There are sev­er­al pow­er­hous­es who we rec­og­nize as shap­ing the land­scape and fu­ture of Trinidad and To­ba­go. She gives of her time and ex­per­tise un­wa­ver­ing­ly with courage, re­silience and style. In com­mem­o­ra­tion of IWD, the WE mag­a­zine wel­comed the op­por­tu­ni­ty to have a deep dive with Dr Maryam Ab­dool-Richards.

1. What is your WHY?

My jour­ney has been one of con­tin­u­ous learn­ing and meld­ing of ex­pe­ri­ences to achieve ex­cel­lence in my en­deav­ours.

Put sim­ply – I care. I care about help­ing oth­ers to lead hap­py and healthy lives, I care about a so­ci­ety where we can all feel a sense of be­long­ing and where we can each con­tribute to­wards a bet­ter so­ci­ety. That con­vic­tion has been an in­te­gral part

of my work as physi­cian and

to­day that car­ries over in­to

my du­ties and ac­count­abil­i­ties

as PMO and board

re­spon­si­bil­i­ties.

Over time I have seen that there is a clear in­ter­de­pen­den­cy of pub­lic sec­tor and pri­vate sec­tor sys­tems and that there is tremen­dous val­ue to be had from col­lab­o­ra­tion.

2. While the coun­try knows you, as one of the faces at the MOH, you con­tribute at di­verse lev­els with NGOs - HE­ROES Foun­da­tion and The Shel­ter. How have those roles deep­ened your align­ment to ser­vant lead­er­ship?

The term ser­vant lead­er­ship is an in­ter­est­ing one and it con­fronts the dilem­ma of lead­er­ship and what con­sti­tutes re­spon­si­bil­i­ty and ac­count­abil­i­ty. Lead­er­ship is about us­ing knowl­edge and ex­pe­ri­ence for the greater good – be it an in­sti­tu­tion or a com­pa­ny or an or­gan­i­sa­tion. The COVID-19 pan­dem­ic has am­pli­fied so­ci­etal in­equities and work­ing close­ly to em­pow­er women and chil­dren is key to nav­i­gat­ing the post COVID -19 re­cov­ery.

My work with NGOs is very much con­nect­ed to my con­cerns about build­ing a healthy so­ci­ety – not just from a med­ical per­spec­tive, but wholis­ti­cal­ly. I choose or­gan­i­sa­tions that fo­cus on em­pow­er­ing women and chil­dren.

The He­roes Foun­da­tion af­fords me the op­por­tu­ni­ty to men­tor young women and young men in the stu­dent pop­u­la­tion and to nur­ture an in­ter­est in sci­ence based or STEM ca­reers. This or­gan­i­sa­tion is do­ing tremen­dous work in de­vel­op­ing lead­er­ship skills among our youth.

The Shel­ter has been an im­por­tant part of my life be­cause it has giv­en me the chance to in­ter­act in­ti­mate­ly with in­di­vid­u­als who have been abused and un­just­ly treat­ed. It al­so al­lows me to help in the heal­ing process of women and chil­dren who are bro­ken, and to pro­vide them with the right cop­ing tools and mech­a­nisms to break free from cy­cles of abuse.

3. Why do you think di­ver­si­ty in the work­place is so im­por­tant?

The is­sue of di­ver­si­ty con­tin­ues to progress sig­nif­i­cant­ly es­pe­cial­ly giv­en the em­pha­sis on En­vi­ron­men­tal, Sus­tain­abil­i­ty and Gov­er­nance (ESG) goals. To­day we have done a much bet­ter job of bring­ing women in­to the board room and to the lead­er­ship ta­ble.

More than 40% of the work­force in Trinidad & To­ba­go is fe­male. While men and women may bring dif­fer­ent per­spec­tives and ideas to the same chal­lenges, these dif­fer­ences can al­low for bet­ter and more ap­pro­pri­ate so­lu­tions to so­ci­etal prob­lems and busi­ness chal­lenges.

The na­ture of the is­sues fac­ing gov­ern­ments and busi­ness in a post-pan­dem­ic con­text re­quire a mul­ti­fac­eted and in­clu­sive ap­proach. Women tend to be more sen­si­tive to the wider im­pact of de­ci­sions made at the cor­po­rate ta­ble and in­clu­sive par­tic­i­pa­tion is go­ing to be im­por­tant as we re­cal­i­brate to a new way of work­ing and be­ing fam­i­ly.

4. How can we en­cour­age more women to pur­sue lead­er­ship roles in their ca­reer?

I be­lieve a key fac­tor in achiev­ing pro­fes­sion­al suc­cess is to set clear, short- and long-term ob­jec­tives that you would like to achieve in your ca­reer. It’s about strate­gic plan­ning at a per­son­al lev­el. It is about vi­su­al­iz­ing where you want to be and hold­ing your­self ac­count­able in at­tain­ing those goals. It is about be­ing more fo­cused and in­ten­tion­al about what you be­lieve you ought to be.

It is im­por­tant to un­der­stand the val­ue of com­mu­ni­ty in achiev­ing those goals. I do be­lieve that no one tru­ly achieves suc­cess alone. Suc­cess is a com­mu­ni­ty ef­fort and I have been for­tu­nate to have a com­mu­ni­ty around me and the strong sup­port of trust­ed friends and men­tors.

5. The theme for In­ter­na­tion­al Women’s Day is #Break­The­Bias - What is the most im­por­tant mes­sage you want to send out to young women on IWD?

Women have made tremen­dous progress in the cur­rent work­space, lo­cal­ly, re­gion­al­ly, and glob­al­ly. As a spe­cial­ist physi­cian, with work­ing ex­pe­ri­ence on mul­ti­ple boards in dif­fer­ent in­dus­tries, I have had the plea­sure to work along­side nu­mer­ous in­dus­tri­ous and dri­ven women. My mes­sage is to en­cour­age col­lab­o­ra­tion and to em­pha­size that there is room at the ta­ble for all those will­ing to work hard. As a so­ci­ety, our goal should be to work col­lab­o­ra­tive­ly for a bet­ter Trinidad and To­ba­go and a stronger Caribbean.