oil and gas when you remove oil and gas, what our output was.
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: And his theory then was that what the diversification needs to look like is upstream and downstream.
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: So that's something you shared.
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: That's what we have to do, Of course.
• 31:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 31:41
  Speaker 2: So I mean you need to expand in the area, not just a raw producer of oil and gas.
• 31:47
  Speaker 2: You need to have the downstream products.
• 31:49
  Speaker 2: You know you need to be able to diversify our I guess our being where we come from.
• 31:57
  Speaker 2: That includes the service provision for your Brazil, your Suriname, your Guyana, you know.
• 32:04
  Speaker 2: Anchor here there's a lot of, I guess, political stability, a lot of know-how, a lot of talent in Trinidad to build off of that and you know, if we can angle ourselves to be key service providers, which we are, just make it a lot larger.
• 32:21
  Speaker 2: That is where I think our focal point should be.
• 32:26
  Speaker 2: But of course politics gets into the play, and sanctions and global issues.
• 32:34
  Speaker 2: It's not a penny stock you trade in here.
• 32:36
  Speaker 2: It's a lot of money.
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: It is, it is, it is and global influence.
• 32:40
  Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure.
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: And global companies too, at play.
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: So this journey in Blue Waters, through farming when was it you realized you had to come back to banking?
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: It's not a calling battle.
• 32:51
  Speaker 2: Well, yeah always, you know, always, always, you know, you know.
• 32:57
  Speaker 2: So they've used it to Mark when you finish playing around.
• 33:01
  Speaker 2: You know playing around in the bush yeah, literally.
• 33:05
  Speaker 2: Mark, when you finish playing around in the bush and you want to become a serious man, give us a call.
• 33:10
  Speaker 2: I found that a little disrespectful too right.
• 33:14
  Speaker 2: I like it though I like it.
• 33:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, you know.
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: It feels like something you would tell a man yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I will.
• 33:20
  Speaker 2: So that's the whole thing.
• 33:20
  Speaker 2: So that's why it resonated.
• 33:23
  Speaker 2: You know you're hanging out, Say, Mark, you're still picking coconuts, You're still.
• 33:29
  Speaker 2: You know, I'm like, yeah, I'm having a great time, but yeah, after a while you're like I need to.
• 33:36
  Speaker 2: I need to reestablish myself in the industry, so jump back in.
• 33:40
  Speaker 2: And what year is this?
• 33:41
  Speaker 2: Oral 2001,.
• 33:44
  Speaker 2: I, 2001,.
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: I think In the middle of 2000.
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: 21?
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: Yeah, 2021.
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: Okay, sorry, that's a show you hold on to.
• 33:50
  Speaker 2: You know, close to dead, eh, close to dead, ctd, you know, you know.
• 33:59
  Speaker 2: So it really was in the middle of COVID.
• 34:02
  Speaker 2: So you came back into our office that you were not familiar with, right, you would be there alone, nearly alone, in the entire building, maybe five, five, ten cars in the car park, and it was.
• 34:14
  Speaker 2: It wasn't hard Because, I mean, for me, rbc was home, there is Right and you just got back into the fray, took over the government desk.
• 34:23
  Speaker 2: We had some issues to hammer out, so the stress came from day one.
• 34:28
  Speaker 2: I would imagine an issue coming from the middle of COVID Day one.
• 34:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Day one.
• 34:32
  Speaker 2: You know, Mark, we needed to sort out the XY.
• 34:34
  Speaker 2: I said, well, you know what I do.
• 34:35
  Speaker 2: I don't have a login as yet.
• 34:37
  Speaker 2: I don't have a login as yet.
• 34:40
  Speaker 2: So, you know, let IT make that happen.
• 34:43
  Speaker 2: Then I could answer your email, right, yeah, yeah, yeah, well, if, they pick coconut now so we have here.
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: It's go time, but that would be one of the most difficult times to come back in.
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: Like I remember, the world of banking has been changing over the years a lot and Trinidad and Tobago is a place where sometimes you see industries change or you see tastes and preferences change and it takes some time to get us there.
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: So I remember, for instance, one time in miami and them days was yellow cab still right and I get the taxi man a hundred dollars.
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: When that man get vexed, my man started cursing haitian language yeah, no change, yeah, no change.
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: But I go into um, a little sports store right and next to the sports store I see a bank.
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: So I say right.
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: I say hey, what, drop me by the sports store.
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: Right and next to the sports store I see a bank.
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: So I say right, I say hey, what, drop me by the sports store, I will get change inside.
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: I see the bank had gone in the bank.
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: Well, I was confused when I opened the door because, of course, my reference for a bank is Royal.
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: Bank St James.
• 35:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I born and grew.
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: You know, that is home thing, I said, but this is our bank and it's the same bank name that I was advertising on TV, since it's smaller.
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: So when I watch it it's security.
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: And the next lady I say, hey, I need to get changed for $100.
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: I have no cash.
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: I have no cash so and there's yellow cap days and it took us some time to get there.
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: I feel like COVID kind of fast-tracked us a little bit.
• 36:02
  Speaker 2: So you didn't give me money hundred dollars.
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: You're broke, so I went back and asked what's the deep?
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: I see him looking for me but I see that shift started happening where and not just in banking, it just generally.
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: Our ability to do business remotely might have been there for a long time, but covid forced government agencies all of a sudden to start doing things.
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: And I remember the first time one of our maybe not the first time, but it started to become more frequent where our business banking agents started to come by us and go in the bank to do the documents and stuff and so on.
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: So you are at the heart of that transition.
• 36:42
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: Was it happening before then in terms of RBC, because it had to be that way in Canada?
• 36:45
  Speaker 1: In the US, yes, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: So Was it happening before then in terms of RBC, because it had to be that way in Canada?
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: In the domestic market, yes, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 36:49
  Speaker 2: So you would have the ability and the flexibility to do that Right.
• 36:52
  Speaker 2: Covid was a catalyst for, I guess, global change in that respect, and not only in the bands, but in all industries.
• 37:00
  Speaker 2: Right, how you do business, your connectivity you don't have to fly to Antigua for a meeting that lasts an hour.
• 37:05
  Speaker 2: It you don't have to fly to Antigua for a meeting that lasts an hour.
• 37:07
  Speaker 2: It kills three days of your life.
• 37:09
  Speaker 2: You can have it virtually.
• 37:11
  Speaker 2: So the implementation and usage of technology really did step up, and it also forced people to use these channels a little bit more.
• 37:22
  Speaker 2: So I embraced it entirely.
• 37:27
  Speaker 2: Now, personally, I enjoy being in the office.
• 37:31
  Speaker 2: I like the environment, the ecosystem that it generates.
• 37:34
  Speaker 2: Right, it's a learning environment.
• 37:36
  Speaker 2: You can't always get that in a digital realm Understanding and appreciating the benefits you know of each aspect in person and digital is the name of the game, and that is how you have to work towards things, because you know, if you're trying to close a transaction in Jamaica, I'm not flying up to talk to you.
• 37:57
  Speaker 2: We will work through what we need to work through from here and then then sort it out.
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: There's a truth about salt on town too.
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: Me and you, we got no salt.
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: If we could get done, only for now.
• 38:09
  Speaker 2: I can't say that now Just for me, because Kendra Ann will get upset with me.
• 38:12
  Speaker 2: I love salt.
• 38:13
  Speaker 2: You need to keep.
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: Kendra Ann up.
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: I love her Because.
• 38:16
  Speaker 2: Kendra Ann is a bully.
• 38:17
  Speaker 2: You say so.
• 38:20
  Speaker 2: Kendra Ann is a bully, you know.
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: But I do pick up the vibe.
• 38:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, of course, of course, of course.
• 38:28
  Speaker 2: You know it's licks, you know.
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: But people like me and you so need help.
• 38:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, no I, I will tell you yes because I will walk all over you.
