Navigating Business Success : Speaker Profiles

Speakers

Opening Speaker

THE HON. PAULA A. COX, JP, MP
Deputy Premier and Minister of Finance
Government of Bermuda

Minister Paula Ann Cox, JP, MP., is the Progressive Labour Party – or PLP – Member of Parliament for Constituency 14 or Devonshire North West in Bermuda. In the wake of very recent internal Party leadership elections near the end of October 2006, Ms. Cox rose to the position of Deputy Premier of the Government of Bermuda, while retaining the high profile portfolio of Minister of Finance.   Following the recent December 2007 General Election, Ms. Cox was re-appointed to the Ministry of Finance, and is the Minister of Finance and Economic Development.

Ms. Cox was first elected to the Bermuda Parliament in October 1996 as a member of the PLP, which had been in opposition since its birth as a party in 1963.  Two years later, on November 9, 1998, she was one of the twenty-six Progressive Labour Party candidates who swept to power in the historic 1998 elections, taking control of Bermuda’s then 40-seat House of Assembly, the second oldest Parliament in the Commonwealth. The Parliament now has a 36-member single seat Parliament.

In her eight years as a law-maker for the governing Party, Minister Cox has had varied experience in Government, having held a number of Cabinet portfolios. In November 1998, under the premiership of the Honourable Jennifer Smith, JP, MP, now Dame Jennifer Smith, Minister Paula Cox was appointed as the first PLP Minister of Labour, Home Affairs and Public Safety.

Minister Cox was appointed Minister of Education and Development on November 1, 2001. She has gained respect across party lines for her brilliance as an articulate lawyer and administrator.

In 2003, while Minister Cox was serving as the Attorney-General and Minister of Education and Development, Wheelock College (USA) invited Minister Paula Cox to accept an honourary Doctorate in Education.  Minister Cox received this honourary degree at the May 2004 Wheelock Commencement exercise.

While she was the Minister of Labour, Home Affairs and Public Safety, she was judged as the most effective politician in the Best of Bermuda Gold Awards for 2001 by The Bermudian, a prestigious and long-standing magazine in Bermuda. This accolade was repeated in 2003 in the wake of the 2003 General Election, following which she was appointed Attorney-General and Minister of Education and Development, and again in 2006 in her capacity as Minister of Finance. Ms. Cox assumed the Finance portfolio in January 2004, succeeding her late father, the Hon. C. Eugene Cox, CBE, JP, MP.

Ms. Cox earned a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Political Science from McGill University in Canada, and a post-graduate Diploma in International Law from the University of Manchester. She trained in the United Kingdom as a Solicitor, and is a member of the Bermuda Bar.

Minister Paula Cox is Corporate Counsel at ACE Limited.  She previously was Vice President and Senior Legal Counsel of Global Funds Services at The Bank of Bermuda Limited.  This impeccable background, allows her to give the PLP Government a strong voice in international financial matters, particularly with her expertise in the field of international law and international business.

Afternoon Keynote Speaker

Patricia Russell-McCloud is a "visual speaking experience".  Her over 20-years on the lecture circuit has catapulted her into being one of the nation's best.  Her speaking style is engaging, highly substantive, well researched, pertinent, entertaining, and applicable to her audiences whether public or private sector.  She is distinguished and distinct.   Her style is classified as "big, broad and animated” leaving her audiences anxious for more.  
With each presentation, she demonstrates, yet again, that she is a master at her craft as she artfully seeks to master the spoken word.  In sum, this is a "speaker's speaker" who specializes ascertaining the organization's culture, interests and challenges  The client, in turn, receives the value-add of the experience and exposure to this qualitatively measurable speaker who is, in a word, unforgettable.

