Louis Parris is managing directorof Simbiosis Inc.
Are you where you’ve always wanted to be?
I have had a successful career in banking so I have a great degree of satisfaction about that. My new life is in the emerging world of anti money laundering compliance and wherever I am in that environment is exciting and rewarding.
What is your biggest professional challenge?
I am deeply curious about all things and I have a creative mind; a recipe for getting involved in too many things that may not lead to a conclusion. The challenge is to stay focused on the things which are going to be meaningful in the long term.
What is your biggest life challenge?
Balancing my creative instincts with the real world demands of business.
When you look to the future, what do you see?
A world which will become increasingly fragmented as nations and individuals seek to establish identity. On the personal side, more creative writing, art and the development of anti money laundering audit services.
What is your favourite pastime?
Creating original art or craft, writing or reading.
What is your favourite meal?
I would be bored with a favourite meal. I create ever changing dishes of the foods I am less likely to tire of. These include versions of blackened fish, creole salt fish, pigeon peas and rice, yam and cassava and golden apple coconut bread.
On Saturday nights, where are you likely to be?
At home reading, at the movies or just chilling with friends.
What upsets you the most?
People who apply for the job, then act as if the employer kidnapped them and brought them against their will to the workplace. This is exemplified by the customer service reps who turn “can I help you?” into a threat.
What is your guiding philosophy?
My guiding philosphy borrows from two complementary concepts: the ancient wisdom of the Desiderata – “no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should”, and Martin Luther King’s “the arc of the moral universe is long but it bends towards justice”.
If you had the chance to manage Barbados for a day, what would you do?
The evidence is all around us of a lack of critical, logical thinking and problem solving skills.
We seem to think everything will be okay with glib sounding sound bites, a statement from the corporate communications specialist or a gun.
I would set in place a mandate for education and training from elementary to tertiary levels in logical thinking and problem solving.
Hopefully we will then have a nation that does not endlessly articulate problems but actually solves them.