• 38:36
  Speaker 2: Yeah, if given the opportunity, yeah, yeah, yeah, and I, I mean I, I, I wouldn't want to talk to you because I realized, look you, you're not.
• 38:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's not happening here at all.
• 38:46
  Speaker 2: Um, so for me, yeah, the connectivity is important, but at the same time, you don't want to ever lose that interaction and that personality and that being is something that we cannot do without.
• 39:02
  Speaker 2: So understanding the environment and embracing technology for what it is is something that we need to do from a work environment, from a process environment, but never forget who you are, what you're doing and what you're trying to achieve.
• 39:17
  Speaker 2: So that's where the personality is coming into play.
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: Of course, and cultural too, because I remember maybe it was before COVID where they started seeing even the RBC St James I'm talking about.
• 39:26
  Speaker 1: Now that branch is no longer there.
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: They started seeing RBC as well as the other commercial banks here, maybe reorganizing and changing what retail banking looked like.
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: I remember the uproar about it at the time, especially people talking about pensioners, this and how they go, the idea that you can deal with money remotely.
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: I think it hits us hard culturally, especially for some age groups, especially for some age groups.
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: But where are you sitting now?
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: You feel we've adjusted as a society, not a chance man.
• 39:52
  Speaker 2: We're getting there.
• 39:53
  Speaker 2: The business, oh yeah, really.
• 39:54
  Speaker 2: What so?
• 39:56
  Speaker 2: The business side?
• 39:58
  Speaker 2: Yes, we've gotten a lot better.
• 39:59
  Speaker 2: We've utilized the tools because, at the same time, our business partners globally want to utilize the tools.
• 40:07
  Speaker 2: So we're getting there.
• 40:08
  Speaker 2: On a personal level, you still have hundreds of pensioners.
• 40:12
  Speaker 1: Come in, yeah, yeah every, every month there's a thing, there's a very well, I will tell you it was.
• 40:19
  Speaker 2: It was traumatic for me coming to trinidad.
• 40:22
  Speaker 2: Now we're in independent square, we're on between the sixth and the eighth floor, so Christmas time I came back in November.
• 40:30
  Speaker 2: So I am back in Trinidad for a month.
• 40:33
  Speaker 2: I am still, you know, yeah, I am still in love with going to where's the mall in town.
• 40:40
  Speaker 2: Town.
• 40:41
  Speaker 1: Center Town.
• 40:42
  Speaker 2: Center to get to get stewed chicken and I'm in love, right.
• 40:45
  Speaker 2: And I used to see hundreds of people shake the security gate for RBC Independence Square on a Friday.
• 40:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, hundreds.
• 40:59
  Speaker 2: And I will never forget they had one person that lifted a child up and screamed out I have a baby.
• 41:06
  Speaker 2: I'm like this is chaotic, why do we do this?
• 41:11
  Speaker 2: But I realized after a while, because you remember I was absent for about eight years at reabsorption yeah, but I still did not see the need for it at all.
• 41:19
  Speaker 2: But it it really took a mix of our just our the banks, the financial institutions, the central bank and turn that as a whole to embrace certain channels.
• 41:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, right, so for the ATMs, we still had to have an attendant in the ATM rooms to show people how to use the ATMs, and this is this is not so long ago, of course.
• 41:41
  Speaker 2: Of course we're getting a bit better, right, but at the same time, you know, with cyber fraud and everything, people are getting now hesitant on it.
• 41:51
  Speaker 2: But at the same time, just be cautious.
• 41:53
  Speaker 2: Be cautious in your approach.
• 41:55
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and you know, cash.
• 41:58
  Speaker 2: People always say cash is king, but cash can be held.
• 42:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah, of course.
• 42:01
  Speaker 1: Cash is tricky.
• 42:02
  Speaker 2: Yeah, cash is very tricky Cash is still cash, but Because somebody can borrow it from you.
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: Huh Of course In this country somebody can borrow it from you.
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: You know, without you, wanting them to.
• 42:13
  Speaker 1: You know the way I see it.
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: Just on the consumer side, I see it change a lot.
• 42:16
  Speaker 1: Like I started, maybe just before COVID, just the frustration of having to go to the ATM to get cash Because again them days I ain't sugar on us.
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: So, and on the wrong side of sugar on us, from RBC too, so if I had to drive over that side I ain't going.
• 42:28
  Speaker 1: And then the few bands they have on the eastern side of sugar on us, they full packed every day.
• 42:33
  Speaker 1: The ATM line was long and sometimes they don't have cash when the weekend come.
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: And I say you know what?
• 42:42
  Speaker 1: You can't service, that is that is how I am and it is that way now, like there's no more service providers, like how the other fellow come to service.
• 42:50
  Speaker 1: Your condition is you guys, like brother, where's your bank account information?
• 42:53
  Speaker 1: Because at least are you not coming living home to go and look for cash?
• 42:56
  Speaker 2: you gotta wait, so I mean don't, uh, if you want me to buy barbecue tickets for you for a fundraiser, what is your account?
• 43:03
  Speaker 2: And I mean I do have cash.
• 43:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah right, I have about six dollars.
• 43:07
  Speaker 2: No, I have, I have some.
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: I mean I have little children and they and they and they take it right, so they own they encamp, so your others apply you know it's funny as you bring up that, like you, you see this thing now with these youths, like your sons, go pasanting and spend.
• 43:20
  Speaker 2: But listen to me what you talking about so somebody in the ice cream store sent me a copy of the receipt.
• 43:26
  Speaker 2: Your son is inside here sponsoring friends for ice cream.
• 43:31
  Speaker 2: Say you own this, I love it.
• 43:33
  Speaker 2: I'm like nah say cancel that transaction.
• 43:35
  Speaker 2: You know, pull the plug on me, pull the plug on him.
• 43:38
  Speaker 2: You had to call you, understand.
• 43:42
  Speaker 2: I know you had to get him a car he's eating cheese.
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you're correct.
• 43:45
  Speaker 2: So he is on food drop.
• 43:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I imagine you understand You're taking too long to reach home.
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: You know, Karen is working.
• 43:51
  Speaker 1: I see that from my assistant producer.
• 43:53
  Speaker 2: You know, tell your daddy he needs a sort out food drop for you On hell break loose if he on food drop.
• 43:58
  Speaker 2: He's ramming by Rishi every day.
• 44:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and these fellas ordering food drop to Fatima.
• 44:02
  Speaker 2: Before basketball practice.
• 44:05
  Speaker 2: I like, I don't live like that.
• 44:10
  Speaker 2: I still I walk for lunch.
• 44:11
  Speaker 1: No that's the reason we wouldn't be living like that, so they could live like that.
• 44:18
  Speaker 1: No I don't agree.
• 44:19
  Speaker 2: I don't agree.
• 44:20
  Speaker 1: At least we see in the society changed.
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: When them fellas in charge the banking will look just like where it's looking like in Florida.
• 44:26
  Speaker 2: I tell my son he is this close from being a vagrant.
• 44:28
  Speaker 2: You know I could pull the plug from him and he homeless yeah, the problem is they know that's not true.
• 44:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah, because their mother will protect their mother and their grandparents will protect this yeah, boy, I like how you listed mother, grandmother, aunt.
• 44:42
  Speaker 2: You know what I mean yeah, it's a lot of pressure, boy I hope they listen.
• 44:46
  Speaker 2: Because I try to put him up and people will actually take him.
• 44:50
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, of course, of course, of course.
• 44:53
  Speaker 2: I hope he sees that.
• 44:54
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 44:54
  Speaker 1: Let me talk about that a little bit now, because that was another random encounter with you where you know, just talking to you them times, my son is baby, baby, so you would have have a son older than me at that time, and I remember hearing your thoughts on fatherhood and the importance of fathers connecting with the children and the way we interact and raise our children today, I think we was just talking against the backdrop of what we're seeing as a rising crime rates and those types of things.
