Asha Javeed

Lead Ed­i­tor-In­ves­ti­ga­tions

asha.javeed@guardian.co.tt

Del­phi Sphere Con­sult­ing, a Mi­a­mi-based op­er­a­tion, is the com­pa­ny that does ex­ec­u­tive lead­er­ship train­ing for Massy ex­ec­u­tives and its board of di­rec­tors.

The com­pa­ny is at the cen­tre of claims by Angélique Parisot-Pot­ter, Massy’s ex­ec­u­tive vice pres­i­dent of busi­ness in­tegri­ty and group gen­er­al coun­sel, that it en­gages in bizarre rit­u­als for ex­ec­u­tives, their lead­er­ship pro­gramme is a drain of scarce for­eign ex­change and the cou­ple lead­ing this pro­gramme ap­pear to ex­ert dis­pro­por­tion­ate in­flu­ence over Massy’s ex­ec­u­tive team.

On Del­phi’s web­page, its founder and chief ex­ec­u­tive is iden­ti­fied as Paul Dominguez. The Guardian un­der­stands he runs the pro­gramme with his wife, In­di­ra.

Among the lo­cal com­pa­nies that Del­phi has list­ed as work­ing with are Massy, Blue Wa­ters, Il­lu­mi­nat and Unit­ed Way. (See im­age)

Massy’s pres­i­dent and group chief ex­ec­u­tive Ger­vase Warn­er said he in­tro­duced Del­phi to Massy as he had an ex­pe­ri­ence with it be­fore he joined the con­glom­er­ate.

Of the com­pa­nies list­ed on Del­phi’s web­site, Warn­er is linked to four of them—he is a for­mer em­ploy­ee at McK­in­sey & Com­pa­ny, Massy, Il­lu­mi­nat (now re­brand­ed Massy Tech­nolo­gies) and Unit­ed Way where he serves as a di­rec­tor.

When con­tact­ed yes­ter­day, Dominguez hung up when asked ques­tions by Guardian Me­dia.

Parisot-Pot­ter said Del­phi’s pro­gramme in­volves fre­quent trav­el to Fort My­ers, Flori­da, and week­ly com­mit­ments for over a year.

Warn­er ad­mit­ted that Massy would spend up to US$1 mil­lion a year, which works out to US$10 mil­lion on Del­phi for the pe­ri­od Parisot-Pot­ter iden­ti­fied.

Guardian Me­dia un­der­stands this was ex­clu­sive of mon­ey the com­pa­ny would spend on trav­el, food and ac­com­mo­da­tion.

Ac­cord­ing to its web­page, Del­phi of­fers coach­ing for ex­ec­u­tives—Tai­lored ex­ec­u­tive coach­ing, the Ex­ec­u­tive Pro­gramme, De­vel­op­ing Your Gifts & Your Pur­pose and Build­ing A High Per­for­mance Team and coach­ing for en­tre­pre­neurs—Vi­sion to Re­sults and Man­ag­er Train­ing.

Warn­er had said Parisot-Pot­ter would not be the first ex­ec­u­tive who has had dif­fi­cul­ty with Del­phi’s pro­gramme.

“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,” Warn­er had said and added that build­ing con­nec­tion and trust with oth­er lead­ers, em­ploy­ees, cus­tomers and com­mu­ni­ties is a big part of Massy’s suc­cess.

Ac­cord­ing to Del­phi’s web­page: “Paul de­signs and tai­lors the in­di­vid­ual coach­ing to ad­dress the spe­cif­ic needs of the ex­ec­u­tive or man­ag­er. The ar­eas of ex­pan­sion are iden­ti­fied and the struc­ture to sup­port the de­vel­op­ment is cre­at­ed. The coach­ing he pro­vides makes a pow­er­ful and last­ing im­pact. Most of his clients have stayed with him for over a decade. They come back when the next chal­lenge to go be­yond where they have gone aris­es.”

At Massy’s an­nu­al gen­er­al meet­ing last Mon­day, Parisot-Pot­ter raised the is­sue of the pro­gramme not­ing that she had writ­ten a 13-page let­ter to Warn­er on No­vem­ber 28.

When Guardian Me­dia sent ques­tions to Warn­er yes­ter­day, he said the com­pa­ny would is­sue a state­ment. The state­ment said the board of di­rec­tors 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, scan­dalous and de­signed to so­lic­it fear,” the com­pa­ny said it ini­ti­at­ed an in­de­pen­dent process to look in­to her claims.

Ac­cord­ing to her LinkedIn bio, Parisot-Pot­ter has been 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.

At Mon­day’s meet­ing, she said, “This is a mat­ter of grave con­cern to share­hold­ers be­cause the cou­ple lead­ing the pro­gramme ap­pear 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.”

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.