KRISTY RAM­NAR­INE

Kristy.ram­nar­ine@cnc3.co.tt

Dr Nicole Grimes ded­i­cates her time to the pro­mo­tion of small, mi­cro and medi­um busi­ness­es from the Caribbean di­as­po­ra.

Born in T&T, she moved to the Unit­ed States at the age of 15. She was the first in her fam­i­ly to grad­u­ate from col­lege and lat­er ob­tained an un­der­grad­u­ate de­gree in Me­chan­i­cal and Aero­space En­gi­neer­ing from Cor­nell Uni­ver­si­ty, dou­ble Mas­ters de­grees in sci­ence ed­u­ca­tion from Teach­ers Col­lege/Co­lum­bia Uni­ver­si­ty fol­lowed by a PhD in ur­ban ed­u­ca­tion. 

Af­ter 20 years work­ing as a high school Physics teacher, prin­ci­pal and uni­ver­si­ty ad­junct as­sis­tant pro­fes­sor, the Brook­lyn res­i­dent felt she need­ed a break. Ed­u­ca­tor burnout had set in and she was ready to do some­thing dif­fer­ent with her life that was more con­nect­ed to her her­itage and com­mu­ni­ties of colour. 

In 2018, with­out a plan in place, Dr Grimes took the bold leap and lat­er start­ed Carib Biz Net­work (CBN).

“I found­ed Carb Biz Net­work at a time when I was in a life tran­si­tion of sorts try­ing to fig­ure out what I would like to do next in my life,” she said.

“I was re­al­ly look­ing around and I knew a lot of tal­ent­ed peo­ple of Caribbean her­itage in the US who were start­ing small busi­ness­es. They had a lit­tle pas­sion project and they were fig­ur­ing out how to con­vert it or they were go­ing full steam ahead. 

“It was re­al­ly in­spir­ing and I de­cid­ed that I want­ed to cre­ate a plat­form to am­pli­fy my friends to start off with, it has blos­somed in­to so much more than that now.”

To­day, CBN is a busi­ness and cul­ture hub for founders of mi­cro, small and medi­um busi­ness­es in North Amer­i­ca.”

The Brook­lyn res­i­dent’s cur­rent mis­sion is to close the racial wealth gap by pro­vid­ing ed­u­ca­tion and op­por­tu­ni­ty to Caribbean busi­ness­es in North Amer­i­ca and be­yond. 

“CBN is a busi­ness de­vel­op­ment plat­form ded­i­cat­ed to fos­ter­ing eco­nom­ic op­por­tu­ni­ty and strength­en­ing small Caribbean busi­ness­es in North Amer­i­ca and be­yond,” she said. 

“We serve a di­verse group of busi­ness­es pro­vid­ing tools and op­por­tu­ni­ties to help small busi­ness­es reach their full po­ten­tial. 

“Our mis­sion is to con­nect, sup­port, and am­pli­fy Black and Caribbean en­tre­pre­neurs to make them more im­pact­ful and suc­cess­ful brands. By pro­vid­ing ac­cess to the re­sources and ca­pac­i­ty build­ing, we help busi­ness­es move through key mile­stones as they strive to reach their full po­ten­tial.”

Dr Grimes start­ed high­light­ing busi­ness own­ers through her so­cial me­dia plat­forms.

To­day, CBN boasts a ro­bust data­base of over 700 Caribbean small busi­ness­es in the US. 

“I start­ed do­ing a dig­i­tal se­ries to spot­light women of Caribbean her­itage,” she said.

“Liv­ing in the US I am al­ways ex­cit­ed when I meet some­one of Caribbean her­itage and for me when I start­ed CBN and start­ed find­ing out about all these cre­atives and founders I was like every­one should know. 

“So I start­ed cre­at­ing these carousels to high­light Caribbean women en­tre­pre­neurs four years ago. It has grown as more and more peo­ple are reach­ing out to CBN, we’re dis­cov­er­ing more peo­ple. New founders are com­ing in­to the mix.”

In 2021, she al­so start­ed cu­rat­ing full mar­ket­place pop-ups fea­tur­ing busi­ness­es owned by peo­ple from the Caribbean di­as­po­ra.

“We’ve been do­ing pop-ups for the last four years,” she ex­plained.

“We start­ed in NY and have moved across the US. We just com­plet­ed one ear­li­er this month at the Em­bassy of Trinidad and To­ba­go in Wash­ing­ton.

The pop-ups are called Is­land Vil­lage, a vil­lage of Caribbean mak­ers.

“Our pop-ups are dif­fer­ent sizes de­pend­ing on the lo­ca­tion we are do­ing them. They fea­ture both women and men, but the ma­jor­i­ty of mak­ers are women so my pops up tend to have more women.”

Dr Grimes and her team are now work­ing on plans for the lat­est Eye­land Fest sched­uled to take place in New York next month.

Eye­land Fest is an an­nu­al ac­ti­va­tion host­ed by CBN dur­ing Caribbean Amer­i­can Her­itage Month where pa­trons have themed ex­pe­ri­ences, shop, con­nect with oth­er Caribbean en­tre­pre­neurs and thought lead­ers and learn from var­ied fi­nance and tech-fo­cused work­shops.

With the mar­ket­place ex­pe­ri­ences, rough­ly a quar­ter of the par­tic­i­pat­ing brands claim T&T her­itage.

Al­though a full-time en­tre­pre­neur, Dr Grimes stays con­nect­ed to her ed­u­ca­tion roots as a pri­vate con­sul­tant to schools and Mar­ket­ing As­so­ciate Vice Pres­i­dent for a glob­al ac­cred­i­ta­tion com­pa­ny.

When asked about fu­ture plans, Dr Grimes shared her vi­sion of grow­ing the net­work to be the largest hub in the di­as­po­ra for Caribbean busi­ness and launch­ing an in­cu­ba­tor.