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Friday, August 15, 2025

Lisa Ghany, a powerhouse in Corporate Communications

by

Sache Alexander
2349 days ago
20190310

On March 8, the world recog­nised the rights of women for an­oth­er year with the cel­e­bra­tion of In­ter­na­tion­al Women’s Day. This year, there is a call for bet­ter bal­ance in the work­place and a col­lec­tive ef­fort to cre­ate a gen­der bal­anced world. While this spe­cial oc­c­ca­sion al­lows us to recog­nise and cel­e­brate the gen­er­a­tions of women across the globe for their ex­cep­tion­al work, we can­not for­get the tremen­dous women of our lit­tle is­land that are mak­ing a huge im­pact and chang­ing the game in the cor­po­rate world. Lisa Ghany is one of the women of our coun­try that con­tin­ues to wear many hats and take charge in mul­ti­ple roles. She might be known as a com­mu­ni­ca­tions spe­cial­ist but we be­lieve she is more than that. Lisa is a pow­er­house.

Man­ag­ing Di­rec­tor and founder of Xcep­tion­al Events, Lisa (Nam­soo) Ghany, has over 30 years ex­pe­ri­ence in Cor­po­rate Com­mu­ni­ca­tions, Mar­ket­ing, and Cor­po­rate Event Man­age­ment. Lisa is a for­mer se­nior ex­ec­u­tive man­ag­er with sig­nif­i­cant ex­pe­ri­ence in de­vel­op­ing and im­ple­ment­ing suc­cess­ful strate­gic in­te­grat­ed Mar­ket­ing and Com­mu­ni­ca­tions plans. Her spe­cial­i­sa­tion is in Cross Cul­tur­al Com­mu­ni­ca­tion, Pro­to­col, Eti­quette and Event Man­age­ment. She holds a Mas­ters in Pro­to­col and Diplo­ma­cy a Bach­e­lor of Arts De­gree in Event Man­age­ment from Leeds Met­ro­pol­i­tan Uni­ver­si­ty and is a Cer­ti­fied and Li­censed Pro­to­col and Eti­quette train­er, and the first In­ter­na­tion­al­ly Cer­ti­fied Spe­cial Event Pro­fes­sion­al (CSEP) in the Caribbean.

She is the moth­er of two amaz­ing daugh­ters, Saara and Sofiyah Ghany. Lisa is a for­mer ad­vi­sor to the Prime Min­is­ter of Trinidad and To­ba­go (2011-2015) and is an ad­junct lec­tur­er for the George Wash­ing­ton Uni­ver­si­ty Events Man­age­ment Pro­gram at the Arthur Lok Jack Grad­u­ate School of Busi­ness.

Lisa not on­ly thrives in her ca­reer in the ar­eas afore­men­tioned but has many more af­fil­i­a­tions:

Event and Spon­sor­ship Com­mit­tee Chair and Hon­orary Board mem­ber of the Down Syn­drome Fam­i­ly Net­work

Op­er­a­tions Con­sul­tant for the John E Sab­ga Foun­da­tion for Pan­cre­at­ic Can­cer

Mem­ber of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Cham­ber of Com­merce

Mem­ber of Meet­ing Plan­ners In­ter­na­tion­al (MPI)

Mem­ber of In­ter­na­tion­al Live Events As­so­ci­a­tion

Ex­ec­u­tive mem­ber of PLOTT, Pow­er­ful Women of Trinidad and To­ba­go

The XX Team got a chance to speak to Lisa as we con­tin­ue cel­e­brate In­ter­na­tion­al Women’s Day. She has shared with us her views on our ques­tions re­gard­ing In­ter­na­tion­al Women’s Day, here’s what she shared with us.

XX: On In­ter­na­tion­al Women’s Day, what is the most im­por­tant mes­sage you want to send out to young women think­ing about their ca­reers?

LG: I would like to en­cour­age young Women to spend some time first get­ting to know them­selves and un­der­stand­ing their own strengths weak­ness­es and tal­ents. These are the things that make you unique and will help you to suc­ceed and dif­fer­en­ti­ate your­self in a very com­pet­i­tive mar­ket place. Try to iden­ti­fy what you are pas­sion­ate about this will guide you to de­cide on the job that is right for you. De­vel­op your emo­tion­al in­tel­li­gence and crit­i­cal think­ing ca­pa­bil­i­ties in or­der to make your­self more adapt­able. Be­come in­no­v­a­tive and don’t be afraid to take risks. When you make the de­ci­sion on what you want to be ed­u­cate and train your­self.

