It’s been 20 days since Angélique Parisot-Pot­ter, Massy’s for­mer ex­ec­u­tive vice pres­i­dent of busi­ness in­tegri­ty and group gen­er­al coun­sel, shocked the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty and the coun­try, by mak­ing her con­cerns about the com­pa­ny’s ex­ec­u­tive lead­er­ship pro­gramme pub­lic.

In that pe­ri­od, her claims were cre­ative­ly in­ter­pret­ed by the pub­lic which led to pub­lic mock­ery of Massy on so­cial me­dia, she was sent on ad­min­is­tra­tive leave, she even­tu­al­ly re­signed days lat­er and the com­pa­ny launched an in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to claims.

In this ex­clu­sive in­ter­view with the Sun­day Guardian, Parisot-Pot­ter ex­plained what prompt­ed her to stand up at the com­pa­ny’ 100th an­nu­al gen­er­al meet­ing and make her ex­plo­sive al­le­ga­tions.

Asha Javeed

Lead Ed­i­tor In­ves­ti­ga­tions

asha.javeed@guardian.co.tt

Angélique Parisot-Pot­ter is no or­di­nary whistle­blow­er. Af­ter all, she wrote Massy’s whistle­blow­er pol­i­cy.

Her ti­tle un­der em­ploy as Massy’s ex­ec­u­tive vice pres­i­dent of busi­ness in­tegri­ty and group gen­er­al coun­sel car­ried cred­i­bil­i­ty for the re­gion­al con­glom­er­ate.

Parisot-Pot­ter is hop­ing that now, de­spite be­ing un­em­ployed, her words will hold weight.

Last week, Massy an­nounced that it had ap­point­ed an “in­de­pen­dent ex­ter­nal coun­sel” (who they re­fused to iden­ti­fy) to in­ves­ti­gate Pari­son-Pot­ter’s claims.

In ad­di­tion, Massy halt­ed the ex­ec­u­tive lead­er­ship pro­gramme, host­ed by Flori­da-based Del­phi Sphere Con­sult­ing, at the cen­tre of the con­tro­ver­sy.

But while the pro­gramme was the fo­cus, Parisot-Pot­ter was prag­mat­ic about what it meant for Massy–as its prin­ci­ples held a “dis­pro­por­tion­ate in­flu­ence” over its ex­ec­u­tives.

Parisot-Pot­ter, a lawyer, said her ob­jec­tion to the Del­phi-led train­ing arose from her own ex­pe­ri­ence of hav­ing had to do the course as man­dat­ed by Massy.

She did the ex­ec­u­tive lead­er­ship train­ing in 2022 and con­clud­ed in 2023.

“I was told by the CEO (Ger­vase Warn­er) that, quote-un­quote, I could not move for­ward with Massy un­less I did Del­phi,” she said.

Parisot-Pot­ter is a Catholic and be­lieves in God. How­ev­er, that be­lief sys­tem did not con­strain her from ac­cept­ing the Del­phi guid­ance which she said fo­cus­es on en­er­gy train­ing.

Rather, her is­sue was the cred­i­bil­i­ty of the cou­ple–Paul and In­di­ra Dyal- Dominguez–run­ning the pro­gramme and what she de­scribed as their  “mum­bo-jum­bo” lan­guage of learn­ing.

“It was not mind­ful­ness,” she ex­plained try­ing to make the dis­tinc­tion, cog­nisant that med­i­ta­tion is a well-known prac­tised art.

In her es­ti­ma­tion, it came down to this cou­ple ex­ert­ing in­flu­ence over the com­pa­ny’s ex­ec­u­tive team and chan­nelling oth­er Massy ex­ec­u­tives to en­gage in the train­ing.

“I had to do the pro­gramme. I did not have a choice. I was clear­ly and re­peat­ed­ly told that it was a con­di­tion for con­tin­ued em­ploy­ment and op­por­tu­ni­ty for se­nior mem­bers of the ex­ec­u­tive man­age­ment team–I can­not move for­ward with Massy with­out do­ing this pro­gramme.

“The Del­phi ex­pe­ri­ence was and is a se­ri­ous mat­ter in its vi­o­la­tions of my re­li­gious be­liefs and the be­liefs of oth­ers, but Del­phi in it­self was not the prob­lem, Del­phi is symp­to­matic of the re­al is­sues.

“The prob­lem is that the con­tract­ing and en­forced de­ploy­ment of Del­phi was symp­to­matic of a flawed sys­tem of gov­er­nance and fidu­cia­ry over­sight–is­sues I re­peat­ed­ly raised. In some cas­es, for which I was at­tacked, and told that I was not a leader be­cause I didn’t con­form,” she said.

“It has been and it is my pro­fes­sion­al opin­ion, that this mat­ter and the oth­ers I raised are of ques­tion­able eth­i­cal prac­tices and a very frag­ile gov­er­nance sys­tem that is in dire need of ur­gent re­pair,” she said.

“I spoke to sev­er­al per­sons be­tween 2022 and 2023 and there were sev­er­al per­sons who felt sim­i­lar­ly, but it’s my choice to re­sign and I would not ask any­one to come for­ward to jeop­ar­dise their liveli­hood, their jobs and ca­reers,” she added.

