An­dre Alexan­der

With nine O'Lev­el sub­jects, Ronald Fred­er­ick de­Creeft Har­ford be­gan his climb to the top of the bank­ing world in T&T as a "post boy" at Bar­clays Bank in Port-of-Spain.With the rise of so­cial con­scious­ness in the 1970s, the call for the lo­cal­i­sa­tion of for­eign busi­ness­es in T&T lead to the for­ma­tion of Bar­clays Bank of T&T Lim­it­ed. By 1977, ma­jor­i­ty share­hold­ing passed in­to lo­cal hands. This pre­cip­i­tat­ed in 1981 an­oth­er change in the bank's name to Re­pub­lic Bank Ltd, sig­ni­fy­ing the bank's sta­tus as a true na­tion­al bank.

At age 39, Har­ford was the youngest gen­er­al man­ag­er at Re­pub­lic Bank. He was el­e­vat­ed to man­ag­ing di­rec­tor in 1997, and then chair­man of the Board of Di­rec­tors, a post he has held since 2003.On Tues­day, Re­pub­lic Bank Ltd host­ed a gala func­tion at the Hy­att Re­gency in Port-of-Spain to cel­e­brate Har­ford's 50th an­niver­sary with the bank.

In­vit­ed to cel­e­brate the oc­ca­sion with Har­ford, his wife Al­i­son and their chil­dren were Min­is­ters Stephen Cadiz and Dr Bhoe Tewarie, lead­ers of the busi­ness and fi­nan­cial sec­tors, and ex­ec­u­tives of Re­pub­lic Bank Ltd lo­cal­ly and re­gion­al­ly.Guests were en­ter­tained by The Xavier Sis­ters (Ja­nine and Janelle), Neval Chate­lal and Three Tenors (John Thomas, Wen­dell Con­stan­tine and Ed­die Cum­ber­batch).