Andrea Taylor-Hanna attacks the daunting task of Finance each day at one of Trinidad and Tobago's leading banks and relishes it. She is also the President of the Institute of Banking and Finance, the educational arm of the Bankers' Association of Trinidad and Tobago. With 35 years of experience under her belt, Taylor-Hanna wants to focus on developing the people or the human resources of the finance industry.
At the Institute of Banking and Finance's Grey Street office, she energetically strides into the conference room and gets right into interview mode. One might even doubt that it's nearly four in the afternoon, and that she hasn't just wrapped up a day full of crunching numbers and balancing figures or that she has not just endured the ridiculous rush hour traffic to get from her Park street office to St. Clair for this interview.
She wants to develop the people. "All the years I've been in Management, the one thing that I've seen is that you need to really develop your people. That's what makes it work and once people see that you have a genuine interest in their development, they do anything." says Taylor-Hanna. "And that genuine desire to develop people is why when the bank asked me to be its representative on this council that I embraced it."
The Institute of Banking and Finance provides educational training that is aimed at developing the banking and finance professionals in Trinidad and Tobago, as well as members of the wider public. The Institute runs certified programmes and diploma programmes specific to banking and finance as well as any area that the Institute deems topical, and which they (as bankers) think will add benefit to the industry and to the public. One of their famous ones is the Retirement Planning seminar which is unique in that it does not just look at the financial aspect, it looks at the health aspect for these persons, and it also looks at that psychological retiring process that people don't cater for. At the end of this month, the Institute will host a two-day Pre Retirement Workshop on February 28th and March 1st.
Why all these plans for developing financial professionals locally? It's her passion, finance is what Taylor-Hanna has done most of her adult life. She has worked within this industry in different areas in Accounting and Finance, ranging from the manufacturing industry to media and then finally to banking which has been her home for the past 19 years."It's what I trained for, it's what I wanted to do," she says; "I love spreadsheets, I get happy when I see them on my computer. Horrible thing to say but they brings me joy."Along with her passion for finance, she has also approached her career with a positive mindset, never allowing herself to be daunted by the fact that she is operating in a male-dominated world. "I mean, you have to get the work done, and they will be at you, but I never felt it was because of femaleness. I have found it to be - match your brain against their brain, get the work done, no male/female issues, just human issues," she says. "The only stipulation was that as the female in the room I was not offering to make coffee for anybody.
"It was when I realised that I was probably the first female in the financial sector in Trinidad and Tobago to hold the position of General Manager of Finance, that I recognised maybe I am in a male world."She stresses that Trinidad and Tobago is way ahead of many parts of the world in breaking the traditional glass-ceiling concept, and she urges women that as we try to carve a niche for ourselves, that we learn our own individual techniques using our skill sets and do not to try to imitate maleness in getting there.
This career-driven wife and mother points out the importance of having a supportive family and not biting off more than you can chew. "I have a very supportive husband. I have known my husband to cook Sunday lunch, pack it in a nice kit, and drop it for me while on his way to church with the children while I am at Republic Bank working. I also made sure to get home help. Get somebody else to clean the house, wash the clothes, because you literally can't do everything. Choose the things that are really important to you, for instance, doing homework with my kids � always a priority. When I come home in the evening, I am coming home to interact with my children and do spelling and dictation. I'm not coming home to try and cook a meal or to clean any room. I can't do it all, I'm not even attempting to figure out how to do it all."
To relax, she tries to steer clear of anything financial. "I like people so I go find ways to interact with them. Once I leave the office, I don't want to be anybody's accountant. You know everybody wants you to do this, do that, I don't want to do it, but I want to do everything else." She does a lot of social work and sits on the board of a radio station and a school.