Tanya Wright has more than 15 years of legal and financial services expertise. Before being elected as president of the Bahamas Chamber of Commerce in 2005, she was appointed as the first manager of Bank of The Bahamas Trust Limited. Wright is currently the CEO and founder of World Cooperation Group, a business and legal consultancy firm.

Guardian Business: What is the biggest challenge facing your business or sector?

Tanya: Making ends meet. There is a general perception that lawyers earn great sums of money, but the reality is that for most small- to mid-size firms, collecting fees and finding new clients is an ongoing challenge even if you have decades of experience. It is also difficult to change your existing fee structure. My office badly needs an increase in fees to meet the increasing cost of keeping the doors open. Yet the industry has become so competitive that in a slow economy there is a fear that increasing fees will cost you existing and future business. The age-long challenge of the legal profession is to get true value for the service provided. Professional legal services are generally not viewed the same way as professional medical services, for example. Realtors fees in a land transaction are double or triple the standard legal fees of attorneys, while the attorney in most instances bears all of the risk.

GB: What measures need to be taken in The Bahamas to solve it?
Tanya: I think the solutions are industry specific. Attorneys can better regulate their fees and be more creative in how to advertise their services. Too few changes have been made for too many years to make this "ancient and noble" profession more relevant and respectable. Part of that is our fault. We need to get the message out to the public about who we are, what we do. Too often the public only hears about an attorney when he or she has done something that causes an investigation into their conduct. Every attorney I know volunteers his or her time in some way, yet for some reason we seem reluctant to talk about ourselves as if we were afraid of calling attention to our own value.

GB: What should young businesses keep in mind in this current economic climate to survive?
Tanya: Keeping customers happy is first. Then businesses need to continue to assess the market they service and see whether there are other markets locally or abroad they can provide their goods and services to.

GB: How has your business or sector changed since the financial crisis?
Tanya: I've had to reduce staff and at this rate, I've jokingly said I'll have to chase ambulances. Seriously, all work that pays is good work and neither I nor my firm is above any of it. It is too competitive and this was not brought about necessarily because of the crisis. Growth in the industry is and will continue to be inevitable.

GB: What are you currently reading?
Tanya: I like to read the book first, then watch the movie. The last book I read was "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo". I sat alone in a movie theater one afternoon and watched the movie. I started reading "The Descendents" but succumbed to the temptation when the movie was released on DVD.

GB: What makes a great boss? What makes a bad boss?
Tanya: A great boss always knows that each employee deserves and has a right to be respected on the job. She will also show appreciation for talent and employees that are willing to go the extra mile.
A bad boss will keep an employee after she has lost respect for that employee. If you have no respect for the character or effort of an employee, they should not be in your company. You are not doing them a favor by keeping them on.

GB: If you could change one thing concerning business in The Bahamas, what would it be?
Tanya: I am unhappy that most business are unable to integrate true e-commerce in their business. It has always frustrated me that many services cannot be purchased online and that I cannot generally pay for goods and services in The Bahamas online.

GB: What keeps you grounded? Do you have any major interests other than work?
Tanya: Apart from my family of course, I am constantly looking for joy. Sometimes I find it in alone time, and sometimes I find it in a comfortable relaxed setting with friends. I realized that although you may have multiple priorities to address, you can really only deal with them effectively one at a time. To be quite honest, I spend a lot of my free time on frivolity and I probably watch more reality TV than I should.

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