Char­maine Dais­ley

With a saga­cious­ness born and honed by the qua­ter­nary teach­ers of in­sight, com­mit­ment, faith, and fate, Adon­na Da Cos­ta-Headley is bring­ing an in­nate spir­it of tenac­i­ty and per­se­ver­ance, as she heads a lead­ing lo­cal busi­ness or­gan­i­sa­tion which, like many oth­ers lo­cal­ly and glob­al­ly, is weath­er­ing the cur­rent storm of ad­verse eco­nom­ic con­di­tions. Da Cos­ta-Headley, Com­pa­ny Di­rec­tor & Man­ag­er - Client Re­la­tions, of All Me­dia Projects Lim­it­ed (AM­PLE), one of T&T's lead­ing full-ser­vice Pub­lic Re­la­tions and Ad­ver­tis­ing Agen­cies, sits con­fi­dent­ly in the seat of lead­er­ship, recog­nis­ing in­trin­si­cal­ly that the role is not one ofwield­ing pow­er or au­thor­i­ty, but of a qui­et, steady ful­fill­ing of a re­spon­si­bil­i­ty. The last child of nine, Da Cos­ta-Headley came from a back­ground of fam­i­ly busi­ness, her par­ents be­ing as­tute busi­ness own­ers. The youth­ful lessons she learned from them, cou­pled with her ed­u­ca­tion and life ex­pe­ri­ences, have served her in good stead as she suc­cess­ful­ly nav­i­gates the chop­py con­di­tions and de­mands of the present busi­ness at­mos­phere. "Do­ing busi­ness to­day is very dif­fer­ent from the way of do­ing busi­ness that I grew up know­ing," she said.

It is be­lieved that be­cause our so­ci­ety has be­come very dif­fer­ent, more so as we face this fi­nan­cial dilem­ma, it's al­most like a dog eat dog so­ci­ety we're ex­ist­ing in now. "I wouldn't go as far as to say that there is no in­tegri­ty in so­ci­ety, but it is not what I knew grow­ing up. Da Cos­ta is not in the least daunt­ed by the cur­rent cir­cum­stances of the glob­al or lo­cal econ­o­my and some peo­ple's neg­a­tive re­sponse to it.

"One of the things that I said when I took up this po­si­tion of Di­rec­tor and be­came more deeply in­volved in the day-to-day op­er­a­tions and man­age­ment of the busi­ness, is that I will not com­pro­mise my­self in or­der to get ahead "I think it is im­por­tant that we stay ground­ed and stay true to our val­ues." Da Cos­ta's strat­e­gy for suc­cess is pulling strength from her core be­liefs. She feels that what­ev­er dif­fi­cult po­si­tion she might find her­self in, it is nev­er the end of the road - there is al­ways some­thing that can help her get through that. She does not see sit­u­a­tions as prob­lems, but as chal­lenges that present the op­por­tu­ni­ty for a per­son to think, analyse and re-as­sess, and to see how they can move for­ward.

As a prin­ci­pal busi­ness woman, she un­der­stands that the role of 'boss' comes with the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for peo­ple's liveli­hoods. "It is about nur­tur­ing. "Yes it's a busi­ness, but when you are at the helm of an or­gan­i­sa­tion you have a re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for peo­ple's wel­fare. You have to help en­sure their sur­vival and that every­body con­tin­ues to have a roof over their heads, food on their ta­ble, and they are able to pay their bills." Be­ing the 'last child' of the fam­i­ly has giv­en her the op­por­tu­ni­ty to ob­serve the ac­tions and cop­ing strate­gies of her old­er sib­lings, a fac­tor which has shaped her out­look on life and her ca­pac­i­ty to sur­mount her present hur­dles. "While I am equipped with the for­mal ed­u­ca­tion and rel­e­vant ex­pe­ri­ences to ful­fill this role, I've been al­so able to bring my life's in­for­mal un­der­stand­ing, in terms of deal­ing with dif­fi­cul­ty, to these cir­cum­stances. In gal­vanis­ing her lead­er­ship role, Da Cos­ta-Headley is an ac­tive con­trib­u­tor to the busi­ness so­ci­ety and to so­ci­ety at large. Her con­tri­bu­tions in­clude her func­tions as Chair­man of the Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Com­mit­tee - Amer­i­can Cham­ber of Com­merce of Trinidad and To­ba­go (Am­Cham) - June 2010 to present, Chair­man Cul­tur­al Com­mit­tee (Sub-Com­mit­tee of Projects and Events Com­mit­tee) - Amer­i­can Cham­ber of Com­merce of Trinidad and To­ba­go - 2010 to present, and Mem­ber of IABC- In­ter­na­tion­al As­so­ci­a­tion for Busi­ness Com­mu­ni­ca­tors, T&T Chap­ter.

She val­ues the con­tri­bu­tions of those who helped nur­ture her ca­reer and her abil­i­ty in turn to now con­tribute to so­ci­ety, her fore­most men­tor be­ing her sis­ter, As­tra Da Cos­ta (de­ceased), for­mer Chair­man of Am­ple. Even though she cher­ish­es her sis­ter's con­tri­bu­tion to her life, she stress­es un­equiv­o­cal­ly that she is not try­ing or as­pir­ing to be an As­tra. "As­tra was a woman of stature and well re­spect­ed in the busi­ness and wider com­mu­ni­ty yet ex­treme­ly hum­ble and she has cer­tain­ly left her mark on our lives, and I will al­ways car­ry her mem­o­ry as I bring my own ca­pa­bil­i­ties mov­ing in­to the fu­ture." She al­so notes that she has the full sup­port of her hus­band who, she re­veals, has be­come the an­chor at home, glad­ly sup­port­ing her ef­forts of car­ry­ing on the lega­cy for which she is now cus­to­di­an.

What­ev­er the ob­sta­cles or cir­cum­stances of the present busi­ness en­vi­ron­ment, Da Cos­ta-Headley in­tends to stay the course. "It's more than just the busi­ness, it is al­so about ful­fill­ing a pur­pose, and some­times, with­out you even be­ing even aware of it, your ex­pe­ri­ences through­out your life are shap­ing you for a par­tic­u­lar role. "When you un­der­stand that, it's a ques­tion of ask­ing your­self, 'Is the glass half emp­ty or is it half full?'" she said