Man­ag­ing Di­rec­tor Anya Schnoor of Sco­tia­bank Ltd, had a Q&A with As­so­ciate Ed­i­tor Hal­cian Pierre for Wom­an­Wise; here is their con­ver­sa­tion.

WW: Greet­ings Anya. As you know, In­ter­na­tion­al Women's Day was re­cent­ly ob­served this month on March 8th. Did you do any­thing to mark the oc­ca­sion? If so, what?A.S.: Good day, Wom­an­Wise. Sco­tia­bank has al­ways been and ad­vo­cate for the ad­vance­ment of women so as the first fe­male to hold the po­si­tion of Man­ag­ing Di­rec­tor of Sco­tia­bank Trinidad and To­ba­go Lim­it­ed, In­ter­na­tion­al Women's Day (IWD) was of even greater sig­nif­i­cance this year. To com­mem­o­rate the day all of our em­ploy­ees � male and fe­male - wore Sco­tia­bank/Bright Fu­ture brand­ed IWD pins. Ad­di­tion­al­ly, IWD posters were dis­played in all our branch­es and we sent greet­ings to the na­tion's women via press ad­ver­tis­ing as well.

IWD cel­e­bra­tions were al­so shared with at­ten­dees at our An­nu­al Gen­er­al Meet­ing (AGM), which was al­so held on March 8; af­ter the AGM was closed, Sco­tia­bank's Group Head, Glob­al Hu­man Re­sources and Com­mu­ni­ca­tion, Sylvia Chromin­s­ka, ad­dressed the share­hold­ers and staff present on IWD and Sco­tia­bank's in­volve­ment. She and I al­so made cheque pre­sen­ta­tions to the As­so­ci­a­tion of Fe­male Ex­ec­u­tives of Trinidad and To­ba­go (AFETT) � as gold spon­sor of their 4th Women of In­flu­ence Awards and the Ad­vo­cates for Safe Par­ent­hood: Im­prov­ing Re­pro­duc­tive Eq­ui­ty (AS­PIRE), for their IWD event dur­ing which the "Woman of the Year" Tro­phy do­nat­ed by Sco­tia­bank is giv­en. These are just two or­gan­i­sa­tions that have been con­tribut­ing great­ly to pro­gress­ing women's is­sues and we are pleased to sup­port them.

WW: It's now been ap­prox­i­mate­ly five months since your new ap­point­ment as Man­ag­ing Di­rec­tor at Sco­tia­bank. How have you set­tled in?

A.S.: I have set­tled in well, things are great. Sco­tia­bank Trinidad and To­ba­go is a fine in­sti­tu­tion and I feel proud to be here. For­mer Man­ag­ing Di­rec­tor, Richard P. Young has left a sol­id foun­da­tion which I, along with the man­age­ment team, am build­ing up­on, to take the com­pa­ny to even greater heights.Most re­cent­ly, at our AGM, we re­viewed Sco­tia­bank Trinidad and To­ba­go's per­for­mance and I am proud to say that we pro­duced sol­id re­sults which trans­lat­ed in­to an­oth­er year of in­creased prof­itabil­i­ty for our share­hold­ers. For the twelve months end­ed Oc­to­ber 31st, 2012, the Bank record­ed its twen­ti­eth con­sec­u­tive year of record earn­ings and growth. For the quar­ter end­ed Jan­u­ary 31, 2013, we main­tained sta­bil­i­ty, record­ing in­creased net in­come and earn­ings per share.

WW: This ques­tion is in three parts: (1) How long have you lived in Trinidad over­all? (2) What was it like grow­ing up in Ja­maica? (3) How do you com­pare your gen­er­al ex­pe­ri­ences on the two is­lands (Ja­maica and Trinidad) work-wise?

A.S.: I have been here since last Au­gust.

Grow­ing up in Ja­maica was great, like Trinidad and To­ba­go, Ja­maica is an is­land rich in cul­tur­al tra­di­tions and the peo­ple are feisty and fun. Ja­maica is very ex­pe­ri­en­tial, again very sim­i­lar to T and T; you can have a cool time up in the moun­tains or fun in the sun at the beach. Ja­maicans love what we love, and we have a great sense of na­tion­al pride which is why as a des­ti­na­tion Ja­maica is a great brand, for­give the ref­er­ence but brand­ing is in my blood. Work­ing here is sim­i­lar as we are both peo­ple who are very dri­ven but the dif­fer­ence there is the dri­vers; Ja­maica is a tourist econ­o­my while here in Trinidad and To­ba­go the econ­o­my is en­er­gy based.

WW: Tell me about your school­ing and ed­u­ca­tion. Was it there you de­cid­ed on this ca­reer path of fi­nance? If not, what led you in this di­rec­tion and made you de­cide on this pro­fes­sion?

A.S.: I grad­u­at­ed with a B.B.A Dou­ble Ma­jor in Fi­nance and In­ter­na­tion­al Busi­ness from Flori­da In­ter­na­tion­al Uni­ver­si­ty in 1991 and went on to com­plete the Ex­ec­u­tive M.B.A. from Bar­ry Uni­ver­si­ty in Mi­a­mi (Ja­maica Chap­ter).

WW: In your last in­ter­view with the Guardian, you spoke about suc­ceed­ing in a man's world. Do you think that this per­cep­tion of the work­place be­ing a man's world still holds true de­spite the many op­por­tu­ni­ties that women have to­day?

