Two of Jamaica’s finest corporate leaders are to be honoured this evening at a charity gala hosted by the American Friends of Jamaica (AFJ) where both Courtney Campbell and Christopher Zacca will receive the 2024 International Award at the Loews Coral Gables Hotel in Miami, Florida.

Campbell and Zacca have exhibited stellar stewardship of their respective institutions and have carved out notable reputations over decades.

In more recent times, corporate Jamaica has been plagued by unsavoury situations where character has been questionable.  Both Campbell and Zacca have stood out as operators above the fray, diligently going about transforming their organisations and serving as examples of good leadership which the younger generation should emulate.

Ostentation and bragadociousness are not for them, their records and performance serve as their calling cards.

Courtney Campbell is the president and CEO of the VM Group which he has led since 2016. He has significantly transformed VM from simply being recognised as a leading mortgage player into an integrated financial house. In 2021 he oversaw a major rebrand of the Group.

Campbell has served as the CEO of Grace Kennedy Financial Group and has been attributed with being someone who had a significant role in steering NCB to become the largest and most significant banking group in Jamaica.

Courtney Campbell remains always humble and courteous. He is always charmingly understated.

He has been a champion of embracing the digital age and seeing to it that adequate programmes are put in place. This has been one of his major accomplishments at VM Group

 In 2018, VM instituted one of the most farsighted digital transformation programmes seen in Jamaica.

“The main goal of this programme is to move from ‘doing digital’ to ‘being digital’ by infusing digital technologies into all of VM’s key business processes. We have had to ensure that our people develop critical digital skills that allow them to thrive, not only in a digital workspace but also in the new digital world.

A man of deep Christian faith, Campbell, who is also a Justice of the Peace, said at this year’s 44th Annual National Leadership Prayer Breakfast, that prayer and targeted action are key to achieving desired changes in society today. 

Campbell added that Jamaica’s leaders’ willingness to attend the annual prayer breakfast showed commendable understanding of the power of faith and urged them to couple this understanding with purposeful action.  

“We are pleased that our nation’s leaders have committed to remain constant in prayer and we call on them to go about the work of this great nation with greater effort, passion, and commitment than ever before,” declared the VM Group boss.

Christopher Zacca’s star continues to rise in corporate Jamaica and he was marked out for success very early in his career.  He is one of the few corporate leaders to hold an MBA and an engineering degree from MIT. Zacca was a gifted footballer and some say he could have gone all the way if had so chosen to do so. We think he took the right path and it has proven more enduring.

He has held senior executive positions at Denoses & Geddes (Red Stripe), served as deputy chairman of the Sandals/ATL Group and CEO of Air Jamaica. Such is the confidence reposed in him, that he remains the longest-serving president in the  Private Sector Organisation of Jamaica’s  (PSOJ) history. The legendary Danny Williams, who founded local insurance giant, Life of Jamaica, lauded his appointment and performance as president and CEO of Sagicor Group Jamaica.

Only yesterday, former Minister of Energy, Philip Paulwell suggested that the Government go study and implement the Zacca Report on the Petrojam refinery and that it shouldn’t gather dust on some shelf. 

Recognising Zacca’s executive and managerial talents, the government has called on him for the benefit of his country. He has been able to parley his accomplishments in the private sector, into the public sector as a former chairman of the Development Bank of Jamaica and chairman of the National Health Fund. He was also appointed Special Advisor to the Office of the Prime Minister from 2009 to 2011.

Since his appointment as president and CEO of Sagcor Group of Jamaica in 2017, he has set about putting together a ‘Galacticos’ of executive talent thus positioning Sagicor to be not only trading on its reputation for insurance but as a financial institution that offers the full suite of services, a powerhouse that is now taking it to the long-standing leaders of the sector.

During an interview earlier this year, the Sagicor boss gave an overview of what 2024 could possibly hold.

 “I think we have started to see an improvement in the corporate finance climate which bodes well for investment banking. Interest rates have stabilised. We do not expect any further increases but we are a bit cautious in terms of any reductions locally. We expect international reductions to come this year.

“Our businesses (Sagicor) are very diverse. As one does well, another may not do so well because of macroeconomic variables, so we are well-balanced in that way. I am optimistic about this year, but I don’t think it will be an explosive year in terms of asset prices—real estate, fixed income and equities—I think will become steady with less volatility, that’s my view.”