• 45:20
  Speaker 1: It's something that I'm sure you still feel the same way, correct?
• 45:22
  Speaker 1: No, yeah, so what?
• 45:24
  Speaker 1: What?
• 45:25
  Speaker 1: Um?
• 45:25
  Speaker 1: Is it that just becoming a father changed the way you looked at that, or is it your relationship with your father?
• 45:31
  Speaker 2: No, not, not, not particularly my relationship with my dad.
• 45:34
  Speaker 2: It's just how you see the world around you, right, and the importance of a male figure in raising both a boy and a girl child is important, but at the same time, we cannot look away from the importance of having a man inside of the environment of raising a son.
• 45:59
  Speaker 2: It is critical so little things like I was having a conversation with my eldest sister.
• 46:04
  Speaker 2: Well, no, is it?
• 46:06
  Speaker 2: No, I think second eldest the other one is it?
• 46:08
  Speaker 2: I know, I think second eldest, the other one is the eldest one.
• 46:10
  Speaker 2: I should get upset.
• 46:11
  Speaker 2: Um, I want to give her grandson a knife.
• 46:14
  Speaker 2: This is a big conversation, but to me that's nothing.
• 46:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you know a little, he is seven or eight.
• 46:21
  Speaker 2: A little pocket knife, let him do what he has to do get him accustomed to to it, because that's what dads will do.
• 46:28
  Speaker 2: Dads will, I guess, well should do, you know, paint a straight line Because, at the end of the day, you want to raise men, and the definition of a man is not a static definition.
• 46:41
  Speaker 1: A man can embrace any sort of environment he is in, but you still want somebody who has a responsible head on their shoulders and understands the environment then and the people they are around yeah, yeah, and one of the things we spoke about then was that, uh, the society on a whole sometimes is seeing not just the philosophy about reasons of basically the absence of father's reasons and you know, back then we felt both of us were talking about it at a time where, okay, if I just have one son, maybe I have the capacity to influence more, more the lives of more boys or more children in general.
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: So that's one of the things.
• 47:19
  Speaker 1: I appreciate you coming here for today, because I always feel as if more people like yourself come and talk about your journey and the things you're working on now, without having to see or talk to every little child that we meet, which is not the real influence you want to meet.
• 47:33
  Speaker 1: It's an opportunity to put something in ink that's always out there that we might be able to influence.
• 47:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah, correct Because you do it on a personal level.
• 47:40
  Speaker 2: And then, of course, you try to steer some of the bank's resources into that environment as well.
• 47:45
  Speaker 2: Because I mean like resources into that environment as well, because I mean like, take, for example, with fatima, I for many years was responsible for the sponsorship element of it, and the reason why I really took to that is because the impact it has on, I mean, this group of a thousand boys is really important.
• 48:01
  Speaker 2: I mean it changes how they see the world, it changes the, the resources available to them.
• 48:06
  Speaker 2: And then, when you stare into the direction of the bank, I mean there are multiple things that we do on that level, like the SMRG Foundation.
• 48:15
  Speaker 2: Dr Toby, I mean what this man is doing and has been doing is amazing.
• 48:20
  Speaker 2: He focuses on these young men and the development and the enablement of these young men, and not only financial resources, but time.
• 48:31
  Speaker 2: Time is important.
• 48:32
  Speaker 2: You have to commit the time to speaking to these little ones a lot, because they're stubborn.
• 48:40
  Speaker 2: Huh, because I will tell you, growing up, I mean I'll be honest with you, I remember myself I was not the easiest one to handle.
• 48:46
  Speaker 2: I'll be honest with you, I remember myself I was not the easiest one to handle.
• 48:49
  Speaker 2: Neither were you, for sure I mean, and I remember your, yeah, I remember, honest, honestly, seeing yourself, Troy Joel, everybody in front of the little power station.
• 48:57
  Speaker 1: You remember them days.
• 48:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah, two lampposts that were on the ground there for must be a decade and nothing good coming from that side and nothing good coming from that.
• 49:07
  Speaker 1: The only thing good coming from that is memories.
• 49:09
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, memories, you know.
• 49:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that was a tease.
• 49:13
  Speaker 1: That was a tease, you know.
• 49:14
  Speaker 2: so you know, having a positive influence in an environment like that and I mean I mean again going back to like Father Gregory, the influence that he has on thousands and thousands of young men in this country is fantastic.
• 49:28
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that is why I will do anything to assist him in that realm, right?
• 49:33
  Speaker 2: So you know he, he's stiff like board and will tell you what it is, how it is.
• 49:37
  Speaker 2: He does not ask, yeah no, he does not ask, he tells you make statements.
• 49:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah, mark, I need to answer and click.
• 49:44
  Speaker 2: So you know, you know you have to, you have to love it, right.
• 49:48
  Speaker 1: You have to understand what it is.
• 49:49
  Speaker 2: You know and you understand it is coming from the best of spaces, the best of hearts.
• 49:56
  Speaker 2: But again, you know, from our corporate lens, the impact and influence that corporations can have in society is limitless.
• 50:06
  Speaker 2: Once the focal points are there and you do it with the right intentions and the right heart, because that's something we can't forget, and as then, as individuals, right, you have to take that into consideration.
• 50:19
  Speaker 2: You have to give of yourself.
• 50:20
  Speaker 2: You know you can't say that, you know that is not a great place and you aren't doing anything to fix that environment yourself.
• 50:29
  Speaker 1: Well, you talk about our complaining culture.
• 50:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm guilty of it myself.
• 50:33
  Speaker 1: You know, if we're not doing something, I try to listen to myself when I go into complaining more, and if I complain about something to me, it just means that I care about it.
• 50:41
  Speaker 1: So let me take a step, let me see what could be done or how little I could influence, whatever it is or one person.
• 50:47
  Speaker 1: You know, I feel like if more people think along those lines, we could be.
• 50:50
  Speaker 1: We could be looking at that better society 10 years from now.
• 50:53
  Speaker 2: No, of course, and but you have to really take a firm grasp as to what is going on.
• 50:57
  Speaker 2: Sure, sure, so even the way I mean he cleaning up dogs, beating dogs, you know.
• 51:10
  Speaker 1: That's what you have to handle.
• 51:12
  Speaker 2: I give them $10 a day.
• 51:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's okay.
• 51:15
  Speaker 2: $10 a day is okay.
• 51:17
  Speaker 2: He can't do anything with us, but he does not need anything.
• 51:24
  Speaker 2: No, of course you know, but it is about building that culture, building that understanding.
• 51:28
  Speaker 2: I mean, he's a fantastic young man, no, of course you know, but it is about building that culture, building that understanding.
• 51:29
  Speaker 2: I mean he's a fantastic young man, but you know, you really have to keep your, you know, your hand there, because they can go wild.
• 51:37
  Speaker 1: Of course, this age especially.
• 51:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 51:39
  Speaker 1: Listen, if I pass and see this man saying no man, I'll pull outside there.
• 51:42
  Speaker 1: I'll go get a hand attack it's what, and let's approach it from the standpoint that make sure if I go here tomorrow, so while I'm here, you have to understand the value of work.
• 51:49
  Speaker 2: You have to understand these things you know, and if you create these young men, make sure you're creating good people.
• 51:55
  Speaker 2: That's just how I see it precisely make perfect sense.
• 52:00
  Speaker 1: Make perfect sense, the little buddy tell me, is sharpen knives other than farming and banking and things he said, sharpened knives.
• 52:06
  Speaker 2: I thought that was.
• 52:07
  Speaker 1: David's way of telling me.
• 52:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah, sharpened knives and polished shoes.
• 52:10
  Speaker 2: It's very weird.
• 52:12
  Speaker 2: I don't know.
