An­drea Perez-Sobers

Se­nior Re­porter

an­drea.perez-sobers@guardian.co.tt

In­ter­na­tion­al Women’s Day is be­ing ob­served to­day across the world, with re­newed at­ten­tion on the role women play in lead­er­ship, busi­ness and na­tion­al de­vel­op­ment.

In T&T, that con­ver­sa­tion car­ries par­tic­u­lar weight as women cur­rent­ly hold the of­fices of Pres­i­dent, Prime Min­is­ter, and Leader of the Op­po­si­tion. For at­tor­ney and pres­i­dent of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce, Son­ji Pierre-Chase, the mo­ment re­flects years of progress, but al­so the per­sis­tence re­quired to reach lead­er­ship po­si­tions.

Pierre-Chase bal­ances mul­ti­ple roles: cor­po­rate at­tor­ney, leader of the coun­try’s largest busi­ness as­so­ci­a­tion, and a moth­er and wife man­ag­ing the de­mands of fam­i­ly life. Bal­anc­ing those re­spon­si­bil­i­ties, she ex­plained, re­quires care­ful pri­ori­ti­sa­tion and a strong sup­port sys­tem at home.

“It is very chal­leng­ing be­cause each one de­mands con­stant at­ten­tion. What makes it pos­si­ble is the un­der­stand­ing and sup­port of my hus­band and son, who give me the space to meet the many de­mands on my time,” she said.

She not­ed that man­ag­ing such a sched­ule re­quires sac­ri­fices and a clear sense of what mat­ters most at any giv­en time.

Break­ing the bar­ri­ers

To­day’s lead­er­ship land­scape in T&T re­flects sig­nif­i­cant changes in women’s ad­vance­ment over the past decades.

Pierre-Chase point­ed out that the fact that the coun­try’s most se­nior po­lit­i­cal of­fices are cur­rent­ly held by women is a mile­stone that demon­strate how far women have pro­gressed in both pub­lic and pri­vate life.

“When we talk about break­ing the glass ceil­ing, we mean over­com­ing bar­ri­ers that pre­vent women from reach­ing lead­er­ship po­si­tions. In Trinidad and To­ba­go, women have made sig­nif­i­cant progress in many ar­eas, in­clud­ing cor­po­rate lead­er­ship, pub­lic life and var­i­ous pro­fes­sions,” she said.

Ac­cord­ing to Pierre-Chase, the pres­ence of women at the high­est lev­els of na­tion­al lead­er­ship sig­nals that those bar­ri­ers have large­ly been bro­ken and that women’s ad­vance­ment has been dri­ven by their qual­i­fi­ca­tions and achieve­ments.

Her po­si­tion on gen­der equal­i­ty in lead­er­ship is root­ed in the be­lief that mer­it ul­ti­mate­ly de­ter­mines suc­cess. She does not be­lieve com­pa­nies should be reg­u­lat­ed to en­sure gen­der rep­re­sen­ta­tion on cor­po­rate boards, ar­gu­ing that many busi­ness­es al­ready recog­nise the val­ue women bring to gov­er­nance and de­ci­sion-mak­ing.

Many or­gan­i­sa­tions, she ex­plained, have come to ap­pre­ci­ate that the in­clu­sion of women strength­ens over­sight and im­proves the qual­i­ty of cor­po­rate de­ci­sions.

An un­ex­pect­ed path to law

Pierre-Chase’s own ca­reer be­gan far from the board­rooms and pol­i­cy dis­cus­sions she now nav­i­gates.
She grew up in Ari­ma and de­vel­oped a love of read­ing at an ear­ly age, some­thing that shaped her aca­d­e­m­ic di­rec­tion.
Her un­der­grad­u­ate law de­gree came through the Uni­ver­si­ty of Lon­don be­fore she en­tered the Hugh Wood­ing Law School in 1998 to qual­i­fy as an at­tor­ney-at-law.

Fur­ther post­grad­u­ate stud­ies fol­lowed at the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies and in Eng­land.

Yet law was not orig­i­nal­ly part of her ca­reer plan.

Af­ter com­plet­ing A-lev­els, Pierre-Chase ini­tial­ly in­tend­ed to be­come an ac­tu­ary be­cause of her strong in­ter­est in math­e­mat­ics.

That tra­jec­to­ry changed dur­ing a sum­mer in­tern­ship at the Law Li­brary at Hugh Wood­ing Law School. Work­ing in the li­brary en­vi­ron­ment along­side law pro­fes­sors and as­pir­ing at­tor­neys in­tro­duced her to the world of le­gal schol­ar­ship and prac­tice.

That ex­pe­ri­ence proved de­ci­sive. Spend­ing those months sur­round­ed by le­gal texts, aca­d­e­m­ic dis­cus­sions and the dai­ly ac­tiv­i­ty of the law school left a strong im­pres­sion on the 18-year-old who was still con­sid­er­ing her pro­fes­sion­al fu­ture.

From that mo­ment, she be­gan pur­su­ing a ca­reer in law.

Lessons from the board­room

Over the years, Pierre-Chase built a rep­u­ta­tion as a trans­ac­tion­al at­tor­ney man­ag­ing com­mer­cial deals and com­plex ne­go­ti­a­tions.

Most clients, she ex­plained, fo­cus on com­pe­tence and the abil­i­ty to de­liv­er re­sults.

But one mo­ment ear­ly in her ca­reer high­light­ed the lin­ger­ing per­cep­tions women some­times en­counter in busi­ness.