A.S.: To be fair to both gen­ders there are things that we both do well and things that are mu­tu­al­ly ex­clu­sive. For me, it sim­ply comes down to, "if you be­lieve in it you will suc­ceed". It is with that in mind that I gave my all through­out my ca­reer. But no ca­reer is built in iso­la­tion and along the way I have had great sup­port from my fam­i­ly, friends and work col­leagues who have help me at var­i­ous times to suc­ceed. There is no doubt how­ev­er when you con­sid­er the per­cent­age of women in CEO po­si­tions or at the Board lev­el that there is still a lot of work to do to cre­ate op­por­tu­ni­ties for women. I am for­tu­nate to work for an or­ga­ni­za­tion which sup­ports women and be­lieves in pro­mot­ing the best per­sons for the job re­gard­less of gen­der. Com­pa­nies across the re­gion need to look at the pro­grams for the ad­vance­ment of women and work to cre­ate op­por­tu­ni­ties for women at all lev­els.

WW: De­scribe a typ­i­cal work­ing week­day from the mo­ment you arise un­til work is done. What is your rou­tine like? Do you read the bible, med­i­tate, or­gan­ise your sched­ule, etc.

A.S.: I like to be or­ga­nized so yes, my sched­ule is very im­por­tant. I can't live with­out my black­ber­ry! Any­one who knows me can tell you I am a fo­cused in­di­vid­ual. My day is com­prised main­ly of meet­ings with de­part­ment heads, vis­it to branch­es, meet­ings with cus­tomers or oth­er ex­ter­nal stake­hold­ers. Each day is dif­fer­ent but I like to stay con­nect­ed to my em­ploy­ees so one of the ac­tiv­i­ties I am do­ing now is to vis­it each branch and unit in the or­ga­ni­za­tion to re­view where we are to­day but more im­por­tant share my vi­sion for the fu­ture. This is an im­por­tant part of any new leader com­ing in­to an or­ga­ni­za­tion and I re­al­ly en­joy get­ting to meet the fan­tas­tic team at Sco­tia­bank and hear­ing their views on the or­ga­ni­za­tion.

WW: What do you like to do on your down­time? Do you have a hob­by or favourite pas­time that you en­joy? (Swim­ming, surf­ing, cook­ing, read­ing, etc.)

A.S.: I re­al­ly en­joy spend­ing time with the friends I have made in Trinidad and To­ba­go over the past few months. I al­so love mu­sic so I use my iPad to down­load new mu­sic and mak­ing playlists for my friends. Most­ly how­ev­er I am a news junkie so I spend a lot of time read­ing up on world news and catch­ing up on is­sues which af­fect the fi­nan­cial mar­kets and may be rel­e­vant for our in­dus­try or cus­tomers.

WW: Are you in­to sports? If so, what do you en­joy play­ing or par­tic­i­pat­ing in? If not, are there any sports that you en­joy watch­ing (rug­by, crick­et, Eng­lish foot­ball, etc). Any favourite teams?

A.S.: Be­ing a true Caribbean per­son, I love crick­et! Sco­tia­bank is al­so deeply com­mit­ted to grow­ing the sport so it's ide­al that I am a Sco­tia­banker! I am al­so a huge foot­ball and track and field fan so I watch as many games as I can. I at­tend­ed the last Olympic Games in Lon­don and that was tru­ly an ex­pe­ri­ence I will re­mem­ber for ever.

WW: If you weren't work­ing in the field of fi­nance, what oth­er ca­reer do you think you would have en­tered in­to?

A.S.: I have been asked that ques­tion many times and to be hon­est the on­ly an­swer I have been able to come up with is some­thing re­lat­ed to trav­el. I en­joy vis­it­ing oth­er coun­tries and meet­ing new peo­ple.

WW: What is your favourite Ja­maican dish? What is your favourite Trinida­di­an dish? Have you ever cooked ei­ther one?

A.S.: Gen­er­al­ly I love some of the good Caribbean favourites like stew peas and rice or pork and there is just noth­ing like a good shark and bake with all the trim­mings. Kind of clich�d I know but, it is re­al­ly, re­al­ly good. Cook­ing is not one of my strongest qual­i­ties so I try to stay away from the kitchen as much as pos­si­ble.

WW: Last­ly, what tips would you give to oth­er busi­ness women who are aim­ing at the prover­bial 'glass ceil­ing'?

A.S.: In or­der to suc­ceed, you have to work ex­ceed­ing­ly hard to prove your­self, and the best way to suc­ceed is to re­main true to your own self and your core prin­ci­ples. Sheer willpow­er and de­ter­mi­na­tion go a long way. I find that this keeps me cen­tered so even when things get tough I work with the end in mind and push hard against that ceil­ing. You al­so need to de­vel­op a sup­port sys­tem around you. Women have been par­tic­u­lar­ly weak over the years at de­vel­op­ing a net­work and look­ing for men­tors to guide them along their ca­reer path. A ca­reer is a se­ries of steps built over­time and to be suc­cess­ful it will re­quire de­ter­mi­na­tion and sac­ri­fice. Each per­son is dif­fer­ent and the key to any ca­reer is be­ing com­fort­able with the choic­es you make and the work life bal­ance you pre­fer. There is no sil­ver bul­let to suc­cess. The key is to be­lieve in your­self and go for it!