• 52:12
  Speaker 2: I dislike it, boy.
• 52:14
  Speaker 2: So I sharpened knives and polished shoes.
• 52:17
  Speaker 2: So the guys in the office give me their shoes.
• 52:20
  Speaker 2: I am blown away as to how you could even put some of these things on your feet.
• 52:25
  Speaker 2: Yeah, but I, I, I shout and I sharpen knives as well so yeah, yeah, just like doing it sitting down looking at a movie, and because I can't sit still, right, I literally cannot sit still.
• 52:40
  Speaker 2: My father-in-law laughs at me about it.
• 52:42
  Speaker 2: So now I mean, I have a solution to it when we have family get-togethers, I will eat and I will fall asleep.
• 52:50
  Speaker 2: At least I'm still All right.
• 52:51
  Speaker 2: Good, right, yeah, you know.
• 52:55
  Speaker 2: So, yeah, sharpen knives.
• 52:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah, looking at a movie and you're sharpening knives.
• 52:59
  Speaker 1: And that's just personally.
• 53:00
  Speaker 1: Just like knives.
• 53:01
  Speaker 1: Just so, you're interested in selling knives?
• 53:02
  Speaker 1: No, no, no nothing at all.
• 53:04
  Speaker 2: So people drop off their knives and you sharpen them up and I think I do a right job.
• 53:08
  Speaker 1: Good, zachary, you'll set a reminder to drop off all the knives.
• 53:11
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah yeah, and I mean everything.
• 53:13
  Speaker 2: I mean I have machines, I have the old barber leather straps.
• 53:16
  Speaker 2: I mean you're getting an edge on this thing, huh, really.
• 53:23
  Speaker 2: So, yeah, got it got.
• 53:25
  Speaker 2: Mine has a drawer full of knives, right, yeah, and I mean, every time you go to Miami you pick up a new white handle or black handle set of Cuisinart knives and once it gets dull, you throw it in the drawer.
• 53:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's it.
• 53:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah, foolishness man.
• 53:40
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so, yeah.
• 53:41
  Speaker 2: So I remember my wife being upset with me for buying fantastic knives when we got married.
• 53:46
  Speaker 2: Right, we still use them.
• 53:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so I love to point that out as a, you know, a victory for me, that is forever A victory.
• 53:55
  Speaker 1: Anytime you say something about marriage and victory, like you've gone from there immediately.
• 53:58
  Speaker 2: You can't land me in problems.
• 53:59
  Speaker 2: You can say oh, you're a lemax, A victory.
• 54:02
  Speaker 1: You understand?
• 54:03
  Speaker 1: No, you understand.
• 54:11
  Speaker 1: No, you bring up the bank's resources, right.
• 54:12
  Speaker 1: I want to talk to you about, uh, as you're rolling to your new role now, because before we started recording, you said which was a surprise to me that your responsibility from the commercial side, before we get to the direct issue, is from sma all the way to government.
• 54:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah, but smes don't have a favorable look at the bank, right, if I was to do a survey and I talked to smes.
• 54:23
  Speaker 1: Two different points at smE I want to talk about and just get your thoughts on.
• 54:27
  Speaker 1: First is startup.
• 54:29
  Speaker 1: So the idea that, like I had a course at a lecture called New Venture Creations it's at MBA level, yeah, and the idea is really trying to get you from what we call negative revenue.
• 54:43
  Speaker 1: You're investing, you're putting out money to try to get a business off the ground and at some point in the future, with all the hope.
• 54:49
  Speaker 1: There was a thing they used to say the people who will support you is the three Fs friends, family and fools in a negative revenue state before you get the business off the ground right and it can't depend on the friends and family right.
• 55:00
  Speaker 1: So you know where your support coming from.
• 55:01
  Speaker 1: But there's a school of thought that I should be able to go to the commercial bank to get a loan.
• 55:13
  Speaker 1: And then there's a frustration that develops in the society when I have a business idea and I go to the bank and I try to get a business idea and I can't get the money.
• 55:15
  Speaker 1: But if I wanted a car or a carnival costume, I could get the money.
• 55:17
  Speaker 1: Your thoughts?
• 55:19
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 55:19
  Speaker 2: So this is REL Finance 101.
• 55:24
  Speaker 2: Right, at a point in time when you're starting up your company, that's a time for equity to prove your idea.
• 55:30
  Speaker 2: Once you have a proven idea, a proven approach, some history to it then is when you can look at debt financing.
• 55:37
  Speaker 2: Prior to that, that's your baby to manage.
• 55:40
  Speaker 2: So there are different aspects to it.
• 55:42
  Speaker 2: People just think the bank is money, the bank is.
• 55:45
  Speaker 2: People just think the bank is money, the bank is debt.
• 55:48
  Speaker 2: Right, they have structured products inside of there as well.
• 55:51
  Speaker 2: But when you're looking from the life cycle of an entrepreneur or small business, there's an equity cycle inside of there that needs to be addressed prior to leveraging what you're trying to do.
• 56:02
  Speaker 2: Right, so we are fairly prudent in that, so you don't get in trouble.
• 56:08
  Speaker 2: So I mean, we're not like it's not like in the US and kind of where you had a crash because our policies don't allow for something like that, right, well, no, should not.
• 56:21
  Speaker 2: And there is a simple schedule as to how we look at lending.
• 56:29
  Speaker 2: You have to be able to produce financial statements, a business plan.
• 56:33
  Speaker 2: There's some history towards it, and that is something that we embrace at RBC and financial institutions as a whole.
• 56:41
  Speaker 2: Look at it and understanding that supporting SMEs and entrepreneurs, that is the way of the future.
• 56:47
  Speaker 2: I mean, that is what you look at, but at the same time, it is not a free fall right, because you have a fantastic idea, that's great.
• 56:54
  Speaker 2: There are a lot of great ideas out there, and you need to have your own skin in the game from a financial perspective, not just an idea.
• 57:04
  Speaker 2: And this is also for developed companies and stuff like that.
• 57:07
  Speaker 2: We still look at a debt to equity participation, but at the stage the life stage and life cycle of an SME if it's upfront, if it's early, you need to have some coverage upfront.
• 57:22
  Speaker 1: I've seen some of it here right when you're seeing that development of more sort of what we call angel investors or venture capitalists.
• 57:28
  Speaker 1: You're seeing more and more of it.
• 57:30
  Speaker 1: I don't know if that was a wrong long time, maybe I just wasn't focusing on that, but now you see more companies coming micro enterprises.
• 57:36
  Speaker 1: I like that.
• 57:39
  Speaker 1: You said equity, because the equity part not bears some of the burden of that risk with you.
• 57:44
  Speaker 1: They also stay with you probably in perpetuity, whereas the bank or any debt financing option.
• 57:50
  Speaker 1: You have to prove your ability to pay them back and then when they pay me back, I'm done.
• 57:55
  Speaker 1: I release whatever hold I had on what it is.
• 57:57
  Speaker 1: So I wonder sometimes if you hear it in classes all the time young entrepreneurs and so on.
• 58:02
  Speaker 1: They're frustrated, but I try to get across to them that listen, I'm not sure if you want a bank loan before your idea is public.
• 58:09
  Speaker 2: Correct.
• 58:09
  Speaker 2: So, at the same time, the bank is much more than just lending facilities.
• 58:12
  Speaker 2: There's a lot of advice and guidance inside of it.
• 58:14
  Speaker 2: So, with the R channels built in there to help you develop your business plan, prepare your ideas, provide financial solutions.
• 58:23
  Speaker 2: So it's not like I need to borrow a dollar.
• 58:26
  Speaker 2: This is a dollar.
• 58:27
  Speaker 2: It's how it's structured, how it's done, the approach, the resources, everything.
• 58:31
  Speaker 2: And then there also is the connectivity, the ecosystem that the bank can provide.