Dur­ing ne­go­ti­a­tions in­volv­ing lawyers from the Unit­ed States, a client jok­ing­ly re­marked that he wished the pre­vi­ous male at­tor­ney han­dling the ac­count were present to “kick down the ta­ble” and put the for­eign lawyers in their place.

The com­ment may have been de­liv­ered light­ly, but the un­der­ly­ing mes­sage was clear: there re­mained an as­sump­tion that men were bet­ter suit­ed to ag­gres­sive ne­go­ti­a­tion.

Pierre-Chase viewed the episode as an ex­am­ple of how per­cep­tions can shape pro­fes­sion­al in­ter­ac­tions, even when the in­di­vid­ual’s abil­i­ty is al­ready es­tab­lished.

An­oth­er piv­otal mo­ment came ear­li­er in her ca­reer while work­ing at a ma­jor oil com­pa­ny. She was even­tu­al­ly re­placed by a male at­tor­ney, a de­ci­sion that at the time felt like a set­back. In­stead of al­low­ing that ex­pe­ri­ence to de­rail her ca­reer, she used the op­por­tu­ni­ty to pur­sue fur­ther aca­d­e­m­ic de­vel­op­ment.

She went on to com­plete a mas­ter’s de­gree in law, fo­cus­ing on in­ter­na­tion­al trade. That de­ci­sion even­tu­al­ly opened the door to her long as­so­ci­a­tion with the Cham­ber. Look­ing back, Pierre-Chase views that pe­ri­od as one of the turn­ing points that helped de­fine her pro­fes­sion­al jour­ney.

Lead­ing the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty

Pierre-Chase’s re­la­tion­ship with the cham­ber spans more than two decades.
Ear­ly in her ca­reer, she served as the or­gan­i­sa­tion’s first le­gal coun­sel and lat­er man­aged its trade and busi­ness de­vel­op­ment unit. Those roles gave her di­rect ex­po­sure to the is­sues af­fect­ing the pri­vate sec­tor and the role busi­ness or­gan­i­sa­tions play in shap­ing pol­i­cy dis­cus­sions.

When she was en­cour­aged to join the board, it rep­re­sent­ed an­oth­er step in a long re­la­tion­ship with the in­sti­tu­tion. Her mo­ti­va­tion to serve as pres­i­dent came from that long­stand­ing con­nec­tion and a de­sire to con­tin­ue con­tribut­ing to the or­gan­i­sa­tion’s work. The role, she ex­plained, has been both re­ward­ing and de­mand­ing.

“There are mo­ments of tri­umph when you see your ideas be­come re­al out­comes. Serv­ing at this lev­el al­so comes with re­spon­si­bil­i­ty and an op­por­tu­ni­ty to con­tribute to the de­vel­op­ment of the coun­try,” she said.

One of the on­go­ing chal­lenges in lead­ing the Cham­ber has been what she de­scribes as a lim­it­ed ap­pre­ci­a­tion for vol­un­teerism.

The or­gan­i­sa­tion re­lies heav­i­ly on pro­fes­sion­als who con­tribute time and ex­per­tise to com­mit­tees and ini­tia­tives de­signed to sup­port the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty.

An­oth­er chal­lenge has been the un­pre­dictable shifts in the glob­al and lo­cal busi­ness en­vi­ron­ment. Help­ing mem­bers nav­i­gate those changes is now a cen­tral part of the Cham­ber’s role. Eco­nom­ic shocks, pol­i­cy changes and glob­al mar­ket de­vel­op­ments can af­fect lo­cal busi­ness­es in ways that are dif­fi­cult to con­trol, but crit­i­cal to man­age, she said.

Pierre-Chase not­ed that busi­ness­es of­ten face sig­nif­i­cant pres­sure dur­ing such pe­ri­ods, par­tic­u­lar­ly when na­tion­al fis­cal chal­lenges lead to in­creased ex­pec­ta­tions of the pri­vate sec­tor.

She al­so point­ed to what she de­scribes as a com­mon mis­con­cep­tion that the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty is in­dif­fer­ent to the coun­try’s fis­cal dif­fi­cul­ties. That per­cep­tion can some­times re­sult in greater fi­nan­cial bur­dens be­ing placed on busi­ness­es, even as they at­tempt to main­tain op­er­a­tions and em­ploy­ment dur­ing un­cer­tain pe­ri­ods.

The val­ue of em­pa­thy

Asked to iden­ti­fy the per­son­al qual­i­ty that has guid­ed her lead­er­ship style, Pierre-Chase points to em­pa­thy. For her, em­pa­thy is not the op­po­site of strength or firm­ness. In­stead, it is an ap­proach to lead­er­ship that em­pha­sis­es lis­ten­ing and un­der­stand­ing.

“Em­pa­thy does not mean weak­ness. It means lis­ten­ing, un­der­stand­ing and en­cour­ag­ing oth­ers to do their best and suc­ceed,” she high­light­ed.

She be­lieves that ap­proach helps build trust with­in or­gan­i­sa­tions and en­cour­ages col­lab­o­ra­tion when ad­dress­ing com­plex is­sues. It al­so shapes her broad­er view of na­tion­al de­vel­op­ment.

If there is one change she would like to see in this coun­try, Pierre-Chase points to the need for stronger pa­tri­o­tism and na­tion­al pride. A deep­er com­mit­ment to the coun­try, she be­lieves, would en­cour­age cit­i­zens and in­sti­tu­tions alike to work to­geth­er more ac­tive­ly to ad­dress na­tion­al chal­lenges.

Greater col­lec­tive par­tic­i­pa­tion, she added, could strength­en ef­forts to im­prove the coun­try and build a more re­silient econ­o­my.