The busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty was thrown in­to mourn­ing af­ter the sud­den death of Sean Roach, the CEO of Langston Roach In­dus­tries (LRI), late on Sun­day.

Roach suf­fered a heart at­tack and died at hos­pi­tal.

He was 46 years old.

LRI con­firmed the news of his pass­ing in post to so­cial me­dia yes­ter­day.

The an­nounce­ment said, “Sean was a vi­sion­ary leader, a re­spect­ed pil­lar of the wider busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty, and a cham­pi­on for our em­ploy­ees and cus­tomers. While we mourn this im­mense loss, LRI re­mains ful­ly op­er­a­tional and com­mit­ted to serv­ing our busi­ness part­ners, guid­ed by the lead­er­ship and busi­ness-con­ti­nu­ity plans ac­ti­vat­ed by our board and ex­ec­u­tive team.”

Trib­utes flowed from mem­bers of both the busi­ness and sports and fit­ness fra­ter­ni­ty as news of his pass­ing spread.

Roach served as chair­man of ma­jor­i­ty state-owned Telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions Ser­vices of Trinidad and To­ba­go (TSTT) from 2020 un­til his res­ig­na­tion in Jan­u­ary 2025. His res­ig­na­tion took ef­fect on Jan­u­ary 15, 2025.

TSTT al­so post­ed con­do­lences on the pass­ing of the for­mer chair­man of the TSTT and AM­PLIA Boards.

The com­pa­ny said, “The Board, man­age­ment and em­ploy­ees of TSTT and AM­PLIA ex­tend their sym­pa­thies to his fam­i­ly and loved ones and wish them strength and com­fort dur­ing this dif­fi­cult time.”

He had al­so been the long time man­ag­er of Trinidad and To­ba­go’s sec­ond in­di­vid­ual Olympic Gold medal­ist, Keshorn Wal­cott.

Wal­cott took to so­cial me­dia to re­mem­ber the man, who he cred­it­ed with de­vel­op­ing him in­to a world class ath­lete.

He said, “No amount of prayers, no amount of pro­cess­ing will ever make me un­der­stand this... I owe you my life bro. With­out you, there would be no KESHORN WAL­COTT. Thank you for show­ing me that this world is filled with great peo­ple, and you were tru­ly one of the great­est of them all. Love you my broth­er”

Roach in­her­it­ed a lead­er­ship role in the fam­i­ly busi­ness, that was found­ed by his fa­ther Langston.

The Trinidad and To­ba­go Man­u­fac­tur­ers’ As­so­ci­a­tion (TTMA) said his death rep­re­sent­ed a loss to Trinidad and To­ba­go’s busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty as he was a re­spect­ed mem­ber of Trinidad and To­ba­go’s man­u­fac­tur­ing com­mu­ni­ty.

Dr Mahin­dra Ramesh Ramdeen, Chief Ex­ec­u­tive Of­fi­cer of the TTMA said, “He has been a ded­i­cat­ed, com­mit­ted busi­ness per­son in Trinidad and To­ba­go. He is un­selfish, al­ways will­ing to give, al­ways as­sis­tance, he has helped so many peo­ple in the busi­ness fra­ter­ni­ty as well as the sport­ing fra­ter­ni­ty of Trinidad and To­ba­go. The TTMA, the sec­re­tari­at, the board of di­rec­tors, his trade mis­sion fam­i­ly, ex­tend con­do­lences to all who has been touched by Sean Roach.”

In a pub­lic no­tice the TTMA al­so laud­ed his role in the con­tin­ued growth and suc­cess of LRI while not­ing he had been recog­nised by TTMA as Most Suc­cess­ful Mar­ket En­trant – Large at the 2019 Pres­i­dent’s Din­ner and Ex­cel­lence in Man­u­fac­tur­ing Awards.

The Con­fed­er­a­tion of Re­gion­al Busi­ness Cham­bers (CR­BC) al­so ex­tend­ed con­do­lences to the Roach fam­i­ly, man­age­ment and staff of LRI.

The CR­BC said, “The pass­ing of a busi­ness leader is al­ways deeply felt, par­tic­u­lar­ly when that in­di­vid­ual has ded­i­cat­ed his life to build­ing and strength­en­ing a fam­i­ly busi­ness and con­tribut­ing to the growth of Trinidad and To­ba­go’s man­u­fac­tur­ing sec­tor. For more than 40 years, Langston Roach In­dus­tries Ltd has been part of our na­tion’s man­u­fac­tur­ing land­scape, serv­ing the lo­cal mar­ket while al­so con­tribut­ing to the ex­port sec­tor. Sean Roach con­tin­ued the lega­cy of the fam­i­ly busi­ness and played an im­por­tant role in its de­vel­op­ment.”

Pre­ci­sion Fit­ness al­so shared con­do­lences to the Roach fam­i­ly on Mon­day.