“A hum­ble ex­pe­ri­ence.”

That’s how Sie­u­nar­ine Coos­al, the Ex­ec­u­tive Chair­man of the Coos­al Group of Com­pa­nies, is de­scrib­ing the de­ci­sion by the Trinidad and To­ba­go Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce to in­duct him in­to the Cham­ber’s Busi­ness Hall of Fame.

By let­ter dat­ed Oc­to­ber 1, 2019, the TT Cham­ber ad­vised Coos­al that he had been se­lect­ed for in­duc­tion at the Cham­ber’s Cham­pi­ons of Busi­ness Awards Cer­e­mo­ny and Cock­tail re­cep­tion to be held on No­vem­ber 15 at the Na­tion­al Acad­e­my for the Per­form­ing Arts.

The cham­ber told Coos­al that he had been cho­sen by the Cham­ber’s se­lec­tion pan­el as one of two awardees and in­ductees in­to the Busi­ness Hall of Fame for his con­tri­bu­tion as “a pi­o­neer, an as­tute strate­gist, phil­an­thropist and role mod­el for emerg­ing busi­ness pro­fes­sions.”

On his in­duc­tion, the Cham­ber said Coos­al will “join the ranks of sev­er­al oth­er dis­tin­guished busi­ness lead­ers in­duct­ed in­to the Hall of Fame over the past 14 years.”

Re­act­ing to the Cham­ber’s de­ci­sion, Coos­al told Guardian Me­dia “to re­ceive such an ho­n­our, to be cho­sen as some­one who ex­em­pli­fies busi­ness ex­cel­lence—in com­mer­cial prowess, lead­er­ship and in na­tion­al—so­cial re­spon­si­bil­i­ty—by my peers, is quite a hum­ble ex­pe­ri­ence.”

On the evening of the Cham­pi­ons of Busi­ness Awards Cer­e­mo­ny and Cock­tail Re­cep­tion awardees in three oth­er cat­e­gories will be recog­nised. These are In­ter­na­tion­al­ly Known—a T&T com­pa­ny of the year spon­sored by First Cit­i­zens and award­ed to a lo­cal com­pa­ny that has made sig­nif­i­cant strides re­gion­al­ly and in­ter­na­tion­al­ly. An En­tre­pre­neur of The Year Award in which sev­er­al fi­nal­ists in the start-up and emerg­ing en­tre­pre­neur sub­cat­e­gories will be recog­nised for their game-chang­ing busi­ness en­deav­ours, and a busi­ness tech­nol­o­gy award in which three tech­nol­o­gy com­pa­nies or com­pa­nies that may have cre­at­ed a tech­nol­o­gy-based so­lu­tion or ser­vice will be recog­nised, and one will get the ti­tle at the event.

ABOUT SIE­U­NAR­INE COOS­AL

Af­ter serv­ing for sev­er­al years on the Ex­ec­u­tive Com­mit­tee of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Con­trac­tors As­so­ci­a­tion, Coos­al was elect­ed pres­i­dent. Dur­ing this pe­ri­od he served as chair­man of the Joint Con­sul­ta­tive coun­cil on the Con­struc­tion In­dus­try. Af­ter va­cat­ing his post as Pres­i­dent of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Con­trac­tor’s As­so­ci­a­tion he re­mained a mem­ber of its Ex­ec­u­tive Com­mit­tee. He con­tin­ues, how­ev­er, to rep­re­sent the in­ter­ests of the con­struc­tion and quar­ry­ing sec­tors.

Mr Per­sad-Coos­al is one of the found­ing mem­bers of the Quar­ry As­so­ci­a­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go. He served on the Ex­ec­u­tive Com­mit­tee of the As­so­ci­a­tion in­clud­ing the sub­stan­tive post of Pres­i­dent. His ser­vices to the quar­ry in­dus­try were re­flect­ed by his elec­tion as a fel­low of the Quar­ry As­so­ci­a­tion and a Life Mem­ber in 2003.

He suc­ceed­ed to the Coos­al’s busi­ness in 1991 when he was ap­point­ed Chair­man and Chief Ex­ec­u­tive Of­fi­cer of Coos­al’s Con­struc­tion Com­pa­ny Lim­it­ed. He has de­vel­oped the busi­ness in­to a group of ver­ti­cal­ly in­te­grat­ed com­pa­nies that are en­gaged in quar­ry­ing, man­u­fac­tur­ing and gen­er­al civ­il en­gi­neer­ing con­tract­ing. The group al­so has its own in­ter­nal se­cu­ri­ty ser­vice com­pa­ny. His group is a mem­ber of the Amer­i­can Con­crete In­sti­tute, Amer­i­can Con­crete Pump­ing In­sti­tute, Na­tion­al As­phalt Paving As­so­ci­a­tion, Na­tion­al Ready Mixed Con­crete As­so­ci­a­tion, Caribbean As­phalt As­so­ci­a­tion and the British-Caribbean Cham­ber of Com­merce. His busi­ness suc­cess­es re­sult­ed in him be­ing nom­i­nat­ed in 1998 for the En­tre­pre­neur of the Year.

In the year 2007, he was elect­ed as a mem­ber of the Board of Di­rec­tors of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Man­u­fac­tur­ers’ As­so­ci­a­tion. He al­so holds mem­ber­ship in the Trinidad and To­ba­go Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce for sev­er­al years and is cur­rent­ly Vice-Pres­i­dent of the As­phalt Pavers As­so­ci­a­tion.

Coos­al present­ly serves on the Ad­vi­so­ry Board of Habi­tat for Hu­man­i­ty, a Unit­ed Na­tions char­i­ta­ble or­ga­ni­za­tion. He is a mem­ber of the Queen’s Park Crick­et Club, The St Au­gus­tine Ten­nis Club and a ma­jor con­trib­u­tor to many in­sti­tu­tions, both so­cial and re­li­gious. He is al­so a mem­ber of the Trinidad Yacht Club and the Trinidad Union Club.