Am­bi­ka Ja­gas­sars­ingh

am­bi­ka.ja­gas­sars­ingh@guardian.co.tt

Pria Nar­i­nesingh cred­its her moth­er as be­ing the great­est in­flu­ence in her life.

“I be­lieve her views have al­ways been ahead of her time. From very ear­ly on, she taught my sis­ter and I the lessons from her own ex­pe­ri­ences, the val­ue of be­ing in­de­pen­dent and be­ing able to stand on your own two feet.

“The pri­ma­ry les­son, how­ev­er, was al­ways about liv­ing with in­tegri­ty and be­ing able to hold your head high. We lis­tened close­ly and were able to see many ex­am­ples of who we did not want to be. Our moth­er re­in­forced these lessons and sur­round­ed us with love,” said Nar­i­nesingh.

That ad­vice con­tin­ues to guide Nar­i­nesingh in her role as the coun­try man­ag­ing part­ner of Ernst & Young (EY) Bar­ba­dos, East­ern Caribbean and T&T of­fices.

Speak­ing with Sun­day Busi­ness Guardian, Nar­i­nesingh de­scribed her as­cen­sion as, “Ex­cit­ing, re­ward­ing, chal­leng­ing, fun, lessons in en­durance, agili­ty, grit, for­ti­tude. A climb is a good word for it. And 30 years in I can say that I would not change a thing.”

She em­pha­sised that a large part of her prowess with­in the fi­nan­cial ser­vices in­dus­try was owed to the firm she ded­i­cat­ed her time and ef­fort from a young age.

“First­ly, the recog­ni­tion isn’t mine alone—it’s in­ex­tri­ca­bly and proud­ly linked to EY. Am I proud of my ac­com­plish­ments? Yes, I am—but I al­ways keep the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty of that ex­po­sure top of mind.”

Nar­i­nesingh added that through­out her years at EY, she was nev­er sub­ject­ed to any gen­der dis­crim­i­na­tion.

“There were no bi­as­es or dis­crim­i­na­tion due to gen­der—that is for sure. For many per­sons en­ter­ing the pro­fes­sion, the ear­ly years are a com­bi­na­tion of work­ing while study­ing to pur­sue a pro­fes­sion­al des­ig­na­tion—and any­one that has been through this knows it’s rough. It tough­ens you and it’s com­pet­i­tive. It’s an amaz­ing foun­da­tion.”

What mat­tered above all else was the qual­i­ty of work.

“I’m proud to cat­e­gor­i­cal­ly say that we don’t have a gen­der pay gap at EY Caribbean, and I have not ex­pe­ri­enced that in my 30 years. We pay based on qual­i­fi­ca­tions and ex­pe­ri­ence, pro­mote based on mer­it and achieve­ments and we cel­e­brate every win equal­ly. The stats speak for them­selves.”

Ac­cord­ing to da­ta re­ceived from EY, two-thirds of their Caribbean work­force is made up of women, with al­most half of their part­ners and ex­ec­u­tive di­rec­tors be­ing women.

Through her work life, Nar­i­nesingh was able to build last­ing con­nec­tions.

“We worked hard, stud­ied hard, played hard and we looked out for each oth­er. We grew up to­geth­er and there’s some­thing spe­cial about hav­ing these shared ex­pe­ri­ences that build life­long re­la­tion­ships.”

De­spite the high­lights of the job, it was no bed of ros­es and came with com­pli­ca­tions for a pro­fes­sion­al who start­ed as young as her­self.

“Ageism, how­ev­er, was an ug­ly beast at times. I have ex­pe­ri­enced the looks on some clients’ faces that said, ‘Who’s this lit­tle girl com­ing to tell me what to do?’, and by the way, they would have reached out to my boss to ex­press the same. That was a point of dis­crim­i­na­tion that I had to learn not to per­son­alise and in­stead recog­nise it as an im­por­tant av­enue of com­mu­ni­ca­tion for our clients.”

For those look­ing to ad­vance in their re­spec­tive fields, re­gard­less of gen­der, she urged that they recog­nise what is im­por­tant to them while as­sess­ing whether where they worked, aligned with the goals they hoped to achieve.

“We haven’t all been dealt the same hand and the climb is not lin­ear—recog­nise what is right for you at the var­i­ous life stages and have em­pa­thy for all.”

Most im­por­tant­ly, to nev­er stop try­ing to be bet­ter.

“Con­tin­u­al­ly push your­self out of your com­fort zone—be strate­gic and in­vest in your skillset—which by the way usu­al­ly means you are do­ing some­thing ‘in ad­di­tion to your day job’. You don’t need a grand plan – a se­ries of small­er achiev­able ac­tions that you pe­ri­od­i­cal­ly re-eval­u­ate is of­ten far more ef­fec­tive,” she added.

She al­so men­tioned the sig­nif­i­cance of find­ing a men­tor and heed­ing their ad­vice since this, was in­stru­men­tal in her own ca­reer.

