The Value

The Indomitable Tishauna Mullings takes the interview mic on this episode of The Value.

Self-described as a Jamaican “pracademic” who loves to question orthodoxy, Tishauna loves and believes in academia to the extent it can help create real solutions for people’s lives. She is a social entrepreneur who believes the world is full of too many issues for folks to go into business ONLY for profit.

With a resume as long as it is inspiring, Tishauna wears several hats as a youth leader, community builder, and social development practitioner. Her work centres around building community wealth through rural regeneration. She is the founder of the Little Genius programme and NexxStepp Lifelong Educational Services, a social enterprise focused on empowering young people by equipping them with practical skills for employment.

Additionally, Tishauna is a Caribbean 30 under 30 Award recipient, Chevening Scholar, the winner of the 2013/2014 Farm Queen competition, Recipient of the Governor-General’s Award for St. Thomas in 2015, and a delegate for President Barack Obama’s Young Leaders of the Americas Initiative.

This episode is an inspiring and informative conversation on:

• How to tap into your potential to make change in the space you live in
• Tishauna’s testimony of how life coaching impacted her life and how she has used her experience to empower others
• A brief introduction to her Ready-Set-Go Coaching Model and How it works
• The Little Genius programme and NexxStepp Lifelong Educational Services and their respective social impacts
• Understanding the value of social enterprises
• How entrepreneurs can use the cross-subsidization model to meet profit goals while investing in social enterprises
• Differentiating between Corporate Social Responsibility and Social Entrepreneurship
• How profit-led businesses can better serve social causes

Tune in to this episode as we learn how to build community wealth with Tishauna Mullings.

To determine if you are building a business which is ready to scale, investible, and highly valuable, take the Business Value Scorecard assessment at kevinvalue.com/scorecard.

Every year, I see top talent leaving the country to go live and work somewhere else. And every year it stings - the loss of opportunity.

If you are in a developing country, you've most likely felt this as well, and if you are in a developed country you've probably benefitted from this - the Brain Drain.

Here are my thoughts on how to fix this.

Click here to join the conversation on LinkedIn.

Kimberly Ofori is a digital entrepreneur and growth step strategist who transformed lessons learnt from her eye-opening entrepreneurial journey into a personal leadership brand. 

She serves as the Managing Director at Ofori & Co. - A Strategy Innovation Agency where she helps scale-ups and corporations to innovate their business models and overall strategic positioning in their respective markets.

Thanks to her rather unconventional corporate and entrepreneurial career; from climbing the career ladder starting at a very young age to working and living in the Middle East, Africa, and Europe where she founded and sold two companies - she has amassed a tremendous amount of knowledge and experience on what it takes to choose to be in the lead of your own life, in your career and on leading others. This is why she has been coaching leaders and leadership teams on personal leadership using The Lead method, a personal leadership methodology developed by Kimberly herself.

Kimberly deep dives into critical business lessons learnt from various ventures and provides brilliant insight into reasons companies fail, selecting the right business model, value chain positioning and the importance of innovation to remaining resilient. 

Kimberly also shared a Five-Factor Model for scaling your business.

To determine if you are building a business which is ready to scale, investible, and highly valuable, take the Business Value Scorecard assessment at kevinvalue.com/scorecard.

Milène Paul is a business strategy coach and author of “Now It’s Time to Live My Best Life”,  Her mantra “If they don’t get it, you won’t get it”, pointedly reminds business owners that if you aren’t clear on your value, prospective customers won’t buy into your service. It’s about making sure that your audience gets the message so you can get the business.

We discuss three types of value; absolute, relative and added; and Milène offers 5 steps you should use to effectively pitch your value with more confidence.

Rooted in her 10+ years of experience in project management, grants compliance and international development strategy for SMEs in the Caribbean, she has met hundreds of business owners and entrepreneurs. It is where she learned a valuable truth in business: “If they don’t get it, you won’t get it”.

Valuable projects have failed to receive financial support because of a lack of clarity and confidence. Convinced that she could do something about it, Milène decided to turn her experience into profitable expertise to fill this void. Now, as a business strategist for female entrepreneurs in the coaching and consultancy industry, she helps her clients pitch, profit and impact with more confidence.

To determine if you are building a business which is ready to scale, investible, and highly valuable, take the Business Value Scorecard assessment at kevinvalue.com/scorecard.

Founding team Brian and Ingrid Jahra discuss the evolution of CinemaONE, the Caribbean’s first IMAX experience, the pioneering step of becoming the first SME IPO in T&T, and the challenges of building a sustainable, wealth-generating business, while also focusing on future growth and possibilities.

In this conversation, we unpacked:

• Importance of IPOs for SMEs
• How to get to the IPO? What Is the Process?
• What the Business Valuation process entails
• Marketing the IPO
• Evolution of CinemaOne
• Growth of the Brand/Success Story
• How to Develop the Customer Experience

To determine if you are building a business which is ready to scale, investible, and highly valuable, take the Business Value Scorecard assessment at kevinvalue.com/scorecard.