• 58:39
  Speaker 1: Nothing beats the relationship, because if you don't have the relationship with your bank or your banker, I think you may not know that some of these services exist at all.
• 58:45
  Speaker 1: You might just think that is exactly what you said.
• 58:47
  Speaker 1: They're there to lend me money and you know guys about it.
• 58:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah but bad stories always always float right Always float to the top.
• 58:56
  Speaker 2: Bad stories always float to the top.
• 58:58
  Speaker 2: We I guess we support negativity.
• 59:02
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's just our society everywhere.
• 59:04
  Speaker 2: And it's the algorithm.
• 59:05
  Speaker 2: We focus on it.
• 59:06
  Speaker 2: We focus on it, boy, I blame it on the algorithms.
• 59:08
  Speaker 1: I blame it on the Instagram and the TikTok and the algorithms just push it up.
• 59:13
  Speaker 1: I don't even believe now that we really focus on it so much, as because so many people you know that's the things that will go viral.
• 59:20
  Speaker 1: The algorithm will just push it to me again.
• 59:22
  Speaker 1: Correct, it's the reason I don't check my phone in the morning.
• 59:24
  Speaker 1: Again, I have to, boy, you have to, I have to.
• 59:26
  Speaker 2: You know, too much bad news, but I can't take it.
• 59:32
  Speaker 2: No, but I mean, yeah, like, looking at the news and stuff, you have to the approach on a global scale, I mean from the US scale, is very haphazard.
• 59:44
  Speaker 2: Right, as a, as a, as a banker, you you get confused by some of the messaging that is coming out from a global side of things.
• 59:52
  Speaker 2: Sure, sure, sure, and you have to.
• 59:53
  Speaker 2: You just have you have to manage it.
• 59:56
  Speaker 1: Well, you say so in the beginning there, yeah, yeah, yeah, I guess that's an amount of compartmentalizing the thing and figuring that out.
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 1: I guess that's where your outlets come in, because another article I saw I remember being in Form 4 in Fatima and when you reach in Form 4, they start to tell you about this Royal Bank, young leaders or whoever was the sponsor.
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 1: It was always a Royal Bank project, right.
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 1: And I remember there was a teacher I try my best to remember his name I want to say Charles, but I know I have that wrong Dark-skinned fellow.
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 1: He used to wear glasses.
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 1: One of the coolest people, mr Joseph, that was his name.
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 1: No, not Jojo.
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 1: Jojo was Form 15.
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 1: I know him well.
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 2: I spent a lot of time in the dean's office in Form 5.
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 2: Sting up a few times.
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 2: Well, a hundred percent 100%, 100%.
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 1: I cannot forget.
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 1: May he rest in peace, can't forget it.
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 1: Sting up a few times as well, but I remember we had the young leaders to do and the teacher was telling us all the time listen, solve local problems.
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 1: Because at the time you know you're thinking big and you want to go for this thing.
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 1: He said, look, fatima here.
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 1: He said, look how many teachers tried to step up on this thing.
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 1: And they home to block on the back of the script here, let's, let's, invest on the last step here.
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 1: And I always admired that.
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 1: He would, um, almost bring it back to us.
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 1: What we know now as sustainability and all those things is the message he was sending.
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 1: Then.
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 1: You know we in our environment do something that creates something, and look what my son and them end up there now.
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 1: So anything that we do for our environment is is welcome.
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 1: And then I saw magically, markardine is bringing back young leaders and so on.
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 1: That was something that you, you went and deliberately to do was it.
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 2: Yeah, correct, because it's.
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 2: It's something that I enjoyed in my time and, uh, I asked about it a few years ago and said you know, why, don't we revisit this, because it was, I mean, really well structured, it had a lot of history.
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 2: I mean they have national medals and stuff for this thing in my office, right, and it is something that people really did embrace.
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 2: So, revamping the Young Leaders and expanding it is something that I put a lot into it myself and Nicola Guy.
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 2: It's something that I put a lot into it myself and Nicola Guy, and it's something that young people really do, I guess, focus on now, because not only is there competition, it's through positivity right.
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 2: So it expanded into Bahamas and Cayman last year.
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 2: I think we'll be touching Barbados this year.
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 2: Sorry, kendra Ann.
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 2: This year, I mean I have a lot going on, sorry, kendra Ann.
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 2: This year, I mean I have a lot going on, I'm getting old.
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 1: I need a wing mirror.
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 1: I'm getting old, I'm getting old, I'm getting old.
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 2: I'm getting old, I agree.
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 2: So, and then next year, I think, we're going to include Barbados as well.
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 2: Okay, nice, Because it is.
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 2: It is again about nurturing, nurturing.
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 2: It is again about nurturing minds and enabling ideas and good money spent.
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's how I see it.
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 1: So it's still ongoing now.
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 1: It's something that you're into too.
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 2: So we have a lot of people that are coming out of the woodwork, as you know, everything.
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 2: When it's starting back up, everybody looks at your kind of side eye and I'm like, no, this is going to work Right.
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 2: So at your kind of side eye and I'm like, no, this is going to work right.
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 2: So, yep, yes, and it is.
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it is part of the entire sustainability initiative that we have, and sustainability is not something that you know, we have to look at through a singular lens.
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 2: It is life I mean korea and I have kids.
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 2: It is, you know, what we do for them, and not only from our physical aspect, from our mentality, from our understanding of how to approach certain things.
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 2: And, yeah, I do enjoy it.
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 2: It's a lot judging these things.
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 2: I mean, they're smarter than we are by far.
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 1: Is that a different ball game?
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 2: Oh no man, we, I mean, you don't feel.
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 2: I remember growing tomatoes and salve, that's it.
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 1: You're trying to get back into farming.
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 2: They're measuring pH.
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 2: I'm like pH Soil barrel salve yeah, water it in the morning.
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 2: But the thing is it's embedding that aspect of behavior into the young people from early on and really good, uh, good focus, good attention to it, and we will continue to expand in that realm.
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 2: Right, I mean fantastic schools for fantastic performance by by a lot of them.
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 2: Um, one comes to mind manzan alert.
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I, I mean amazing, right, right, so again widespread buy-in from the schools.
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 1: That participate.
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, so we actually get roughed up by schools for not inviting them, of course, because there's a limitation in the budget and the aspect right yeah of course, and then also you get a lot of engagement for your staff and your teams as well, because people want to help.
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 2: It's just people want to be given the option to help.
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 2: Everybody doesn't have the engineering to go and create something to themselves so being a part, being a part of it and being part of a structured environment.
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 2: It does help for them and, uh, I mean I love what it does for the people that are involved right, the chaperones and whatnot, the teachers as well, so it's great.
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I guess you know when you learn it in school.
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 1: Your MBA was Henley too.
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah, finance as well, correct, he wasn't playing with his finance thing.
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 1: So one of the things that he learned sustainability and so on in MBA program what you call it CSR a little bit long time.
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 1: You know.
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 1: They always treated it back then At least maybe that's the way I interpreted it Like okay, we are doing something for the community.
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 1: But I like the fact they brought in the team's level of engagement, because when you do them things.
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 1: Sometimes it's so fulfilling for us as individuals.
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 1: You know I, you know I come from St James.
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 1: I'm glad to have St James.
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 1: I get involved in it if it was my business.
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 1: I want to win.
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 1: I want them to do great, you know.
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 1: But I want Fatima, I want to see.
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 2: Fatima, yeah, so you get everybody in the bank supporting their schools and wanting to help and it works out really well, of course.
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 1: That's why I had to ask you, because if I am the manager of the bank, right, you bring up Manzanilla and not doing no beach cleanup.
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 1: I might cut a spot out to the end, right, but I ain't doing it.
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 1: But I seen you everywhere.
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 1: It's not a beach cleanup, you involved.
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 1: You can't hide neither Boy.
