“Great Boards help drive and sustain the success of their organizations” according to the Caribbean Governance Training Institute, where the co-founding team of Lisa Charles (CEO) and Dr. Chris Bart, FCPA, F.CIoD (Executive Chairman) have made it their mission to provide the skills training needed to become a great board member.
Based in Saint Lucia for the past four years, CGTI has been a seminal force in spreading the gospel of good governance throughout the region, meeting an increasing call from global financial institutions and international business experts for more robust oversight at Director and Board level.
Throughout the Caribbean, there is no doubt that corporate, financial and other organizations have begun to acknowledge the importance of governance training for board members and directors, and to devote budget resources into developing a great Board of their own, which is where “governance guru” Dr. Bart and his international expert faculty team come in.
CGTI’s unique three-day Chartered Director Program is a fast-paced, interactive workshop highlighting the latest best practices that Caribbean board members need to know if they are to competently carry out their roles as both “organizational stewards” and “active participants” with management in major strategic and capital spending decisions.
Upon completion, delegates are eligible to write a qualifying examination that will earn them the coveted “Chartered Director” (C. Dir.) designation, which has become the gold standard for governance training throughout the Commonwealth.
The CGTI program covers all aspects of corporate governance and since 2014, the CGTI’s cadre of governance specialists team has delivered their message to almost 600 board members from Saint Lucia, Jamaica, Antigua, St. Vincent, Turks & Caicos, the Bahamas and Dominica, among other Caribbean venues.
"The C. Dir. program is a dynamic curriculum focusing on the role that today's Caribbean board members need to understand and play in order to drive and sustain the success of their organizations," explains Dr. Bart.
"The program has been has been taken by the entire Board of Governors and senior Management Team of the Eastern Caribbean Central Bank, all the directors of Sandals International and delivered to executives from national banks, financial service institutions, and utility and telecommunication companies.
All this means that a growing network of qualified directors is being created across the Caribbean."
CGTI is justifiably proud of the success of the C.Dir program, which is consistently supported by glowing testimonials from delegates and hard results from their organizations.
In fact, the feedback has been so impressive that in January 2017, The Government of Saint Lucia became the first elected government in the world to undergo the C.Dir program, when eighty-five members of 'senior management' including the Prime Minister, fourteen Cabinet ministers, fifteen Permanent Secretaries and twelve Board Chairpersons, came together with CGTI in an unprecedented training exercise.
The schedule covered every angle of "good governance" from defining roles and creating accountability, to financial oversight and risk management, ethics and culture, strategic thinking and planning.
As he prepared to sit the C.Dir exam, Prime Minister Allen Chastanet said the considerable investment in governance training “will go a long way in terms of bonding and clarity. [The people] elected us to be the 'board of directors' to run the country, and our responsibility is to make the best decisions we can with the resources we have in order to benefit the country as a whole. When the country starts doing well, the individuals will also do well.”
Indeed a Harvard Law School report at the end of 2017 names seven ‘key global trends’ in corporate governance which will continue to evolve in the upcoming year, including enhanced interest in investor stewardship by governments and investors, as well as board quality and composition.
This month makes the third time the C.Dir program is being delivered in the Bahamas but is also open to delegates from across the region.
The event is taking place May 28,29 and 30th where delegates will again be engaged in three days of high energy sessions at the Comfort Suites Hotel in Nassau Paradise Island, wrangling with governance topics such as Financial/Strategic and CEO Oversight and Risk Management.
The Caribbean Governance Training Institute will conduct the C.DIR program in the Turks & Caicos in September. The CGTI team also continues to expand its scope with their latest program and professional credential for Audit Committee Certification (ACC) which recently took place in Jamaica in April and will be repeated in Antigua in November. Their highly acclaimed fifth annual Hot Topics in Governance Conference on “Getting Stakeholder Relationships Right!) will be held on July 9th and 10th in Saint Lucia, and will spotlight the latest trends and opinions in good governance.
For more information on all CGTI events, please visit CaribbeanGovernanceTraining.com.
