Trinidad and To­ba­go has long pro­duced lead­ers who make waves on the in­ter­na­tion­al stage, and Roger Ramb­harose is a shin­ing ex­am­ple. From hum­ble be­gin­nings in south Trinidad to com­mand­ing op­er­a­tions for one of the world’s largest quick-ser­vice restau­rant net­works, Ramb­harose em­bod­ies the phi­los­o­phy that has guid­ed his jour­ney: “What you think is what you be­come.”

This year, Ramb­harose be­came the first-ever re­cip­i­ent of the “Gen­er­al Man­ag­er of the Year” award for the Latin Amer­i­ca and Caribbean re­gion by KFC (Yum! Brands)—a dis­tinc­tion recog­nis­ing the top busi­ness leader across mul­ti­ple mar­kets. De­spite the ac­co­lade, Ramb­harose is char­ac­ter­is­ti­cal­ly hum­ble, at­tribut­ing the suc­cess to the team be­hind him.

“The award re­cent­ly re­ceived from Yum! LA&C is a mile­stone not for me alone but for every team mem­ber at Pres­tige Hold­ings Lim­it­ed, from our vi­sion­ary CEO Si­mon Hardy to the ded­i­cat­ed staff across our restau­rants,” he said. “For the first time, Yum! KFC LA&C recog­nised the top gen­er­al man­ag­er in the re­gion, a tes­ta­ment to our mar­ket’s per­for­mance and our re­lent­less push for ex­cel­lence.”

Pres­tige Hold­ings Lim­it­ed didn’t stop there, he said. The or­gan­i­sa­tion al­so cap­tured awards for Top Dig­i­tal Mar­ket, Best Mar­ket­ing Cal­en­dar, and the Top Peo­ple and Cul­ture Award, led by VP Wendy Joseph. For Ramb­harose, these ac­co­lades re­flect a cul­ture of lead­er­ship root­ed in per­for­mance, in­no­va­tion, and peo­ple de­vel­op­ment—and a re­minder that T&T com­petes at a glob­al lev­el.

“Trinidad and To­ba­go con­tin­ues to punch far above its weight,” Ramb­harose said. “From our world-class en­er­gy sec­tor to our cul­tur­al bril­liance, and even rank­ing among the strongest KFC mar­kets glob­al­ly, we have every rea­son to cel­e­brate who we are. When you are Trin­bag­on­ian, any­thing is pos­si­ble. My wish for our coun­try is greater uni­ty, a shared de­vel­op­ment vi­sion, and a com­mit­ment to mak­ing our is­lands not just pros­per­ous but among the hap­pi­est and most pro­gres­sive glob­al­ly.”

For Ramb­harose, pro­fes­sion­al achieve­ment is on­ly part of the sto­ry. He counts his fam­i­ly—his wife, Liza, and their three chil­dren—as his great­est per­son­al ac­com­plish­ment. “My proud­est ac­com­plish­ment is earn­ing the trust of the peo­ple and or­gan­i­sa­tions I serve, whether in help­ing to build suc­cess­ful fran­chise op­er­a­tions or cre­at­ing busi­ness­es that will grow for gen­er­a­tions,” he said.

Born in 1983 in Rousil­lac, Ramb­harose was raised in a home de­fined by dis­ci­pline, hard work, and ser­vice. From help­ing his fam­i­ly sell pro­duce at age nine to lead­ing youth ini­tia­tives and school crick­et teams, lead­er­ship came ear­ly. He ex­celled aca­d­e­m­i­cal­ly, earn­ing top stu­dent ho­n­ours at A-Lev­els, fol­lowed by a BSc in Man­age­ment with mi­nors in Fi­nance and Eco­nom­ics at the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies, the AC­CA qual­i­fi­ca­tion, and an MBA from Heri­ot-Watt Uni­ver­si­ty. Even dur­ing his stud­ies, he served in stu­dent lead­er­ship roles, in­clud­ing trea­sur­er for both the UWI Hin­du So­ci­ety and the Hin­du Stu­dents Coun­cil of T&T.

Join­ing Pres­tige Hold­ings Lim­it­ed in 2019 as Vice Pres­i­dent of KFC, Ramb­harose ex­pand­ed his port­fo­lio to in­clude Piz­za Hut by 2021. To­day, he leads a work­force of over 2,000 em­ploy­ees, nur­tur­ing tal­ent and help­ing peo­ple dis­cov­er po­ten­tial they nev­er knew they pos­sessed. Un­der his lead­er­ship, Pres­tige Hold­ings has be­come a bench­mark for op­er­a­tional and brand ex­cel­lence, ben­e­fit­ing from col­lab­o­ra­tion with col­leagues across the US, Latin Amer­i­ca, Asia, and Eu­rope.

Be­yond cor­po­rate suc­cess, Ramb­harose is com­mit­ted to giv­ing back. Through the KFC HAR­VEST Pro­gramme, sur­plus food is do­nat­ed dai­ly to NGOs, con­tribut­ing over 800,000 meals to home­less pop­u­la­tions, mi­grant com­mu­ni­ties, and fam­i­lies in need. He has al­so fos­tered part­ner­ships with lo­cal sports or­gan­i­sa­tions and autism-fo­cused ini­tia­tives, cre­at­ing in­clu­sive op­por­tu­ni­ties for com­mu­ni­ties across T&T.

In­ter­na­tion­al­ly, Ramb­harose serves as pres­i­dent of the Caribbean and Latin Amer­i­ca Fran­chisee As­so­ci­a­tion (CARI­BLA) and sec­ond vice pres­i­dent of the In­ter­na­tion­al Fran­chise As­so­ci­a­tion for Yum! Brands, rep­re­sent­ing over 2,000 restau­rants across 32 coun­tries. Out­side of cor­po­rate life, he sits on the Fi­nance and Com­mer­cial Strat­e­gy Com­mit­tee of Crick­et West In­dies, found­ed Bharose Teas, a lo­cal or­gan­ic tea com­pa­ny, and ad­vis­es com­mu­ni­ty-fo­cused ini­tia­tives through SE­WATT.

“Our on­ly lim­its are the bound­aries of our imag­i­na­tion,” he says—a mot­to that has pro­pelled him from small-town be­gin­nings to glob­al in­flu­ence. For Ramb­harose, the awards, ti­tles, and recog­ni­tion are im­por­tant, but the true mea­sure of suc­cess lies in the im­pact he leaves on peo­ple, com­mu­ni­ties, and brands.