When everyone you know is having the same problem, the solution might be a successful business. 

Kadion Preston, Co-Founder, and CEO of CaribShopper saw an opportunity to solve a common problem among Caribbean merchants and consumers by providing an easier way to buy goods from the United States.

When the original business model ran into challenges, the founders pivoted to solve another problem for their customers, now giving Caribbean merchants the opportunity to sell to overseas consumers. This shift, and the drive to find the investment capital to support it, came just before 2020, forcing even further innovation and evolution.

Kadion's journey is an example of the importance of embracing the opportunities presented, overcoming tragedy, and understanding that failure is a big part of the formula for success.

To assess the investibility of your business in under 6 minutes, go to becomeinvestible.com/scorecard

It is not always about doing things better, but sometimes we simply need to do better things.

This belief is near and dear to the heart of Sian Cuffy-Young, a social entrepreneur who is driven by the need for environmental change and waste management education.

• Sian's journey and reason for becoming an environmental entrepreneur,
• Reframing her mindset from student and employee to business owner,
• Social Entrepreneurship: Environment and Business Case,
• How to get started without funding,
• An introduction to landfilling, and
• What's next for Siel Environmental.

Sian recently launched her book "Ky's Magical Adventures" to teach children about waste management and awaken the Eco-Hero within them.

Let's talk about Serial Entrepreneurship.

From music to catering to tech to events, Osei Wright-Alexis has brought his business start-up formula to bear on numerous ventures over the last 15 years. Hear him explain how he knows which idea is going to be next, and when it's time to move on. 

Once the challenge is gone, serial entrepreneurs are always looking for the next business spark to develop. Bringing an idea to fruition is exciting, but making sure a business is ready before you move takes focus, patience, a thorough understanding of the market, and then sometimes tedious formulation of the systems and processes that underlie successful operation. 

Osei walks us through his successes, failures, and lessons, and drops some serious wisdom for those of you who have too many ideas and don't know where to start.

Mind. Your. Business.

When breaking out on your own, there is no such thing as being overprepared. 

If you want to start a business and you think you are either too young or too inexperienced, this conversation with Kyle Maloney will show you that none of that matters as much as knowing your business better than anyone else. 

His research-based borderline obsessive approach impressed investors who may have been skeptical of investing in a few 20-somethings and underpinned his ability to learn from mistakes to grow a series of better, stronger, successful businesses.

In this vault episode of Caribbean Power Lunch featuring Kyle Maloney, we discussed how ChefMade works, the value of being over-prepared, the Tech Beach Retreat conference series, the future landscape of tech in the Caribbean, the plight of F1RST, and harnessing the power of fear.

What does the word “recession” bring to mind? For many, it evokes saving, shrinking, and worrying about job loss and rising debt. After listening to this conversation with finance professional Maria Daniel and business owner Gerard Edwards, though, you will have a different understanding of the possibilities that a financial downturn can bring for business growth and transformation. In accepting that life in the “new normal” will not be the same, business owners can be empowered to adapt intelligently, making decisions that create opportunities instead of obstacles.

You will learn strategies to reach new customers, how to identify your customers’ problems, and how to understand your numbers in a way that puts you in control of your business’ future.

We all have a story to tell and a lot to learn from one another. Technology makes conversations and linkages possible more easily, as long as we are willing to listen.

In this Season 5 finale, we talk to filmmaker, storyteller and digital media specialist Adrena Ifill, about how to share your story, learn from your history and find your own space in the world and in business. Adrena speaks to the importance of engaging and leveraging the power of the diaspora and making history every day.

Get ready to take notes as she shares wisdom for creative entrepreneurs and all business owners on how to determine your worth, price your services, find and interview your clients, and maintain control and power over your professional journey in these more volatile economic times.

Adrena Ifill is an award-winning digital media producer and lecturer. She takes history off the shelf and makes it come alive!

Her firm, Ifill/DoubleBack Global Group, specializes in preserving and producing culture and history projects. 

Who are you?

Why are you here?

These were the questions posed to Akosua Edwards by a female-driven collective in rural Uganda, where she had gone to take her knowledge as a successful accountant to give advice and guidance to grow their business. Little did she know she would be the one who ended up learning the most, uncovering new truths about the meaning of success, purpose and self-love.

The answer, she found, was that “You are here to give out the gift the universe put into you.” Identifying her gift has taken Akosua on a journey from unemployed accountant to successful author and award-winning social entrepreneur. Tune in (LINK IN BIO) to hear Akosua speak powerfully about the impact of a strong community, the freedom that comes from releasing those things that do not drive your purpose, and the role that business can play in creating not only commercial success, but also significant social change.