Cecile Watson is not done yet, even though she has done pretty much all that she has set out to do.
Now 57 years old, she first stepped into the world of work to be a mechanical engineer, but that soon changed when she was then tasked with a role as a manufacturing and an industrial engineer. She would later play with numbers as a banker then moved on to become the head of a major public sector entity and is now leading a charity called Pitch & Choose.
The daughter of Sheila and Keith Whittaker, a former deputy commissioner of police, recalled that she spent 14 years in banking, a role she had no desire to be in for very long.
In an interview recently at the Courtyard by Marriott at Hastings, Christ Church, she said her path continued to change after she went to Canada to do her master’s in business administration.
“When I went in there I found that banking was in a process of transitioning to a more dynamic type of business, and I wanted to understand the economy and . . . the conditions that I was operating in and where I could get a job,” she said.
Just as she has changed professions, her area codes have changed just as much as she has lived here, in Canada and Jamaica where she now resides.
She was director of the National Housing Trust (NHT) in Jamaica from 2010 until 2013, a job which came with some controversy, which included a two-week suspension after an audit was conducted to review spending sanctioned by Watson.
Though she said she did not want to dwell on her time spent in the organisation, she said whether she was judged harshly for being a foreigner in that land, she wanted it to be nown that she did her job honestly. This was a job that despite its challenges, taught her a lot,” she said.
“It was a very rewarding experience, that caused me to really appreciate the need to have our people financially empowered. It gave me the opportunity to see upfront some of the challenges that poor people have in improving themselves. I saw their need and I saw the need to help them.”
She said her time in the NHT sparked her interest in charting her new path which led to set up pitchandchoose.com, the crowdfunding website where people can donate to regional charitable causes and support female entrepreneurs.
Watson’s prescence in Barbados was an answer to an invitation from the Ministry of Labour to participate in their Entrepreneurship and STEM Conference which falls under the European Union-funded Human Resource Development Programme.
Watson told EASY magazine that she first heard of the crowdfunding concept about three years ago and decided to use it to help others.
“We are looking at the Caribbean and we are seeing that loaner agencies are reducing the amount of money that they give to the region, corporate sponsorship was down and we are talking about multiple layoffs,” said Watson, who has worked in management positions at the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce and Barbados Mutual.
“If you look at what happens in the Caribbean, much of our infrastructure is funded by non-governmental organisations and non-profits. If that dries up what becomes of our possibilities to have empowered lives?” she asked.
The former Queen’s College student said that working in male-dominated professions was not uncommon.
“I have proven my ability to operate at a very senior level, I have grown accustomed to domains where there is not a high concentration of women when I went into engineering back in the day. There were only eight women in engineering in a class from a group of about 200.
“But as you rise higher and higher in organisations, the challenges become more real,” she said.
“I pride myself in doing good work . . . . I pride myself in my integrity. If you want to discount me because I am a woman you are not going to discredit me for my work,” she said.