Cherisse Moe

What does it take to make it to the top? Well, just ask Sta­cy Raphael Stew­art be­cause she seems to have all the nec­es­sary in­gre­di­ents. A self-pro­claimed worka­holic, this Tri­ni girl who con­tin­ues to climb the cor­po­rate lad­der has made quite a name for her­self in Amer­i­ca's fast-paced en­ter­tain­ment in­dus­try, rub­bing shoul­ders with the best of 'em–from renowned US pro­duc­ers to song­writ­ers to mu­sic ex­ec­u­tives. Now that she's in high de­mand, with her very own Raphael Stew­art Law Group, LLC, spe­cial­is­ing in trade­mark, copy­right, en­ter­tain­ment and sport, this en­ter­tain­ment lawyer's goal is to give back to the coun­try of her birth and let the world know that Trin­bag­o­ni­ans can make it amongst the best in the world. "Peo­ple are al­ways telling me that I'm an am­bas­sador for T&T," she said. I'm al­ways talk­ing about the tal­ent we have here," she as­sert­ed.

A promise be­comes re­al­i­ty

Raphael Stew­art is so good at what she does, it's hard to be­lieve that law was nev­er on her "to do" list. "When I was 13, my grandad, Thomas Boney, called me in­to his room on his death bed. One of the last things he said to me was that I should en­rol in Hugh Wood­ing Law School. Just to make him hap­py, I said 'ok grand­dad. I promise that's what I'll do,'" she re­called. The 2002 grad­u­ate of South Car­oli­na State Uni­ver­si­ty, who holds a ma­jor in Com­put­er Sci­ence and a mi­nor in Math and Busi­ness, did not know it then but that promise would be­come re­al­i­ty. An alum­ni of Howard Uni­ver­si­ty School of Law, the for­mer Trinci­ty res­i­dent, who said she "fell in love with law," grad­u­at­ed in the top 15 per cent of her class and land­ed a spot on the pres­ti­gious Howard Law Jour­nal.

By her sec­ond year, this hum­ble lass was one of the jour­nal's se­nior ed­i­tors. Flex­ing her le­gal mus­cles, as a young lawyer, Raphael Stew­art was one of the con­sul­tants cho­sen to con­duct a fact-gath­er­ing ex­er­cise on the high­ly con­tro­ver­sial and pub­li­cised En­ron fi­as­co in 2002, dur­ing a short stint at Al­ston & Bird, LLP–one of the largest and most pres­ti­gious law firms in the US.

The En­ron scan­dal, which broke in Oc­to­ber, 2001, in­volved en­er­gy com­pa­ny En­ron and the ac­count­ing, au­dit­ing, and con­sul­tan­cy part­ner­ship of Arthur An­der­sen. The scan­dal even­tu­al­ly led to En­ron's down­fall, re­sult­ing in the largest bank­rupt­cy in Amer­i­can his­to­ry at the time. Raphael Stew­art al­so worked at top in­tel­lec­tu­al prop­er­ty firm Kil­patrick Stock­ton, LLP.

Pas­sion and de­ter­mi­na­tion

While her tale may seem like a Cin­derel­la sto­ry, the 29-year-old was quick to point out that her jour­ney to suc­cess was not with­out life's usu­al hur­dles. "There were mo­ments when I've cried be­cause I couldn't see where I was go­ing. It's im­por­tant to have that pas­sion and de­ter­mi­na­tion," she re­veals. And de­ter­mined she was. Vivid­ly re­mem­ber­ing the days when she would at­tend char­i­ty shows host­ed by big names in US en­ter­tain­ment as a means of mak­ing con­tacts for her bud­ding busi­ness, she said "Some­times I work 24 hours a day, sev­en days a week. But I love what I do and it's very re­ward­ing."

The 5'9" beau­ty cred­its her will to suc­ceed to her un­wa­ver­ing faith, fam­i­ly "es­pe­cial­ly my grand­moth­er, Rose boney,"–and men­tors Neil New­man, Warn­er Law­son Jr, La­tees Mti­ma and W Sher­man Rogers.

Busy as a bee

A true Tri­ni to the bone, the co-founder of the re­cent­ly launched mu­sic and sport man­age­ment com­pa­ny Wish Cre­ative, LLC is busy as a bee these days. Along with mul­ti-plat­inum, Gram­my-Award-win­ning pro­duc­er DJ Toomp and US brand man­ag­er Kim­ber­ly Wil­son, she's cur­rent­ly work­ing with two-time Ja­maican Olympic medal­ist and record­ing artiste Shevon Stod­dart, who she dubbed "the next big fe­male Caribbean artiste." Al­so in the works is a ma­jor project with Paul Ring, CEO of Bun­ga­lo Records, the de­tails of which she could not let out of the bag just yet. "But it's go­ing to be big!" she promis­es. "Hope­ful­ly, this Car­ni­val, I'll have one of the biggest pro­duc­ers and writ­ers in Trinidad. As my jour­ney con­tin­ues, I want to let peo­ple know about this pool of tal­ent in our mu­sic. I want to see more Heather Headleys and Machel Mon­tanos," she said. "We de­serve a shot to prove that we have what it takes." Sta­cy Raphael Stew­art is in­deed a shin­ing ex­am­ple of what hard work can bring. And she's not even 30 yet. Look out, world!