If you want­ed to talk to Don­ald Trump's daugh­ter, Ivan­ka, you could track down her of­fice num­ber and call her up for a chat. War­ren Cas­sell Jnr did just that when he de­cid­ed to ask the fa­mous busi­ness­woman and heiress to be his men­tor.

Al­though it took him more than a year to get Ivan­ka on the phone, she agreed to his re­quest. But this should come as no sur­prise.

At just 15, Cas­sell, who vis­it­ed T&T re­cent­ly for a num­ber of speak­ing en­gage­ments, is al­ready an ex­pe­ri­enced in­vestor, au­thor and en­tre­pre­neur from Montser­rat. At eight, with a cap­i­tal in­vest­ment from his par­ents, he launched his own greet­ing-card and graph­ic-de­sign com­pa­ny.

He then em­barked on a num­ber of oth­er ven­tures in­clud­ing an ap­pli­ca­tion de­vel­op­ment firm and a Web host­ing ser­vice provider. By the time he was 13, he was al­ready in­vest­ing in com­pa­nies and do­ing busi­ness with firms and clients all over the world.

Cas­sell is al­so the au­thor of The Farm of Wis­dom: 25 Un­for­get­table Tales that Will Ig­nite a Wis­er You, and Swim or Drown: Busi­ness and Life Lessons I've Learned from the Ocean.

His trip to this coun­try in­clud­ed sev­er­al ac­tiv­i­ties with the Laven­tille-based NGO We are Bet­ter Youth (Wa­by). Wa­by and the Wa­by Says "YES!!!" pro­gramme cater to chil­dren be­tween five and 16 and fo­cus­es on pro­vid­ing op­por­tu­ni­ties for young peo­ple from high-risk com­mu­ni­ties to de­vel­op en­tre­pre­neur­ial at­ti­tudes, skills and com­pe­ten­cies.

While he was here Cas­sell paid a cour­tesy call to out­go­ing RBC Caribbean Bank­ing CEO, Suresh Sookoo. A re­lease from RBC said the bank has been a long-stand­ing sup­port­er of Wa­by's work and agreed to fund Cas­sell's vis­it to Trinidad. Dur­ing their meet­ing Sookoo con­grat­u­lat­ed the young­ster on his achieve­ments and en­cour­aged him to con­tin­ue striv­ing for ex­cel­lence.

"You are a great in­spi­ra­tion to young peo­ple not just in T&T, but through­out the Caribbean. In the re­gion we are see­ing that many young men are not liv­ing up to their full po­ten­tial and it is very heart­en­ing to see some­one, as young as you are, mak­ing a pos­i­tive dif­fer­ence," Sookoo said. "In the fu­ture we hope that you can work with the bank's Young Lead­ers Pro­gramme be­cause that is where we are mak­ing an in­vest­ment in teenagers and equip­ping them to max­imise their po­ten­tial."

Cas­sell's lat­est com­pa­ny is called the Abel­la Group, and was formed to man­age his own as­sets and to give him an op­por­tu­ni­ty to de­vel­op his skills as an in­vestor. His ul­ti­mate goal is to use the lessons he will learn at the helm of his own com­pa­ny to start an in­vest­ment bank for mi­nori­ties which will pro­vide them with ac­cess to a place where they can make a sound in­vest­ment.

But while he en­joys learn­ing the ins and outs of the fi­nan­cial world, the teen is equal­ly thrilled when­ev­er he gets to talk to his peers.

He said, "I want to help oth­ers dis­cov­er their po­ten­tial and to lead mean­ing­ful lives."

This is what mo­ti­vat­ed him to ac­cept Wa­by's in­vi­ta­tion to ad­dress scores of young peo­ple and share his thoughts on lead­er­ship and en­tre­pre­neur­ship.

For 14-year-old Shaqua­na Ed­wards, par­tic­i­pat­ing in Wa­by's en­tre­pre­neur­ial pro­gramme and hear­ing Cas­sell's sto­ry strength­ened her re­solve to re­main fo­cused on suc­cess.

"There are things that we have learnt here that have helped me to grow and to be­come more dis­ci­plined. I learnt the im­por­tance of sav­ing and mak­ing wise fi­nan­cial choic­es," Ed­wards said. "Peo­ple talk about be­ing judged be­cause you are from Laven­tille, but that does not af­fect me. I do not have the time to study oth­er peo­ple. I am just fo­cussed on do­ing the best that I can."

Cas­sell is al­so fo­cused. He's man­ag­ing all of his busi­ness­es with a hec­tic school sched­ule which sees him sit­ting eight Caribbean Sec­ondary Ed­u­ca­tion Cer­tifi­cate sub­jects in June, along with the Caribbean Ad­vanced Pro­fi­cien­cy Ex­am­i­na­tion in Eco­nom­ics.

But the work­load does not de­ter him.

He said, "Some­times you have to have a ridicu­lous dream; some­thing that peo­ple will think could nev­er hap­pen. For me I see my suc­cess as a du­ty and not an op­tion, so if I have to get up re­al­ly ear­ly or go to bed late, I am will­ing to make the sac­ri­fice. I am push­ing."