Each year she speaks in the United States and internationally to more than 200,000 people in private and public organizations. She encourages her listeners to surmount every obstacle that stands between them and...the possible. Her client list includes, but is not limited to, AARP, National Association of Women's Business Owners; AT and T, Women's Food Service Forum, eWomen's Network, Wal-Mart/ Sam's Club, General Motors, American Honda, Cox Enterprises,  McDonald's, Northrop Grumman, General Electric,  McGraw Hill Publishing, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center,  Xerox, Procter & Gamble, The United States Postal Service.  Each company has benefited from having Russell-McCloud share her informed, inspirational wisdom and wit.

As a member of the Council on Legal Education Opportunity, (CLEO) she studied at Harvard University, Cambridge, MA.  She earned her Juris Doctorate Degree at Howard University School of Law, Washington, DC..   Prior to embarking upon her speaking career, Russell-McCloud was an attorney with the Federal Communications Commission, Chief, Complaints Branch, Broadcast Bureau, Washington, DC for ten years.  Then she decided to follow her true passion which was to be a business entrepreneur and global professional orator.  Born in Indianapolis, IN, and graduating from Kentucky State University she knew that her true career connection was to prepare meaningful presentations for diverse audiences, and to meet them at their point of need.
She has received many honors, including being presented more than 300 keys to American cities.  She has served as the 11th National President of The Links, Inc., and the National Parliamentarian to the Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority.  She has been named as  one of the top five business motivators in the country  Black Enterprise Magazine; identified as one of the top 10 speakers in America, "Success Runs in Our Race"; featured in  ESSENCE Magazine,  EBONY Magazine  as one of the most influential people in the United States, and featured as the cover story of SPEAKER Magazine, National Speaker's Association  2007 July/August. 
A resident of Atlanta, Georgia. Russell-McCloud is married to Bishop E. Earl McCloud, Jr., the 127th elected and consecrated Bishop, of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, Office of Ecumenical and Urban Affairs.

Balancing Act

Sangita Iyer is a highly experienced senior broadcast journalist and news gatherer who has worked in the media world since the 1990s. For the past three years she has been one of the most recognizable faces of TV news in Bermuda as a senior journalist and anchorwoman with the Bermuda Broadcasting Company.

Sangita, who lived in Toronto, Canada more than half of her life, was born and raised in India, prior to that, she worked and lived in Kenya East Africa.  When she settled in Canada, the move from Asia to the west brought Sangita face-to-face with a number of cultural challenges, including trying to win acceptance. Her look and accent were viewed as a handicap, but Sangita’s determination to succeed led to her entering the media world at newspapers the Toronto Star and Daily Mirror and TV channels including CTV and Omni, for which she was responsible for programming aimed at Toronto’s sizeable South Asian community.

She also created community programmes such as ‘Smooth Transition’ to help new immigrants navigate the switch of cultural surroundings.  Sangita has given many talks on similar themes, including ‘Dressing for Success’ to help woman move their lives forward. Sangita  created a 13-show EnviroShorts documentary TV series for Bermuda, for which she won the inaugural DeForest Trimingham Award – the top award for environmental awareness from the Bermuda National Trust.

She has a bachelor degree in biology and is a post-graduate in journalism.

Panel Moderator

Michelle B. Khaldun is the General Manager of the Bermuda Small Business Development Corporation. She was born and raised in Warwick, Bermuda, and has been actively involved in the community as a past member of the Head Start Lobby in New York State, of Francis Patton Primary School PTA, Berkeley Institute Board, Chair of the Bermuda Land Development Company.

She attained a Bachelor of Business Administration, Magna Cum Laude, from the Bernard Baruch College, City University of New York, USA. She also completed Graduate Courses towards a Masters Degree, Human Resource Management from Webster University, Bermuda and successfully completed the Commonwealth Executive Programme in Public Management.

Over the past 20 years, Ms. Khaldun has held various senior managerial positions at the Bermuda Commercial Bank, The Bank of Bermuda and Butterfield Bank. In the Public sector, Ms. Khaldun has served as Permanent Secretary for the Ministry of Education and Development in the Bermuda Government. For six years she was responsible for the provision of advice and assistance to the Minister of Education and Development, which included formulation of policy, coordination and supervision of the work within the Ministry and those quasi-governmental bodies for which the Minister of Education and Development has legislative responsibility.

