“I don’t think I’ve done any­thing ex­tra­or­di­nary. I did a lot of small things which all even­tu­al­ly balled up in­to one big thing,” says An­gela Lee Loy.

De­spite her diminu­tive struc­ture, Lee Loy or “Ang­ie” as she is fond­ly called is a gi­ant in the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty, lo­cal­ly, re­gion­al­ly and in­ter­na­tion­al­ly.

From hum­ble be­gin­nings grow­ing up with her sib­lings in Barataria, Lee Loy is re­gard­ed as one of the most rep­utable vi­sion­ar­ies and women en­tre­pre­neurs in T&T and the Caribbean.

Lee Loy ex­plained to the Sun­day Busi­ness Guardian that through­out her life all she did was ap­ply dili­gence to her en­deav­ours.

“There was no mag­ic for­mu­la. Any­thing I did, I sim­ply did it to the best of my abil­i­ty,” she said.

But, more im­por­tant­ly, Lee Loy tes­ti­fied that God plays a fun­da­men­tal role in her life.

“Every day I ask for wis­dom in what­ev­er I do,” she shared.

Lee Loy holds many hats.

She is the chair­per­son and founder of Aegis Busi­ness So­lu­tions Ltd, one of the largest in­dige­nous busi­ness con­sul­tan­cy in the Eng­lish-speak­ing Caribbean, head­quar­tered in T&T.

Aegis which means “di­vine shield” in Greek has six pri­ma­ry of­fer­ings: ac­counts out­sourc­ing; pay­roll; HR; cor­po­rate sec­re­tar­i­al and gov­er­nance; IT; and busi­ness de­vel­op­ment.

The com­pa­ny was found­ed about 19 years ago and of­fers ser­vices for the fi­nan­cial, in­dus­tri­al, en­er­gy and man­u­fac­tur­ing sec­tors.

Lee Loy is al­so chair of Eve An­der­son Re­cruit­ment Ltd.

Ad­di­tion­al­ly, Lee Loy is a fel­low of the UK As­so­ci­a­tion of Char­tered Cer­ti­fied Ac­coun­tants and has decades of pro­fes­sion­al ex­pe­ri­ence in au­dit­ing and busi­ness ad­vi­so­ry ser­vices with Aegis and Price­wa­ter­house­C­oop­ers.

But if some­one told Lee Loy years ago that she would be­come such a force to be reck­oned with­in the busi­ness world she said she would laugh.

Her pas­sion was to be­come a teacher.

Af­ter at­tend­ing Nel­son Street RC and lat­er be­com­ing a grad­u­ate of St Joseph’s Con­vent, Lee Loy said she nev­er thought of her­self as spe­cial or bright, let alone some­one who could make a dif­fer­ence to so­ci­ety.

In fact, Lee Loy ad­mit­ted that she strug­gled with her aca­d­e­mics and de­scribed her­self as a slow learn­er.

How­ev­er, in sec­ondary school, she even­tu­al­ly buck­led down and ap­plied her­self.

Lee Loy al­so praised her par­ents; fa­ther Le­olin, a health in­spec­tor and moth­er Elaine, a clerk who worked hard to pro­vide for their fam­i­ly as best as they could and en­sured close ties were main­tained.

And it’s this bond to­geth­er with her firm Catholic faith which Lee Loy said has helped her bal­ance work and fam­i­ly life.

“When I’m at­tend­ing Mass vir­tu­al­ly or med­i­tat­ing my em­ploy­ees know not to both­er me. I don’t even look at my phone dur­ing these times. This is my spir­i­tu­al time and it’s very sa­cred to me,” said the 2021 busi­ness Hall of Fame in­ductee.

Ris­ing up the ranks

Lee Loy’s par­ents couldn’t af­ford to send her to uni­ver­si­ty.

Im­me­di­ate­ly af­ter com­plet­ing sec­ondary school she worked as a teacher but just af­ter one term, fate had some­thing great in store for her.

While teach­ing, she ap­plied to join Price­Wa­ter­house, en­ticed by the prospect of be­ing paid to study for a pro­fes­sion­al ac­coun­tan­cy qual­i­fi­ca­tion.