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 2: No, because I mean, that's just something that look, at the end of the day, corey, I am a physically large person.
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 2: I can do a lot physically, not only mentally.
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 2: Make that work Right and you have to get out there and help.
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 2: You have to get out there and give of your time, give of yourself, give of your presence and generate that energy for other people to ride along right.
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 2: People think by signing a check, you know that ends the worries.
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 2: No, people still need to enable an action, what you're funding.
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 2: So that's a big part of it.
• 1:06:45
  Speaker 2: You have to give of yourself.
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 2: If you are lucky enough to be in a certain circle and live a certain way, you have to try to enable others around you in that same respect.
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's fundamental.
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 1: So that's something you just take on personally, isn't?
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 1: It yeah, yeah, yeah, with the bank's initiative, so that's something you just take on personally.
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, with the bank's initiative.
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 1: That's part of the sustainability drive as well correct, correct.
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 2: So I mean what I mean?
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 2: I have lots of, lots of uh, I guess, lots of facets of it that you want to develop.
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 2: So the beach cleanups and stuff are integral to our annual um.
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 2: It's an annual program that we have not only internet throughout the, so we do a lot there.
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 2: I think we did four, four or five areas this year.
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 2: We got attacked by, I mean, bird-sized mosquitoes on the foreshore this year.
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 2: I have never seen anything like it before.
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 2: It was ridiculous.
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 1: Right there on the foreshore.
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah, right there on the foreshore.
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 2: But I mean the engagement and getting the teams out there to help and provide a hand is, you know, it's very rewarding on multiple levels.
• 1:07:49
  Speaker 2: But at the same time Ian is generating that sort of understanding, you know, and building those behaviors.
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 2: Because I despise seeing litter, because I despise seeing litter.
• 1:08:04
  Speaker 2: You know you go to like Damien's Bay in Blanchard Shares and you see this mountain of litter in the back there.
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 2: My boys avoid Damien's Bay now because of it and because of the fact that they know that the three of us going to work and clean that stuff up and put it in the trunk and go.
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 2: I understand.
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 2: So they're like Dad, we're not going to the beach, we're going to clean up garbage, and you know they know better.
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 2: But to see it, it frustrates them, right, of course, and we need to do better.
• 1:08:28
  Speaker 2: I mean, what?
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 2: How do you expect this thing to be disposed of?
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 2: Who is going to handle it?
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 2: You have to handle the sustainability and these initiatives on your own.
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 1: I appreciate you saying that because, again, especially against the backdrop of the, trinidad is not a real place.
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 1: Trinidad is not a foolishness.
• 1:08:45
  Speaker 1: It can be real if we don't want to.
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 1: You know, yeah, we have to do it.
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 1: This notion that somebody else could do it is always a strange one for me.
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 1: But I was there so I understand where people are.
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 1: So my son points out that to me.
• 1:08:56
  Speaker 1: He said, dad, this guy, he's always doing that beach cleanup.
• 1:09:01
  Speaker 1: He's really in the back.
• 1:09:01
  Speaker 1: That's like, yeah, that's what it is.
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 1: So the impression that you're leaving on your son's doing it as well as no, you have to.
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 2: You have to, you have to again give of your time.
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 2: You know it.
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 2: Also it's a form of catharsis as well.
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 2: Right, uh, to center yourself in that.
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 2: And you know, doing physical work with people it also normalizes your, your being.
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 2: It deflates you a bit, which is important.
• 1:09:25
  Speaker 2: They have a lot of people walking around here um, floating is what I would say.
• 1:09:31
  Speaker 2: You know in a better realm, and then bubbles need to be popped a little bit and come down.
• 1:09:37
  Speaker 2: Come down to real life, because you know you're just everybody's just a person, unless you try to get this place to be a better one of course I'm with you.
• 1:09:45
  Speaker 1: I'm with you when you get back to kendra.
• 1:09:48
  Speaker 1: Kendra's uneasy in the seat a little bit, yeah, yeah, she's wriggling, she's wriggling a little calm for the last five, ten minutes forex yeah, yeah, let's make us wet a little bit so the complaint again is well, everybody seeing what the issues with forex right, right, a macro issue, if anything, but again the individual who go into the bank to get money to travel is becoming a bigger and bigger complaint over time.
• 1:10:12
  Speaker 1: While there might be credit card facilities or different things you could go and spend, people still want to feel like they could come to the bank buy a couple thousand US.
• 1:10:18
  Speaker 1: How are you all responding to that as a business?
• 1:10:21
  Speaker 2: So the circulation of foreign currency comes from conversions as well as the central bank interventions.
• 1:10:28
  Speaker 2: That is how foreign exchange is circulated throughout the formal financial institutions system on a formal basis.
• 1:10:35
  Speaker 2: What we have to be very aware of is the lifestyle that we have developed over time has changed considerably.
• 1:10:44
  Speaker 2: So you know, when we were younger KFC was a once in a while.
• 1:10:48
  Speaker 2: Versus anytime, we feel now that costs for an exchange that doesn't cost TT Dolphins, the importation and our food bills, our, you know, the purchase of cars, everything factors in here Our ability to travel.
• 1:11:05
  Speaker 2: You know, when you were small you remember somebody going to New.
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 2: York once and it's a big thing that's fairly standardized now.
• 1:11:12
  Speaker 2: So when you're looking at that and the requirements that people are putting on for an exchange, you know banks are the conduit of what is available, not always the producers of what is available.
• 1:11:26
  Speaker 2: People need to understand that the economy and the system they are the producers of it, sure.
• 1:11:32
  Speaker 2: So when we talk about, you know, diversification, cocoa and pepper and whatnot that is the producer.
• 1:11:39
  Speaker 2: The producer then goes through the conduit which is the financial institutions.
• 1:11:46
  Speaker 2: So, with regards to the allocation of foreign exchange, they have different channels.
• 1:11:49
  Speaker 2: They have the corporate channels, which is from SME straight up.
• 1:11:54
  Speaker 2: You also look at the personal levels.
• 1:11:56
  Speaker 2: You have walk-in, you have call-in clients and it's really a function of availability what is there and we cannot carve up what is not available.
• 1:12:07
  Speaker 2: So I mean, I think we do a really good job on allocations and understanding.
• 1:12:13
  Speaker 2: All right, this is how we fragment our clientele Education, healthcare, travel that's on the personal side of things.
• 1:12:22
  Speaker 2: And then on the business, you look at your medical aspects, you look at your importers and you fracture it along those lines.
• 1:12:29
  Speaker 1: Understand.
• 1:12:30
  Speaker 1: So you looking at something that will tell you, okay, it was not just the amount people asking for, but the purpose of it and making sense of this.
• 1:12:37
  Speaker 1: Correct the purpose is really important.
• 1:12:40
  Speaker 1: I thought the only purpose was Miami, but it makes sense.
• 1:12:44
  Speaker 2: No man, you have medical needs.
• 1:12:46
  Speaker 1: It's critical you have education.
• 1:12:50
  Speaker 2: You have certain aspects in the commercial realm that need to be satisfied, because take, for example, what do we do on medical treatment?
• 1:12:58
  Speaker 2: Those things have to be allocated for upfront and prioritized.
• 1:13:02
  Speaker 2: Now, people will take the commercial aspect of it and try to grow a business, but at the same time, we need to manage multiple facets of this thing.
• 1:13:10
  Speaker 2: So our consumption patterns also need to be addressed.
• 1:13:15
  Speaker 2: Right, so we can't just say no, right, you need to facilitate and work towards, you know, ensuring that there's stuff on our shelves.
• 1:13:26
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I feel as though in the market from the consumption side, because if you start there, I stand to see that change happening.
• 1:13:33
  Speaker 1: Oh, yeah, yeah, because there was a point in time I like to bring up KFC.
• 1:13:36
  Speaker 1: There was a point in time.