Her res­ig­na­tion, a non-ne­go­ti­at­ed one, was on a mat­ter of prin­ci­ple.

She is aware that her rep­u­ta­tion is her cur­ren­cy in these claims.

On De­cem­ber 19, af­ter she spoke at the AGM, she re­signed from her Massy-ap­point­ed po­si­tion on the board of the Amer­i­can Cham­ber of Com­merce (Am­cham).

“Giv­en the se­ri­ous na­ture of the fidu­cia­ry and gov­er­nance con­cerns I had brought to the com­pa­ny’s at­ten­tion, it would have been un­con­scionable for me to con­tin­ue to serve as the gen­er­al coun­sel and of­fi­cer with re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for busi­ness in­tegri­ty with­out com­pro­mis­ing my per­son­al in­tegri­ty and pro­fes­sion­al cred­i­bil­i­ty,” she said.

Parisot-Pot­ter wasn’t afraid to walk away from Massy. She had done the same in Egypt, work­ing for an in­ter­na­tion­al firm, when gov­er­nance is­sues arose.

Fol­low­ing the AGM, Warn­er had said that sev­er­al of the com­pa­ny’s di­rec­tors had al­so done the pro­gramme and that Parisot-Pot­ter would not be the first ex­ec­u­tive who has had dif­fi­cul­ty in a pro­gramme like this.

“We think a part of our se­cret at Massy is that we are will­ing to do this kind of work as lead­ers. It is the kind of work that we have done that al­lows us to have the re­sults the com­pa­ny shows. That is be­cause cul­ture eats strat­e­gy for break­fast,” he had said.

Massy’s in­ves­ti­ga­tion

While is­su­ing a press state­ment de­scrib­ing Parisot-Pot­ter’s claims as ab­surd, Massy’s in­ves­ti­ga­tion will fo­cus on the claims raised in the 13-page let­ter to Warn­er. Massy, the Sun­day Guardian was told, would be guid­ed by the out­come of the in­ves­ti­ga­tion.

Why halt a pro­gramme which Warn­er had de­scribed as the se­cret to Massy’s suc­cess?

A day af­ter the AGM in an all-staff memo, Warn­er said the staff was the se­cret to suc­cess

“We want to be clear that, OUR SE­CRET TO OUR SUC­CESS IS OUR PEO­PLE WITH OUR CARIBBEAN HEART,” he had said.

That is what Parisot-Pot­ter would like Massy to ad­dress.

“To date, I have not been con­tact­ed by any­one from Massy con­cern­ing the in­ves­ti­ga­tion and nei­ther have I been con­tact­ed by any in­ves­ti­ga­tor. I in­struct­ed my at­tor­ney to write to Massy to say that I am ready and will­ing to par­tic­i­pate in any such in­ves­ti­ga­tion if, as re­port­ed in the me­dia, one is on­go­ing,” she said.

She point­ed out that af­ter she took to the floor at the AGM to raise the mat­ter, Massy’s chair­man Robert Ri­ley, had re­spond­ed to her.

“Af­ter I made my state­ment the chair­man said this fo­rum was for ques­tions and I’d made a state­ment and he asked if I had a ques­tion, to which I re­spond­ed with, ‘My ques­tion is have you the board re­viewed the 13-page doc­u­ment which I sub­mit­ted and what has been done about the dis­cus­sion that I have raised in there?’

“The chair­man re­spond­ed by say­ing that ‘I can tell you that your 13-page doc­u­ment is tak­en very se­ri­ous­ly. We’re in the midst of re­view and in some in­ves­ti­ga­tions as you are aware and we have been com­mu­ni­cat­ing with ... I think as re­cent­ly (turns to look at Ger­vase ) as a few days ago, with you about it. And we can con­tin­ue to com­mu­ni­cate and hope­ful­ly re­solve through in­quiry, in­ves­ti­ga­tion and change. I be­lieve as the chair­man of this board we are al­ways open to hear­ing of is­sues, re­solv­ing those is­sues, and work­ing through those is­sues.

“This is not true nor ac­cu­rate as there has been no com­mu­ni­ca­tion with me on any of the is­sues I out­lined in the 13-page doc­u­ment then, nor a few days ago as stat­ed by the chair­man or to date de­spite the fact of an in­ves­ti­ga­tion be­ing men­tioned at the AGM on 18 De­cem­ber; in Massy’s re­sponse of the 28th De­cem­ber to my res­ig­na­tion and again on 31st De­cem­ber in the news­pa­pers.

“It is now al­most six weeks since I sub­mit­ted the 13-page doc­u­ment to the CEO and I have had no dis­cus­sion on many of the con­cerns I raised in my ca­pac­i­ty as (the gen­er­al coun­sel) and an em­ploy­ee,” she said.

Parisot-Pot­ter ex­plained that her role as gen­er­al coun­sel was to the share­hold­ers and she was not the lawyer to the chief ex­ec­u­tive of the or­gan­i­sa­tion while she did re­port to him.