“Col­in Soo Ping Chow, for­mer ex­ec­u­tive chair­man of EYC said to me, ‘The best way to move on to your next role, is to work your­self out of your cur­rent role.’ It’s some of the best ad­vice I’ve ever got­ten—I’ll nev­er for­get it, and it’s been a key com­po­nent in how my ca­reer un­fold­ed.”

Nar­i­nesingh al­so en­cour­aged oth­ers to “look be­yond gen­der” for any­one they may hold in es­teem, be it her or any oth­er lead­ers.

“Look thought­ful­ly and be­low the sur­face and un­der­stand that there are many com­po­nents that have con­tributed to who that in­di­vid­ual is. One’s in­flu­ences vary through life, and we must learn from them all.”

Ac­cord­ing to Nar­i­nesingh, “In­ter­na­tion­al Women’s Day and eq­ui­ty isn’t just about the work­place. The chal­lenges ex­ist in all facets of life.”

She be­lieves that “The more we peel back the con­scious and un­con­scious bi­as­es we have, the more en­light­ened and tol­er­ant we be­come, and there is more room for love.”

Nar­i­nesingh de­scribes the day as bit­ter-sweet since there are still many things to be done to ob­serve the day as it should be.

“In­ter­na­tion­al Women’s Day is bit­ter-sweet to me. It’s an im­por­tant recog­ni­tion of sig­nif­i­cant progress, but we can’t de­ny that chal­lenges still ex­ist. I hope I live to see In­ter­na­tion­al Women’s Day be­come a true cel­e­bra­tion of equal­i­ty ver­sus a call to ac­tion.”

She stat­ed that the path to suc­cess may present it­self dif­fer­ent­ly to every­one.

“We are all unique and we are a re­sult of the com­bi­na­tion of our ex­pe­ri­ences—the good and the bad. No one is per­fect. All we can do is keep grow­ing and learn­ing and striv­ing to be true to our­selves. Sur­round your­self with per­sons who sup­port you and ap­pre­ci­ate you for just that. To my fam­i­ly, friends and col­leagues, thank you I do not ever take you for grant­ed.”

When asked what ad­vice she would give to her younger self and by ex­ten­sion oth­er young girls and women about mak­ing it in the world as a busi­ness­woman, her ad­vice was sim­ple.

“Your place is wher­ev­er you de­cide it is. It’s your goal to set. If you do noth­ing else for your­self, make cer­tain that your place is one that em­pow­ers, recog­nis­es, chal­lenges, and cel­e­brates you, while giv­ing you the room and sup­port to be ex­act­ly who you want to be.”

Stress­ing the un­pre­dictabil­i­ty of life, she en­cour­aged oth­ers to make the most of the mo­ments, but most im­por­tant­ly to have faith in them­selves.

“There will al­ways be a rea­son to doubt your­self but give your­self the grace of 100 more rea­sons to be­lieve in your­self. The knot in your throat, swal­low it. The bead of sweat on your brow, wipe it away. And if all else fails, bor­row some au­dac­i­ty from a man you know.”

To pave the way for­ward and make the day a true cel­e­bra­tion as op­posed to what Nar­i­nesingh re­ferred to as “a call to ac­tion,” she prompt­ed men to play their part and be sup­port­ive.

For hus­bands and part­ners, she ex­pressed the need for them to “set your am­bi­tions to­geth­er with the women in your lives. De­cide to­geth­er the life you both de­serve and want and move in the best way that sup­ports that. Even if it’s dif­fer­ent from the tra­di­tion­al (Caribbean) norms. When you make room for the women to thrive, the en­tire house­hold ben­e­fits, so why stop her?”

Be­fore spous­es can play their roles, how­ev­er, fa­thers play an in­te­gral one. Re­flect­ing on her own ex­pe­ri­ences grow­ing up, Nar­i­nesingh asked that fa­thers recog­nise that women were now blaz­ing steady trails in the world of work.

“To the fa­thers out there, and what I would tell my own fa­ther if he was alive—I un­der­stand that you have your views which are found­ed on the ex­pe­ri­ences that you had, but the world has changed. The bat­tle is not done, and many forms of bias still ex­ist, but know that in to­day’s world a woman can have a full and suc­cess­ful ca­reer based on mer­it. We are do­ing it.”

Di­rect­ed at those with the abil­i­ty to change the work land­scape and dy­nam­ic, Nar­i­nesingh ad­vised them to not judge a book by its cov­er, but by the con­tent of their char­ac­ter.

“To to­day’s lead­ers, give every­one a fair shot and recog­nise the pow­er of your words and choic­es. Don’t as­sume some­one’s com­pe­ten­cy when you don’t even know what they bring to the ta­ble. So, what if they may go on ma­ter­ni­ty leave in a few years, or that they may ul­ti­mate­ly leave to spend time with their kids?”

She added that there needs to be more trans­paren­cy around hir­ing prac­tices and wages in every sec­tor, en­cour­ag­ing those with­in the gov­er­nance sphere to “Chal­lenge it. Ex­pose it. Change it.”

Af­ter years of com­mit­ment to her work, Nar­i­nesingh is sure of one thing.

“When I leave the pro­fes­sion, I’ll know I was a part of a team that con­tributed to mak­ing it stronger and bet­ter.”