• 1:13:37
  Speaker 1: Every two, three months you're seeing a new franchise opening here, all kinds of different food businesses for things that I don't know that the Trinidad and Tobago market was wanting.
• 1:13:48
  Speaker 2: An appetite for.
• 1:13:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't know if you had an appetite for it at all, like I'm not sure.
• 1:13:52
  Speaker 1: As you say, when we're growing up you might get that every now and again.
• 1:13:56
  Speaker 1: It was a treat, you know, see, correct?
• 1:14:04
  Speaker 1: Uh, I feel as though we slowly but surely going back there and are judging that.
• 1:14:06
  Speaker 1: From when you go on the avenue or by the savannah, you see it in eddie hart grounds or kuva, or salt on the cross you're seeing much more homegrown businesses selling food, correct?
• 1:14:14
  Speaker 1: Somebody might have tried to buy a franchise back in the day correct.
• 1:14:17
  Speaker 2: So you're seeing a lot of that is, more small business development, smaller media business development, but but at the same time a lot of the ingredients going into those things are imported.
• 1:14:27
  Speaker 2: I suppose, yeah, so you have to pay, you know, you have to pay attention to that.
• 1:14:30
  Speaker 2: The frames that these food stalls are made of imported, yeah, the ingredients, a lot of them imported.
• 1:14:37
  Speaker 2: So that's why the support of local companies, local producers, is critical as well.
• 1:14:43
  Speaker 2: But at the same time, you cannot forget the people that do a trade business in any form or fashion, because that is how we live, that's our lifestyle, that is how we facilitate, I guess, everyday activities.
• 1:14:56
  Speaker 2: On this we're an island.
• 1:14:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah well, even at adam abud here a couple ago and he was talking about him and Adam's Bakery adjusting ingredients, just the same thing he's saying, like things that they were using kiwi for, he's trying sapodilla now.
• 1:15:10
  Speaker 1: So I think the markets and the business people will continue to adjust.
• 1:15:14
  Speaker 2: And that is part of the mindset that drove me into agriculture and Okori Understanding how we eat, what we do, how we create that environment and support that environment to be more business geared and business minded.
• 1:15:29
  Speaker 2: Right, because, all right, look at a tomato farmer.
• 1:15:32
  Speaker 2: Tomatoes are, I would say, around 20, 25 dollars a pound.
• 1:15:37
  Speaker 2: Now you can reach as low as two, you know, and you can reach as high as 40.
• 1:15:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I see as more than kingfish, right?
• 1:15:46
  Speaker 2: So how do we accommodate for these spikes?
• 1:15:51
  Speaker 2: Right, do we introduce a little bit more production in it?
• 1:15:56
  Speaker 2: So you're looking at, you know, byproducts of it.
• 1:15:59
  Speaker 2: How do we work with our agricultural sector?
• 1:16:02
  Speaker 2: How do we work with our natural resources, separate from our oil and gas, into a more sustainable environment?
• 1:16:08
  Speaker 2: Right, because?
• 1:16:09
  Speaker 2: So, when you look at the macro side of it, the carbon footprint of bringing all these things is real as well, right?
• 1:16:14
  Speaker 2: So, also, covid showed us how supply chain impact can cripple us yeah, we had to feed ourselves at some point no, but we'll never be able to, so we need to understand that.
• 1:16:25
  Speaker 2: So focal points need to be on what we can isolate and do very well.
• 1:16:29
  Speaker 1: I'm with you, alright, so maybe I leave this for last, because I'm a complete goof when it comes to technology, but in terms of fintech, we've been seeing a lot of changes again.
• 1:16:41
  Speaker 1: Let me just talk about interbank transfers and those things which have become way simpler now.
• 1:16:46
  Speaker 1: That's about that's me leaping into fintech.
• 1:16:49
  Speaker 1: You see an ACH transaction.
• 1:16:50
  Speaker 1: That's as techie as I get.
• 1:16:52
  Speaker 1: So when I hear things like digital currency or things like Bitcoin, or even new companies now that we see an emerging which didn't last maybe 10 years, like things like WePay and so on, that are giving you alternatives to cash, alternatives to bank, it's something you'll focus on and spend a lot of your time on.
• 1:17:09
  Speaker 2: That, I mean yeah, personally and professionally right.
• 1:17:12
  Speaker 2: So you want to understand how the environment is changing, how the industry is changing and how we can make it work.
• 1:17:17
  Speaker 2: But, at the end of the day, there is a regulatory framework we operate in.
• 1:17:24
  Speaker 2: We need to adhere to that, and that regulatory framework is built off of many aspects, including compliance.
• 1:17:30
  Speaker 2: Know your client, understand what's going on.
• 1:17:33
  Speaker 2: The upside to fintech is real.
• 1:17:36
  Speaker 2: The downside is real as well.
• 1:17:37
  Speaker 2: The financial sector and that word stability is real.
• 1:17:41
  Speaker 2: Macro gains for, uh, certain aspects is not something that we should really focus on, because macro gains breeds instability as well and more risk.
• 1:17:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and understanding what you are investing in, understanding what you're doing, is key.
• 1:17:57
  Speaker 2: There's a lot of talk going around about different investment platforms and stuff.
• 1:18:02
  Speaker 2: I'm not gonna name anybody but, people?
• 1:18:05
  Speaker 2: people know, don't?
• 1:18:06
  Speaker 2: We need to be cautious in that respect.
• 1:18:11
  Speaker 2: Yeah, these uh get rich quick schemes are things to be addressed in very short order.
• 1:18:19
  Speaker 2: You're, you're, you're clipping onto people's dreams and just taking them away in in one simple transfer, right?
• 1:18:26
  Speaker 2: So I mean, at rbc, we are very well entrenched into, I I guess, how we can embrace fintech.
• 1:18:34
  Speaker 2: What do we do?
• 1:18:34
  Speaker 2: Uh, our ai platforms are, uh, through the enterprise level and I mean, and I mean they're very strong and looking at what the future can hold.
• 1:18:47
  Speaker 2: You can't really even map that out right now.
• 1:18:49
  Speaker 2: So it's understanding step-by-step, how the transition is happening, what we're looking at, what we're doing, and understanding that Trinidad, you know we're a little bit behind the curve holistically and we need to do a little better on embracing what technology well, fintech has to offer.
• 1:19:08
  Speaker 2: At the same time, we need to be cautious as to what fintech can take from us.
• 1:19:14
  Speaker 1: Of course, and that's both from an institution as well as individuals.
• 1:19:17
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, without a doubt.
• 1:19:20
  Speaker 2: So Bitcoin, yeah, digital currency, those are fantastic approaches to it.
• 1:19:26
  Speaker 2: The conduit is what you have to look at.
• 1:19:28
  Speaker 2: Got you the process, the implementation, that sort of stuff.
• 1:19:32
  Speaker 2: That's what you have to look at.
• 1:19:33
  Speaker 2: The concept is real.
• 1:19:35
  Speaker 2: How you enable it is something you have to look at.
• 1:19:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I guess I would have read Lily Days of Buffett when he started publishing and I remember him talking about not investing in anything he don't understand, Correct.
• 1:19:48
  Speaker 1: I was kind of like I don't have Buffett money yet, but because it's too dark a year for me.
• 1:19:55
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I feel it's easy to take David Buffett every time I do it.
• 1:19:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, you don't set up shrimp, it's easy.
• 1:20:02
  Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly, introduce guests and so on.
• 1:20:04
  Speaker 1: You know it's easy.
• 1:20:05
  Speaker 1: But your role as managing director now I would imagine that a lot of it has to in a global context, responsible for Trinidad and Tobago, or is it regional?
• 1:20:14
  Speaker 1: Trinidad, trinidad, so your meetings usually are regional or you have global.
• 1:20:18
  Speaker 2: Both you.
