Asha Javeed

Lead Ed­i­tor In­ves­ti­ga­tions

asha.javeed@guardian.co.tt

Massy Hold­ings’ pres­i­dent and chief ex­ec­u­tive Ger­vase Warn­er says the dis­rup­tion caused by the com­pa­ny’s an­nu­al gen­er­al meet­ing led to his ear­ly ex­it from the or­gan­i­sa­tion.

In an in­ter­nal email sent to all staff on Fri­day, Warn­er said he thought, with one year left be­fore re­tire­ment, it was best “to step aside and al­low a new leader the space and op­por­tu­ni­ty to guide the com­pa­ny through this un­set­tling pe­ri­od”.

“This was a tough de­ci­sion as I weighed whether it was bet­ter for the com­pa­ny for me to stay or step aside. I en­gaged the board and af­ter lengthy con­sid­er­a­tion, we agreed that my ear­ly re­tire­ment would in­deed be in the com­pa­ny’s best in­ter­est. I do re­alise that our de­ci­sion is sur­pris­ing and many of you may strug­gle to un­der­stand,” he said.

Last Thurs­day, Massy an­nounced that Warn­er, who served as the Group CEO for 14 years, would pro­ceed on ear­ly re­tire­ment on his 59th birth­day on April 6, 2024, and would be suc­ceed­ed by David Af­fon­so.

Both Warn­er and Af­fon­so are the same age.

The news comes amid an in­ves­ti­ga­tion be­ing con­duct­ed by Kery­wn Gar­cia, SC, on claims made by the com­pa­ny’s for­mer group coun­sel An­gelique Parisot-Pot­ter at the com­pa­ny’s 100th an­nu­al gen­er­al meet­ing last De­cem­ber.

On De­cem­ber 18, 2023, Parisot-Pot­ter took to the floor dur­ing the ques­tion-and-an­swer pe­ri­od and voiced con­cerns about the con­glom­er­ate’s ex­ec­u­tive lead­er­ship con­sul­tant—the Flori­da-based, Del­phi Sphere Con­sult­ing. She told the com­pa­ny’s board of di­rec­tors that she had writ­ten a 13-page let­ter to Warn­er but had re­ceived no com­mu­ni­ca­tion on the mat­ter.

Parisot-Pot­ter claimed that Del­phi en­gages in bizarre rit­u­als for ex­ec­u­tives, that their lead­er­ship pro­gramme is a drain of scarce for­eign ex­change and that the cou­ple lead­ing the pro­gramme ap­pear to ex­ert dis­pro­por­tion­ate in­flu­ence over Massy’s ex­ec­u­tive team.

She was sent on ad­min­is­tra­tive leave af­ter the in­ci­dent but even­tu­al­ly re­signed from the com­pa­ny, nine days af­ter she went pub­lic with her claims. Massy sub­se­quent­ly halt­ed the train­ing pro­gramme and be­gan an in­ves­ti­ga­tion.

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.

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.

Warn­er’s memo

In his memo, Warn­er re­flect­ed that he left “a high-fly­ing con­sul­tan­cy ca­reer” to re­turn home to work with Massy.

“Yes, I was do­ing good work; yes, I was get­ting to work with bril­liant peo­ple; yes, and I was solv­ing in­ter­est­ing prob­lems. But it was work that left me dis­con­nect­ed from fam­i­ly, and equal­ly im­por­tant to me, dis­con­nect­ed from us­ing my skills and en­er­gy to con­tribute to the ad­vance­ment of our Caribbean re­gion,” he said.

He said that “the re­al­i­ty is a com­pa­ny, like Massy, doesn’t sur­vive 100 years grow­ing to be one of the largest, most-re­spect­ed busi­ness groups in the Caribbean with­out go­ing through many ups and downs”.

Warn­er added, “Pres­sure and tough times are par for the course. Dif­fi­cult mo­ments sel­dom phase me. I am very well aware that there are no free­bies or fairy tales in busi­ness. You grow busi­ness­es over a sus­tained pe­ri­od of time through vi­sion, grit, brav­ery, luck, con­sis­ten­cy and sur­round­ing your­self with in­cred­i­ble peo­ple that in many ways are smarter and bet­ter than you. I am im­mense­ly proud of the many things that we have achieved dur­ing my tenure—I’m a num­bers guy and the num­bers speak for them­selves.”

“Part of my strong em­pha­sis on de­vel­op­ing, em­pow­er­ing and cham­pi­oning our lead­ers was as a re­sult of my deeply held be­lief that at any point in time, there should al­ways be two to three im­mense­ly ca­pa­ble per­sons to take any lead­er­ship role at Massy—in­clud­ing my job. Our board and those close to me have known for some time that 2025 was the year I had ear­marked to re­tire from this awe­some jour­ney,” he said.

He de­scribed Af­fon­so—a 34-year Massy vet­er­an—as one who has demon­strat­ed ex­em­plary lead­er­ship of the In­te­grat­ed Re­tail Port­fo­lio which cov­ers 7,500 of our 13,000 peo­ple and earns 65 per cent of the group’s rev­enue and 50 per cent of the group’s prof­it.

“I have great faith and trust in him, and I ask that you give him your full sup­port. As I tran­si­tion, please re­mem­ber, as a re­tiree, I too am Massy,” he said.

Last week, when con­tact­ed for com­ment on Warn­er’s ex­it less than two months af­ter her claims were made pub­lic, Parisot-Pot­ter said, “The com­pa­ny would be aware that he is one of the named par­ties in my sub­mis­sion and that whether present or ab­sent, he has in­for­ma­tion that would be ma­te­r­i­al to the in­ves­ti­ga­tion.

“With re­gard to Mr Warn­er’s de­ci­sion to leave the com­pa­ny a year away from his sched­uled re­tire­ment date, that is a mat­ter that is up for pub­lic opin­ion.”

She said that while she agreed to be a par­ty to the in­ves­ti­ga­tion, she has not been ad­vised of the sta­tus of the in­ves­ti­ga­tion.

The Sun­day Guardian was told that the in­ves­ti­ga­tion would not be com­plet­ed un­til mid-March.

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.