Ig­natius S Fer­reira, chair­man emer­i­tus of the Fur­ness Group of Com­pa­nies, has died at the age of 98, end­ing a ca­reer span­ning more than sev­en decades with one of Trinidad and To­ba­go’s most promi­nent busi­ness groups.

His death was an­nounced to staff in a mem­o­ran­dum is­sued on Fri­day by Group Chair­man and Chief Ex­ec­u­tive Of­fi­cer William A. Fer­reira, who said the com­pa­ny was mourn­ing the loss while ex­press­ing “im­mense grat­i­tude for a life tru­ly well lived.”

Fer­reira’s as­so­ci­a­tion with Fur­ness be­gan in 1945 when, at just 17 years old, he joined the com­pa­ny as an of­fice boy.

Ac­cord­ing to the mem­o­ran­dum, his ca­reer was “in­sep­a­ra­ble from the very fab­ric and his­to­ry of Fur­ness.”

Over the decades, he worked in ship­ping, hard­ware, sales and ac­counts be­fore ris­ing through the ranks to be­come sales di­rec­tor, joint man­ag­ing di­rec­tor and even­tu­al­ly chair­man and CEO.

The com­pa­ny said his as­cent was dri­ven by “sheer de­ter­mi­na­tion, sharp in­tel­lect and an un­par­al­leled work eth­ic,” while his “nat­ur­al lead­er­ship and vi­sion” helped pro­pel him to the high­est lev­els of the or­gan­i­sa­tion.

Fer­reira al­so played a piv­otal role in trans­form­ing Fur­ness in­to a lo­cal­ly owned com­pa­ny.

At a time when the group was owned by Fur­ness Withy in Lon­don, it said he “pos­sessed the courage and fore­sight to chart our own des­tiny,” the mem­o­ran­dum stat­ed.

In 1985, Fer­reira “or­ches­trat­ed the ac­qui­si­tion of the for­eign in­ter­est,” lo­cal­is­ing the busi­ness and even­tu­al­ly in­creas­ing his own­er­ship stake to 99.9 per cent.

The com­pa­ny cred­it­ed him with trans­form­ing Fur­ness from “a tra­di­tion­al trad­ing agency in­to the re­silient, mul­ti-faceted con­glom­er­ate it is to­day.”

A fel­low of the Char­tered Man­age­ment In­sti­tute, Fer­reira spear­head­ed the di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion of the group’s op­er­a­tions in­to ar­eas in­clud­ing cold stor­age, chem­i­cals, prop­er­ty de­vel­op­ment, au­to­mo­tive, man­u­fac­tur­ing and ship­ping.

The ex­pan­sion was achieved with “un­wa­ver­ing pas­sion, dis­ci­pline and fore­sight,” the com­pa­ny said.

Even af­ter be­gin­ning the tran­si­tion of lead­er­ship to the cur­rent ex­ec­u­tive team, Fer­reira re­mained ac­tive­ly in­volved in the busi­ness.

Over the past decade, he served as chair­man emer­i­tus, act­ing as an “ac­tive, trust­ed com­pass” while guid­ing the com­pa­ny’s trans­for­ma­tion, men­tor­ing its lead­ers and help­ing to up­hold its cor­po­rate val­ues.

The mem­o­ran­dum al­so high­light­ed Fer­reira’s in­flu­ence be­yond Fur­ness.

“To the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty, he was a colos­sus and an in­dus­try pi­o­neer. To all of us at Fur­ness, he was our cor­ner­stone, a ded­i­cat­ed men­tor, and an in­spi­ra­tion,” William Fer­reira wrote.

The com­pa­ny said Fer­reira’s lega­cy ex­tend­ed far be­yond his busi­ness achieve­ments, cit­ing his “ex­tra­or­di­nary stew­ard­ship, sac­ri­fice and vi­sion­ary lead­er­ship” over more than 70 years.

While mourn­ing his pass­ing, Fur­ness said the best way to ho­n­our his mem­o­ry was to up­hold the stan­dards he es­tab­lished.

“While we mourn this mon­u­men­tal loss, we ho­n­our him best by con­tin­u­ing to up­hold the high stan­dards of in­tegri­ty, re­silience and ex­cel­lence he built in­to this group,” the com­pa­ny stat­ed.

De­tails of memo­r­i­al and fu­ner­al arrange­ments will be an­nounced at a lat­er date.

William Fer­reira con­clud­ed the mem­o­ran­dum by ask­ing staff to keep the Fer­reira fam­i­ly and each oth­er in their “thoughts and prayers dur­ing this time of mourn­ing.”

“May his soul rest in eter­nal peace,” he wrote.