• 1:20:46
  Speaker 2: You have everything, you're tied into everything.
• 1:20:47
  Speaker 2: Turn that globally based on what you're working on.
• 1:20:49
  Speaker 2: So there are certain facets that are coming through from ourize it for our culture, our people and how we do things here, while still keeping the processes in play, but ensuring that the messaging comes across strongly I with you.
• 1:20:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah, because I was gonna say I will listen.
• 1:20:58
  Speaker 1: This will be very, very trinidad.
• 1:21:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah, without a doubt, man, yeah, yeah so you have to know how to navigate it right.
• 1:21:04
  Speaker 2: So people will you know when they see you.
• 1:21:07
  Speaker 2: They don't think you're Trinidadian until you speak right, and then your behavior is also cellular.
• 1:21:13
  Speaker 2: But you have to be relatable and you have to be able to relay what you want in a very concise and eloquent way.
• 1:21:24
  Speaker 2: Right, you have to be factual and you have to be logical in your approach, right.
• 1:21:27
  Speaker 2: Right, you know so.
• 1:21:30
  Speaker 1: So, even though you're against the backdrop of a market like canada that might be advancing differently, particularly with fintech, you you take into consideration what we do here.
• 1:21:38
  Speaker 1: What's our culture?
• 1:21:38
  Speaker 1: Yeah, without a doubt Correct.
• 1:21:40
  Speaker 2: So our approach to say KYC to you know, online banking got a lot of noise many years ago, but that is standard now.
• 1:21:53
  Speaker 2: Right, yeah?
• 1:21:54
  Speaker 2: So you look at the advancement and the timing of these advancements and how you embrace and how you message around.
• 1:22:00
  Speaker 2: So Kendra Ann is the wordsmith and sends a message out and you know she just says, sign that.
• 1:22:07
  Speaker 1: She gets it done.
• 1:22:07
  Speaker 1: Maybe I should ask Kendra Ann this question.
• 1:22:09
  Speaker 1: Kendra Ann, let me ask you something right?
• 1:22:10
  Speaker 1: For some strange reason, every time they have a get-rich-quick scheme going on, right?
• 1:22:15
  Speaker 1: I was the last to find out, because I want to be one of these people who get in early somewhere and come back as Buffett and then we can have a different conversation.
• 1:22:27
  Speaker 1: But you don't answer that.
• 1:22:28
  Speaker 2: So I mean, I will tell you I get upset at myself for not buying Apple stock and Bitcoin Means of writing about.
• 1:22:35
  Speaker 1: DSS and listening.
• 1:22:36
  Speaker 1: I don't think that.
• 1:22:41
  Speaker 2: You know, but I listen to Sizzler and go into class.
• 1:22:47
  Speaker 1: You can get a piece of that done.
• 1:22:49
  Speaker 1: Yes, I'll tell him.
• 1:22:50
  Speaker 1: Is that it how?
• 1:22:53
  Speaker 1: Much did you get None Bought shoes.
• 1:22:56
  Speaker 1: What do you mean?
• 1:22:57
  Speaker 1: A Jordan 7?
• 1:22:58
  Speaker 1: An Air Force 1?.
• 1:22:59
  Speaker 2: Listen to me my first paycheck in New York.
• 1:23:02
  Speaker 2: I remember it well.
• 1:23:05
  Speaker 2: I went to Woodbury Commons with Philip Williams and some friends, dominic Shepard and I bought a garbage bag of clogs.
• 1:23:19
  Speaker 2: I thought that was a wholesome investment.
• 1:23:23
  Speaker 2: I just told them I thought I was a wholesome investment.
• 1:23:26
  Speaker 2: I just told them I thought I was a baller.
• 1:23:27
  Speaker 2: I said I need every size 13 you have.
• 1:23:30
  Speaker 2: Bring it out.
• 1:23:33
  Speaker 1: Well, listen the investment pain dividends up to today Because I say it's one of the coolest men I've ever known Ever.
• 1:23:39
  Speaker 2: Garbage bags.
• 1:23:40
  Speaker 2: Listen to me Terrible, Terrible, Terrible.
• 1:23:47
  Speaker 2: You know that was the time.
• 1:23:48
  Speaker 2: You know when it is when you come back out there.
• 1:23:50
  Speaker 2: Chris Clark's nothing beats that.
• 1:23:51
  Speaker 1: At all, at all.
• 1:23:52
  Speaker 1: Nothing beats that.
• 1:23:54
  Speaker 1: So, just before we wrap up that, the role of managing director, I guess, is newish.
• 1:23:59
  Speaker 1: I suppose it all is moving fast, same as you're feeling like you're there forever, something you're enjoying, something you're comfortable doing.
• 1:24:05
  Speaker 2: yeah, no, very comfortable, very comfortable, right so you have to put your own personality into the realm and what you want to see from it, what you want to achieve from it and the direction that you want the bank to go.
• 1:24:17
  Speaker 2: I mean, there is a direction that is going to go, but your impact on it and how you reach out to the market, how you relay that messaging out there.
• 1:24:28
  Speaker 2: Um, for me, it is one of, you know, stability, understanding that the bank is very, a very strong global enterprise.
• 1:24:40
  Speaker 2: And, uh, we do understand what's going on here, right, we do understand the market, we do understand the region as a whole and the resources that are available to us can enable fantastic strength and growth throughout the region.
• 1:24:56
  Speaker 2: But you also want to have fun.
• 1:24:59
  Speaker 2: So for me, it is about embracing who the RBC family is here and, you know, bringing a voice to that.
• 1:25:08
  Speaker 2: And you know we've done a lot.
• 1:25:11
  Speaker 2: Had a thought about it growing up, never thought about it in my professional career, but now you understand that you have a platform to make a change.
• 1:25:31
  Speaker 2: You have a platform to do a lot, so don't waste it.
• 1:25:34
  Speaker 2: Right, use that as the key to development throughout.
• 1:25:40
  Speaker 2: Use that to you know.
• 1:25:41
  Speaker 2: Direct the resources, direct the time, direct the energy, use that to you know.
• 1:25:43
  Speaker 2: Direct the resources, direct the time, direct the energy towards what is important to you, what is important to Trinidad, what is important for the company.
• 1:25:50
  Speaker 1: I'll tell you this, right From my perspective, it feels good to see one of us there.
• 1:25:55
  Speaker 1: You know, as a fatty mama, as a man who's known me for a long time, I see the announcements as they go on over time and it feels good when somebody says you know, jadina, I said talk to him.
• 1:26:06
  Speaker 1: I tell people now all the time.
• 1:26:07
  Speaker 1: And people who in finance, or tell you a little bit, I neck man, or people say I don't know if he's a hype, people say boy, I said boy, talk to him I try to show it with his shoes, but they don't take it on.
• 1:26:18
  Speaker 2: Bring back all the bag of clocks.
• 1:26:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I actually do have a few.
• 1:26:22
  Speaker 1: If that ain't good, sharpen the knife and tell him talk to me.
• 1:26:27
  Speaker 1: I say yeah, of course.
• 1:26:31
  Speaker 2: You know I'll try that.
• 1:26:31
  Speaker 2: Can't you be doing that the rest of this week?
• 1:26:34
  Speaker 2: Nice, beautiful beautiful.
• 1:26:38
  Speaker 1: Listen, mark.
• 1:26:38
  Speaker 1: Thanks very much, thank you.
• 1:26:39
  Speaker 1: We do, we do okay, we do.
• 1:26:41
  Speaker 1: Thanks a billion, brother.
• 1:26:42
  Speaker 1: Appreciate you, kenny.
• 1:26:44
  Speaker 1: We do, we do okay, we do, that's brilliant brother.
• 1:26:45
  Speaker 2: This was a pleasure.
• 1:26:45
  Speaker 1: I appreciate it, my brother, Always Thank you.