In to­day’s world change is a giv­en when we pre­pare our­selves men­tal­ly we can be­come more re­source­ful when it comes to ca­reer choic­es and changes.

XX: With the IWD theme for 2019 be­ing Bal­ance for Bet­ter, can you tell us what bal­ance in the work­place means to you?

LG:

Bal­ance in the work­place for me would start with Or­ga­ni­za­tion­al change that would help to build di­verse and in­clu­sive or­ga­ni­za­tions that chal­lenge stereo­types and bias.

Women hav­ing an equal op­por­tu­ni­ty to be con­sid­ered for any role in the or­ga­ni­za­tion that they are qual­i­fied for at the same salary as their male col­leagues

Com­mu­ni­ca­tion chan­nels to al­low women the op­por­tu­ni­ty to speak out and be rep­re­sent­ed on is­sues af­fect­ing them

Or­ga­ni­za­tion­al Pol­i­cy to deal with Sex­u­al ha­rass­ment in the work­place and ed­u­ca­tion and train­ing pro­grams geared to cre­at­ing more aware­ness about sex­u­al ha­rass­ment

To be pro­vid­ed with a sup­port struc­ture that caters to fam­i­ly life and well­ness

XX: What’s the most im­por­tant piece of ad­vice you’d give to a woman think­ing of start­ing a ca­reer in Cor­po­rate Com­mu­ni­ca­tions and oth­er re­lat­ed fields?

LG: I would ad­vise them to make their ca­reer choice based on what they are pas­sion­ate about and what brings them joy and ful­fill­ment. Work is meant to bring us a sense of pride and pas­sion and pro­vide us with the fi­nan­cial re­wards that can pro­vide a lifestyle of se­cu­ri­ty and com­fort. Choose wise­ly and in­vest in your self-de­vel­op­ment and train­ing. Nev­er stop im­prov­ing your­self and adding to your skill set. Learn from oth­ers and al­ways be will­ing to give back to your com­mu­ni­ty and your in­dus­try. Broad­en your hori­zons through trav­el and in­ter­na­tion­al ex­po­sure.

XX: Can you tell us about a fe­male role mod­el who has in­spired you over your ca­reer?

LG: It is hard to iden­ti­fy one role mod­el as I feel that I have had many fe­male role mod­els in my life start­ing in my fam­i­ly where my I was raised by my fa­ther’s sis­ters who were self­less women who looked af­ter me and loved me un­con­di­tion­al­ly. My Moth­er who I grew clos­er to as I got old­er and who had many per­son­al chal­lenges was a woman of great strength and beau­ty whose re­silience I know I have in­her­it­ed. My teach­ers at St Joseph Con­vent led by the late Sr Paul D’or­nelas led by ex­am­ple and in­stilled in me re­spect and dis­ci­pline. My in­ner cir­cle of friends who are all beau­ti­ful in­tel­li­gent and strong ladies have stood by me all my life and have helped me to sur­vive the not so good times from them I have learnt and ex­pe­ri­enced loy­al­ty, com­pas­sion and great hap­pi­ness. When I en­tered the work­ing world I start­ed in the fi­nan­cial sec­tor where I met many strong women Man­agers with a great work eth­ic. In the area of Cor­po­rate Com­mu­ni­ca­tions many of my col­leagues have laid the foun­da­tion for the In­dus­try as we know it to­day Mrs. Denise Dem­ming, Ms. Lisa Bur­kett, Mrs. An­na Maria Gar­cia Brooks, Mrs. San­dra Welch Far­rell among oth­ers. I be­lieve that we are shaped by the in­flu­ences of many per­sons along our jour­ney and these peo­ple in­spire you to be­come bet­ter and to keep on chal­leng­ing your­self.

XX: How im­por­tant is it for women to lift each oth­er up and what does that mean to you?

LG: Women have al­ways had a net­work and friend­ships and they will con­tin­ue to bond with each oth­er for sup­port and to share their sto­ries and in do­ing so they will con­tin­ue to lift each oth­er up.

As a so­ci­ety we need to fo­cus more on build­ing a strong com­mu­ni­ty of peo­ple who are re­spon­si­ble, hon­est and re­spect­ful of each oth­er. We need to lift each oth­er up in a pos­i­tive way re­gard­less of Gen­der. Men and women, hus­bands and wives, broth­ers and sis­ters we all have a role to play.

In­ter­na­tion­al Women’s Day is not on­ly about ad­vo­cat­ing for bet­ter rights for women in the work­place and so­ci­ety but for cel­e­brat­ing all that women are and what they do to con­tribute to our coun­try and our world.


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