Ms. Khaldun assumed the responsibility for the management of Bermuda Small Business Development Corporation two years ago, providing technical advice and financial support to small businesses. Since the fall of 2005, the BSBDC has initiated three socio- economic initiatives, the establishment of the North-East Economic Empowerment Zone, the Small Business Contractor Incubator and the Free Market Vendors.

World Café on Leadership

Martha Mayhood Mertz is the founder and owner of Mayhood/ Mertz Investments. Back in the early 80’s, Martha was asked to serve on the Board of Directors of the Lansing Michigan Regional Chamber of Commerce. After finding herself to be the only business woman serving on the Board and discovering that her Chamber had only once honored a woman, Martha quickly recognized that the Chamber’s boardroom did not reflect the reality of the community. Martha worked with her Chamber to recognize the leadership of outstanding professional and business women in the community and advocated to provide opportunities for them to move into leadership positions. This concept led to the idea of acknowledging and honoring those quiet leaders, mostly women, whose efforts were adding immensely to the fabric of their communities while they remained unacknowledged and not visible as leaders. Since the program’s inception in 1982 more than 5,000 awards have been presented in over 500 communities in the United States, Canada, China, Russia, the United Arab Emirates and most recently the United Kingdom.

Lorna E. McGowan is the Founder and President of LEM Virtual Administration Services (LEMVAS), a company that specializes in the arena of web-based business and administrative support. She began her career as a private secretary in the United Kingdom and now consults for the Government of Bermuda in addition to running LEMVAS.

Being a certified public speaker and career management coach, Ms. McGowan also is a life coach to “at risk” young men who voluntarily participate in Mirrors, a personal development program as well as a reading assistant. Additionally, has resulted in assisting individuals to achieve their full potential.

Her varied background is now allowing her to serve as Chairwoman of Fundraising for The Sequoia Learning Foundation, a Bermudian charitable organization that supports the promotion of healthy childhood and family development by providing language and learning interventions to children in need.

Panelists

Diane P. Gordon is the Executive Vice President, Bermuda Chamber of Commerce. For the past eight years, she has served as one of the principal spokespersons advocating the policy positions of the Chamber's members to the government, international organizations, the media and the general public.

Mrs. Gordon's background in marketing and knowledge of the local business community provides a solid foundation for the many challenges which face the Chamber's administration on behalf of the membership. Mrs. Gordon is represented on a number of Advisory Board, Committee's and Task force to represent the view of the diverse membership.

Bermuda-born, married and a mother of one, Mrs. Diane Gordon holds a degree in business, marketing and communications.

Roxanne Christopher is one of the most respected and influential young businesswomen of her generation. As the Owner of Bliss Hair & Nail Salon, Ms. Christopher has created one of the most successful small businesses within North East Hamilton.

Ms. Christopher is also employed as the Business Development Officer for the Bermuda Small Business Development Corporation. She was formally the Road Safety Officer and was instrumental in the creation and implementation of the Mandatory Seat Belt Law, and numerous other road safety initiatives.

Ms. Christopher is also an Executive Board Member of Teen Services, which provides educational and professional skills to Teenage Mothers and Fathers whom are often the forgotten. In addition, she has served as a Mentor at the Co-Ed Facility for the last 8 years. Roxanne is also one of the Founding Board Members of the Uptown Market Association, whose aim is to serve as advocates for the residents and business owners of North East Hamilton, which has most recently been designated by the Ministry of Finance as the Economic Empowerment Zone. Roxanne is the State Coordinator for Bermuda
Alumnae Chapter to the Delta Sigma Theta Sorority Inc., which is the largest Black Women's organization in the entire world.

She received a Bachelors Degree in French from Northeastern University in Boston, and a Certificate for Women in Government from the University of Massachusetts.

She is the proud mother to a 5-year-old son Riley, and in-between being a mommy, civil servant, and a successful businesswoman, she still finds time to be an active community leader.