Despite severe restrictions on travel which prevented the usual gathering in Barbados, CIBC FirstCaribbean reached around the region recently to honour its brightest and best performers for 2020.

Chief Executive Officer Colette Delaney told those gathered for the online Achievers Awards Ceremony that the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic has caused staff at all levels to work even harder to meet the needs of clients and she praised them for rising to the challenge.

“Difficult times have called for innovative approaches to our work, and I am extremely proud of the way our entire team has risen to the challenge,” Ms. Delaney said.

“You are the embodiment of the fact that one can excel in the most trying of circumstances,” the CEO told the 10 outstanding achievers drawn from the bank’s business units in Antigua, Barbados, Bahamas, Cayman Islands, Dominica and Grenada and who were rewarded for outstanding performances in Retail and Business Banking, Corporate and Investment Banking and Enterprise Security & Fraud Management.  

She noted that the bank’s “matrix structure” also positioned it to readjust to the new work from home environment “as we are quite used to multi-national teams working across borders, often by conference calls and our latest toys – WebEx and Microsoft teams, so to say that FirstCaribbean didn’t miss a beat when the pandemic hit would be an understatement!”

Manager, Business Banking, Eberna White of Grenada was adjudged the top performer in 2020 for her outstanding work not only in Grenada, but The Cayman Islands where she was assigned for a period to assist the business banking team.  Eberna demonstrated that she has the tenacity to deliver exceptional performance across countries and functions.

She was lauded for her tremendous amount of personal dedication, collaboration, strong leadership and teamwork.  

Barbadian Lian Richards, Senior Analyst, Fraud Risk Management was presented with an Award of Distinction for her outstanding abilities as a fraud investigator.

Other awardees were Sales Specialist Michael Roach of Antigua, Senior Officer, Corporate and Investment Banking, Shevette Strachan and Relationship Manager, Nickia McPhee of the Bahamas, Manager, Business Performance and Strategy Implementation, Kevin Hinds and Jeffrey Newton, Head, Credit Underwriting and Portfolio Management of Barbados and Platinum Manager Laveda Burton and Sales Specialist Kerrin White were the awardees of the Cayman Islands.

“The excellence you have displayed, that got you nominated for these awards, shows your leadership capability and we are relying on you to go back out there and help us keep up the teamwork and collegial spirit.” Ms. Delaney told the award winners.

Guest speaker Sonia Layne-Gartside, an internationally acclaimed Organizational Change Management (OCM) professional and author of the book “Workplace Anxiety – How to refuel and Reengage”, spoke on the topic: Thriving in Uncertainty: Why 2021 will be even bigger and better for you. She told the awardees that they were “gems who have shown remarkable resilience in time of uncertainty”. She challenged them to go back to the organization and “sprinkle some of their resilience, ability to be agile and to look pass the challenges of the pandemic and to excel in this extraordinary way”.