ECA Appoints New Chairman

The Employers Consultative Association of Trinidad and Tobago (ECA) announces the appointment of a new Chairman and five (5) new Directors to its Board of Directors for the period 2017 to 2020. The appointments were made following elections at the ECA’s 57th Annual General Meeting, which took place at its Conference and Training Facility in Aranguez on Thursday 29th June 2017.

Keston Nancoo, Group Vice President, Human Resource Services at Guardian Holdings Limited succeeds Suzetta Ali as head of the ECA. This is Nancoo’s second term at the helm of this premier Employers organisation, having previously served from 2011 to 2014.

Nancoo will seek to leverage his more than thirty-five (35) years of local, regional and international experience in industry, which includes management, human resources, industrial and employee relations, marketing and communications in an effort to further enhance and legitimise the ECA’s position as the recognised voice of employers in Trinidad and Tobago. Additionally, Nancoo has stated his intention to focus his efforts on reengaging the social partners by creating an enabling environment where the process of social dialogue among the social partners to the tripartite mechanism as well as within the business community can be more meaningfully realised.

The five (5) new appointments which were also made to the ECA’s leadership team are:

- Denelle Smith – Lead - Investor Sourcing, Eco-Industrial Development Company of Tobago (EIDECOT);
- Earl Wilson – Group Managing Director of Business Equipment and Interiors (BEI)
- Suzanne Daniel – Managing Director/Owner, Beautiful Buffets;
- Carmela Sargeant – Group HR Manager, Associated Brands Industries Limited;
- Jacqueline Allamani, Senior Manager Recruitment, Selection & Leadership, Scotiabank Trinidad & Tobago Limited

In delivering the feature remarks at the ECA’s AGM, Dr. Andre Vincent Henry, Director of the Cipriani College of Labour and Cooperative Studies, made the observations that the concept of Tripartite engagement was relatively new to the Caribbean and Trinidad and Tobago. Dr Henry also stated that, “The historical industrial relations culture in the region does not encourage management-labour interaction outside of the collective bargaining process, which tends to be adversarial.”

Dr. Henry was speaking on the theme Revisiting Tripartism – Building Bridges in Turbulent Times. He added that the issues which tripartism was originally meant to address have drastically changed and therefore requires an urgent re-assessment. The workplace of the twenty-first century bears little resemblance to the early twentieth century, our economic context has changed on both the national and international levels, and issues in the wider social context are not the same. “The big lift of national and regional social dialogue then is the restructuring of the economies, re-organization of industries and labour markets and changes in the conduct of labour-management relations.”

For further information, kindly contact:

Ronald Ramlogan

Public Relations and Research Department

Telephone: 675-9388 ext. 242 | E-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.