The T&T Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce is seek­ing to ho­n­our three top busi­ness­men by in­duct­ing them in­to its sev­enth an­nu­al Busi­ness Hall of Fame. The gala event would high­light and recog­nise the works of Con­rad O'Brien, re­tired chair­man and chief ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer of Charles McE­near­ney and Com­pa­ny Ltd, and al­so the found­ing mem­ber of the Ju­nior Cham­ber. Cather­ine Ku­mar, chief ex­ec­u­tive of the cham­ber, said Ku­mar said O'Brien con­tributed a lot to build the cham­ber and his hard work should not go un­ap­pre­ci­at­ed. The oth­er busi­ness icons are Pe­ter Ju­ly, for­mer chair­man of RBTT Fi­nan­cial Group, and Nazir Ahamad, who passed away in 2004 and was the chair­man of the fam­i­ly-owned South­ern Sales Group, Neal and Massy Group and Guardian Hold­ings Ltd.

Ku­mar said it was the cham­ber's view that most busi­ness­men and women go un­no­ticed and their con­tri­bu­tion to the na­tion­al de­vel­op­ment of T&T is not suf­fi­cient­ly high­light­ed. Ku­mar said the Busi­ness Hall of Fame would pro­vide a fo­rum for these top busi­ness icons' sto­ries to be told to in­spire up­com­ing en­tre­pre­neurs. She said in or­der for busi­ness peo­ple to be in­duct­ed, their busi­ness­es must be op­er­at­ing suc­cess­ful­ly, their suc­cess­es well known, and they must have con­tributed sig­nif­i­cant­ly to the na­tion­al de­vel­op­ment, to civ­il so­ci­ety and en­gage in phil­an­thropic work. Most im­por­tant­ly, Ku­mar said there must not be any neg­a­tives as­so­ci­at­ed with their char­ac­ter and no ques­tions re­gard­ing how they built their busi­ness­es. Ku­mar said pa­trons at the in­duc­tion cer­e­mo­ny would have the op­por­tu­ni­ty to ex­pe­ri­ence the life sto­ries of Kyf­fin Simp­son, chair­man and founder of the Simp­son Mo­tors Group in Bar­ba­dos, and his climb to the top.

De­scribed as a vi­sion­ary and icon, Ku­mar said Simp­son is well known for be­ing the top au­to­mo­bile dis­trib­u­tor of pres­ti­gious cars in Bar­ba­dos. She said Simp­son was award­ed the Knight of St An­drew in 2007 for vi­sion and achieve­ment. First Cit­i­zens (FC) bank, which has spon­sored the hall of fame cer­e­mo­ny for five years, ex­pressed sim­i­lar sen­ti­ments to that of Ku­mar. Lar­ry Nath, deputy chief ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer of bank­ing op­er­a­tions, said the lo­cal fi­nan­cial in­sti­tu­tion is proud to be spon­sor­ing the event be­cause it be­lieves that busi­ness­men and women are not be­ing suf­fi­cient­ly recog­nised.

"Pro­mot­ing our lo­cal in­dus­try is our main pri­or­i­ty and that is one of the main rea­sons we sup­port this ini­tia­tive. "We al­so recog­nise the hard work of the cham­ber to­ward the re­al­i­sa­tion of its vi­sion for T&T," Nath said. He said FC ac­knowl­edges the ster­ling con­tri­bu­tion of O'Brien, Ju­ly and Ahamad, as they have ex­em­pli­fied the en­tre­pre­neur­ial spir­it of T&T. "I know each of them has lived through many cy­cles and came out more re­silient in which they man­aged to make sig­nif­i­cant strides in their in­dus­try." Nath said each busi­ness­man has left a lega­cy of note for oth­ers to em­u­late. Guests would be treat­ed to a cock­tail re­cep­tion and din­ner.

Con­rad Er­rol O'Brien:

Start­ed his ca­reer as an ac­counts clerk at BWIA and lat­er found suc­cess in the sales of mo­tor ve­hi­cles at Charles McE­near­ney and Com­pa­ny Ltd, where he even­tu­al­ly rose to the po­si­tion of man­ag­ing di­rec­tor.

O'Brien served as pres­i­dent of the Ju­nior Cham­ber of Com­merce of T&T in 1957 and the world pres­i­dent of the Ju­nior Cham­ber In­ter­na­tion­al in 1964. In 1966, he was ap­point­ed as a sen­a­tor, rep­re­sent­ing busi­ness, and served on Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion. He was award­ed the Hum­ming Bird Medal (Gold) for Pub­lic Ser­vice on In­de­pen­dence Day, 1974.

Pe­ter Ju­ly:

Start­ed his ca­reer at the ten­der age of 18 at the Roy­al Bank of Cana­da in New Am­s­ter­dam. One of his first du­ties was to de­liv­er bills of ex­change to mer­chants for goods im­port­ed. He quick­ly be­came a clerk in the for­eign ex­change col­lec­tions de­part­ment. Not long af­ter, he as­sumed a man­age­r­i­al po­si­tion and worked at sev­er­al branch­es of the Roy­al Bank of Cana­da in Trinidad and at the of­fice of dis­trict man­ag­er. In 1974, Ju­ly took up the job of­fer as man­ag­er of the San Fer­nan­do branch of Roy­al Bank T&T Ltd. He has been in­stru­men­tal in ex­pand­ing Roy­al Bank Trinidad through­out the Caribbean and has held the dual role of group chair­man and chief ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer.

Nazir Ahamad:

An as­tute busi­ness­man, a dy­nam­ic leader, and a man of high in­tegri­ty, he worked at his fa­ther's com­pa­ny: Az­iz Ahamad Ltd, un­til 1964 when he joined South­ern Sales. His aca­d­e­m­ic qual­i­fi­ca­tions, com­bined with ex­pe­ri­ence in the in­dus­try, helped the com­pa­ny to take gi­ant strides. On the 40th an­niver­sary of T&T's in­de­pen­dence in 2002, Ahamad was award­ed a medal for Dis­tin­guished Ser­vice to T&T. In 2003, he was ho­n­oured with the Cha­co­nia Medal (Gold) for "Long and Mer­i­to­ri­ous Ser­vice to the Re­pub­lic of T&T, in the sphere of busi­ness." The South Trinidad Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce award­ed him the Award for En­tre­pre­neur­ship in 2005.