“In my role as gen­er­al coun­sel of a pub­licly trad­ed com­pa­ny, I held a fidu­cia­ry re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to safe­guard and pro­tect the in­ter­ests of our share­hold­ers. This du­ty sup­port­ed my de­ci­sion to raise con­cerns about the so-called ex­ec­u­tive lead­er­ship pro­gramme called Del­phi at the AGM, be­cause, de­spite my pre­vi­ous com­mu­ni­ca­tion of this and oth­er is­sues to the CEO, I have not been con­tact­ed re­gard­ing any in­ves­ti­ga­tion, con­trary to the chair­man’s claim at the AGM. To demon­strate my ded­i­ca­tion to good gov­er­nance, I have in­struct­ed my at­tor­ney to con­vey my readi­ness to par­tic­i­pate in any in­ves­tiga­tive process,” she said.

Fol­low­ing the AGM, the com­pa­ny’s board of di­rec­tors is­sued a state­ment and said it was ap­palled by her con­duct and has ini­ti­at­ed a dis­ci­pli­nary process against her du­ties as the gen­er­al coun­sel to the com­pa­ny and “will fol­low due process to de­ter­mine how this should be han­dled re­spon­si­bly yet de­ci­sive­ly.”

How­ev­er, while dis­miss­ing her claims as “un­true” and  “scan­dalous”, it ini­ti­at­ed an in­de­pen­dent process to look in­to her claims.

Fol­low­ing her res­ig­na­tion, she had told Guardian Me­dia that her de­ci­sion to walk away stemmed from claims be­ing made about her mo­tives and that she was wait­ing on a set­tle­ment from Massy.

“This de­ci­sion comes one month af­ter I for­mal­ly raised con­cerns with­in Massy and to which I have not re­ceived a re­sponse. I hope that this will al­low me to con­tribute to the broad­er con­ver­sa­tion on gov­er­nance, par­tic­u­lar­ly in pub­licly list­ed com­pa­nies,” she said.

BOX

About Parisot-Pot­ter

Ac­cord­ing to her LinkedIn bio, Parisot-Pot­ter was with Massy for the past sev­en years.

“I am the ex­ec­u­tive cre­at­ing and lead­ing Massy’s Busi­ness In­tegri­ty Pro­gramme, work­ing with the Board, ex­ec­u­tives and se­nior man­age­ment to cre­ate a Speak Up and Lis­ten Up cul­ture where open se­crets can­not thrive so is­sues are raised and dealt with soon­er rather than lat­er. Be­tween 2016 and 2017, in an­tic­i­pa­tion of the then 2015 Whistle­blow­er Pro­tec­tion Bill be­com­ing law in Trinidad and To­ba­go, I wrote and im­ple­ment­ed a Speak Up Pol­i­cy and an anony­mous re­port­ing hot­line across the group,” it said.

In No­vem­ber, Parisot-Pot­ter was part of a pan­el by the Econ­o­mist Im­pact on “Ethics In­de­pen­dence Trust ‘’ and, in 2020, she gave a TED Talk on how to be an UP­stander in­stead of a By­stander.

The largest share­hold­er of Massy is the State through the Na­tion­al In­sur­ance Board–20 per cent, Re­pub­lic Bank Lim­it­ed (Trust & As­set Man­age­ment)–ten per cent and the Unit Trust Cor­po­ra­tion–4.5 per cent–com­bined they own 34.5 per cent of Massy.

(BOX)

Parisot-Pot­ter at the AGM

What An­gelique Parisot-Pot­ter said at the An­nu­al Gen­er­al Meet­ing on De­cem­ber 18, 2023

“Re­gret­tably, to­day, I am oblig­ed to speak up about sig­nif­i­cant gov­er­nance and fidu­cia­ry con­cerns, as de­tailed in my 13-page doc­u­ment, in­clud­ing au­dio ev­i­dence, pre­vi­ous­ly shared with our CEO. Among oth­er mat­ters, one alarm­ing is­sue is the so-called ex­ec­u­tive lead­er­ship pro­gramme, which has been present in our or­gan­i­sa­tion for over a decade.

“This pro­gramme in­volves fre­quent trav­el to Fort My­ers, Flori­da, and week­ly com­mit­ments for over a year at a cost per par­tic­i­pant of tens of thou­sands of US dol­lars for which there were over 11 par­tic­i­pants last year, alone. Their bizarre rit­u­als in­clude that they can train Massy em­ploy­ees to com­mu­ni­cate with the dead and that at­ten­dees can self-heal with ‘white light en­er­gy’. This is a mat­ter of grave con­cern to share­hold­ers be­cause the cou­ple lead­ing this pro­gramme ap­pears to ex­ert dis­pro­por­tion­ate in­flu­ence over our ex­ec­u­tive team.

“In the midst of a for­eign ex­change cri­sis, Massy can­not be spend­ing scarce re­sources on high­ly du­bi­ous ac­tiv­i­ties, and con­tracts award­ed can­not be pushed through with­out pru­dent due process. This is not just a gov­er­nance is­sue; it’s a bla­tant dis­re­gard for share­hold­er in­ter­ests. I urge the board to take this, and the oth­er is­sues I have raised, se­ri­ous­ly.”