When Lee Loy joined the com­pa­ny as a trainee in 1972, she re­count­ed that she was one of just two women in that role.

But this didn’t both­er her as her fo­cus re­mained on her work.

In 1976, Lee Loy qual­i­fied as an ac­coun­tant un­der a joint ini­tia­tive by AC­CA and the In­sti­tute of Char­tered Ac­coun­tants of T&T

Lee Loy great­ly val­ues her as­so­ci­a­tion with the AC­CA hav­ing served on the or­gan­i­sa­tion’s in­ter­na­tion­al as­sem­bly and al­so ap­pre­ci­ates the AC­CA’s com­mit­ment to mak­ing such qual­i­fi­ca­tions ac­ces­si­ble to peo­ple from all back­grounds.

By 1986, Lee Loy was a part­ner in Price­Wa­ter­house, which lat­er merged with Coop­ers and Ly­brand to be­come PwC.

Lee Loy re­mained at the com­pa­ny for about 15 years.

When she left Lee Loy then launched Aegis in 2001 and since then the com­pa­ny con­tin­ues to grow from strength to strength, be­com­ing so suc­cess­ful that it is com­pared to the “Big Four” au­dit­ing firms in the lo­cal mar­ket.

As a leader, Lee Loy al­so cred­its her staff who she said con­tin­ues to as­sist her many ways and whom she is grate­ful.

Do what you love

Lee Loy’s mantra is do what you love, oth­er­wise it sim­ply does not make sense do­ing it.

This, she not­ed, is the main ten­ant of busi­ness.

“If you don’t like what you’re do­ing then you won’t en­joy it. It will be a chore but if you love what you do then you will put your all in it. This makes all the dif­fer­ence,” she ad­vised.

But de­spite how suc­cess­ful one be­comes, fam­i­ly ought nev­er be ne­glect­ed, Lee Loy em­pha­sised.

“You must al­ways make time for your fam­i­ly. No mat­ter how far you’ve reached in your busi­ness or how much work you have to do.

“Don’t ne­glect your fam­i­ly be­cause it’s not worth it. We are on­ly here for a cer­tain time,” she ad­vised.

Lee Loy al­so rec­om­mend­ed that when work­ing in the ser­vice in­dus­try, one must be ser­vice-ori­ent­ed and hon­est.

“Di­a­logue and com­mu­ni­ca­tion are im­por­tant. You can­not run a busi­ness ef­fi­cient­ly with­out these el­e­ments,” she em­pha­sised.

Men­tor­ing young peo­ple, is an­oth­er fun­da­men­tal ten­ant to Lee Loy which she said has en­abled her to con­tribute to build­ing a bet­ter T&T.

“Men­tor­ing is re­al­ly about help­ing peo­ple be­come the best they can be. Sim­ple ap­pre­ci­a­tion and praise go a long way. I see peo­ple for peo­ple. Not race or class.

“And it’s not just about ac­cu­mu­lat­ing mon­ey and more mon­ey but what you do with that mon­ey makes a dif­fer­ence. Whether you in­vest in peo­ple or a com­mu­ni­ty,” she added.

About An­gela Lee Loy

Lee Loy’s port­fo­lio is ex­ten­sive as she has been in­volved in mul­ti­ple in­dus­tries across var­i­ous sec­tors and dis­ci­plines.

She was the first fe­male pres­i­dent of the In­sti­tute of Char­tered Ac­coun­tants of Trinidad and To­ba­go (ICATT).

She was al­so on the board of Pres­tige Hold­ings Ltd and Gulf In­sur­ance Co Ltd.

Lee Loy pre­vi­ous­ly chaired com­mit­tees as di­verse as the Na­tion­al Aids Co­or­di­nat­ing Com­mit­tee, the Mu­sic Lit­er­a­cy Trust and the So­cial Jus­tice Foun­da­tion.

A firm be­liev­er in ad­vo­ca­cy Lee Loy was al­so a coun­cil mem­ber of the Chancery of the Arch­bish­op of Port-of-Spain, mem­ber of the Arch­bish­op Ap­peal fund and a board mem­ber of the Mer­cy Foun­da­tion, a di­vi­sion of the Liv­ing Wa­ter Com­mu­ni­ty, among oth­ers.