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PROFILE

ANNAN BOODRAM

Felicia Persaud

By ANNAN BOODRAM

This dynamic, yet humble young woman grew up shuttling among Logwood, Enmore and Paradise on the East Coast of Demerara, Guyana, fi rst with her maternal grandmother, two aunts and four uncles and then with her parents. “My granny, aunts and uncles instilled in me the need for education early on so at a very early age I was reading ferociously,” Fe-licia disclosed. Because she disliked kindergarten, Felicia started out pri-mary school early, wrote the common entrance at nine and won a place to Queens College, where she completed the CXC Exams at fi fteen.

However, being too young, she had to take one year of ‘A’ Levels, while waiting to be accepted into the English, program at the University of Guy-ana “because I was con-sumed with becoming a writer...”

One year later she switched to Mass Com-munications as she found English to be “a lesson in literature history and poetry analysis.” While studying at UG, Felicia worked in various jobs that allowed her to obtain training as a broadcaster and in print media. Upon graduation in 1993, she worked as an account ex-ecutive at the then Prime Time Advertising and lat-er as Parliamentary Secre-tary to then WPA Member of Parliament, Dr. Rupert Roopnarine.

Felicia migrated to the

US in 1996, where she came face-to-face with the inevitable culture shock and reality check. She pottered around in low paying jobs in the print media, then worked briefl y at the Internation-al Rescue Committee, a refugee organization, while freelancing with several publications, in-cluding the New York Daily News, the African Times, Caribbean Voice and Black Elegance Mag-azine. She also worked as a researcher for public television and as man-aging editor at the New York Trend newspaper. Still not fi nding exactly what she was looking for, Felicia collaborated to start CaribbeanNetNews.com before launching her own online news service, Hardbeatnews.com. This later became CaribWorld-News and three years ago was rebranded as NewsA-mericaNow.com (NAN) to capture both the Latin and Caribbean market share. NAN is syndicated across 22 other news sites today.

In 2005, Felicia worked as a weekly con-tributor to the NY Daily News Caribbeat in Focus section, while launching CaribPR Wire, the only PR wire of the Caribbe-an, which is now part of PR Newswire, the biggest press release distributor in the world; CaribPR Wire is its offi cial Caribbean PR distributor, offering clients discounted global distribution. Both NAN and CaribPR Wire are part

of, Hard Beat Communi-cations, a PR and mar-keting agency, which has worked with many major brands to market the Ca-ribbean in the U.S. and the region as well as doing media buys in Africa and Latin America.

In 2011, came the Invest Caribbean Now (ICN) power forum in collaboration with the Caribbean Tourism Orga-nization, which is today know as the ICN Summit.

The ICN, which just com-pleted its fourth year in June and has honored top business leaders including Sir Richard Branson and Gordon ‘Butch’ Stewart, is currently exploring a micro-fund for the region.

A workaholic by any yardstick, Felicia’s time away from her company is spent meditating; ex-ercising; catching up on TV, including soaps; read-ing; meeting friends over a great meal at a good restaurant; spending time

with family in the US, es-pecially her Aunt Marina, brother Rawle and cousin Alex as well and calling her parents back home weekly. Not surprising-ly, she describes this packed routine as ‘quiet,’ although she is trying to take more time away from work.

So what does this dy-namic pioneer do for rec-reation? “I love puppies (she shares her Aunt’s silky terrier, Cody)… I

love to travel and I love good food, experiencing high-end restaurants and different foods, and cook-ing shows….(and) experi-menting with the dishes,” said Felicia. She also lis-tens to music and explores new places. “I hate the travel to get there but love new destinations and ex-periences,” she revealed.

The fl ip side? “I dis-like liars, racists and peo-ple who seem to have no originality but must al-ways copy and replicate

instead of understanding we can collaborate to achieve bigger things,” Felicia shared.

And while she’s learn-ing to be more diplomatic and less easily angered she really, “hates stupid-ity, lack of professional-ism, arrogance, disrespect and poor service.” Also, because Felicia considers herself a perfectionist, when things don’t go ac-cording to plans she be-comes peeved, but is “also

learning to let go.”Now that Felicia has

found her niche, she’s re-ally hopeful that she “can acquire wealth in order to make a real difference in the lives of those around me and those in need, especially those who are homeless and hungry”. She is also looking for “real love…” but while “love and fate have not been kind to me I still be-lieve in happy endings. I really want to fi nd a guy who is spiritual but also

smart, funny and lov-ing.” And even though she’s not big on chil-dren, “… maybe one day I will be able to mother someone and actually suc-ceed at it.”

Though her business was hit hard by the re-cession of 2009, Felicia is happy that “we are still afl oat and pushing on.” Thus she has no regrets. “I simply have learnt that’s wasted energy…I may have a bad day when I cry and get down and beat up on myself a bit but by the next day I’m bouncing back and looking for solu-tions or simply forgiving and letting go of the past and things I can’t con-trol.” And she takes moti-vation from the many ac-colades earned in the past 18 years, which “have been humbling especially since there are times when I’ve questioned if what I’m doing is not simply a complete waste of time.”

These accolades in-clude many writing, jour-nalism and community activism awards, among them the New York As-sociation of Black Jour-nalists Award; the Inde-pendent Press Association Award for excellence in writing; the Congressio-nal Proclamation For Out-standing Community Ser-vice; the New York State Assembly Proclamation, For Outstanding Com-munity Service; the Na-tional Leadership Award and Business Woman of the Year Award from the National Republican Con-gressional Committee.

Now considered a leading resource per-sonnel on issues relating to the Caribbean world, Felicia has been quoted in leading media around the world, including the International Business Times; the Associat-ed Press; the New York Times; Reuters; ABC News and the Washing-ton Post. She has also had a plethora of radio and TV appearances includ-ing BBC Radio; The Bri-an Lehrer Show; France Television; CNN Interna-tional and ITV. And to top

We have all heard the adage – never give up on your dreams. More

often than not, however, reality points people in directions away from those dreams. Yet there are some, who, in spite of all the challenges and obsta-cles, persist with their dreams because their passion supersedes everything else. Felicia Persaud is one such per-son. And while she may not have achieved runaway fi nancial success, the overfl owing cup of accolades is sooth-ing recognition.

Braving The Challenges as She Continues to Chase Her Dreams

CONT’D ON PGE 51

Felicia Persaud

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age 51

things off Felicia current-ly sits on the board of the Bowling Green Associa-tion, the Sino-American Friendship Association and the Monroe College School of Hospitality Management and Culi-nary Arts.

Her business aside, Felicia is very passion-

ate about U.S. immigra-tion laws and Caribbean self-identify. She is the founder of CARIB ID, a lobbying group that is pushing for Caribbean na-tionals to have their own category on U.S. Census forms.

In 2009, she secured a bill in the U.S. Con-gress and U.S. Senate to this effect and at present is pushing the U.S. Cen-sus Bureau to name a Caribbean national to its National Race & Origin Committee and to include a Caribbean race category on the 2020 census form.

Felicia also writes a

PROFILE

Felicia PersaudFROM PAGE 50 weekly column on immi-

gration for the New York Amsterdam News and is up to her 91st open let-ter to President Obama. And it is in this context that her disappointments are located. “I continue to be disappointed that Caribbean people in the Diaspora don’t always get the bigger picture…understanding that collab-

orations, like the Jews or Hispanics have, is what helps achieve wealth and greatness within commu-nities.”

Also, Felicia feels that the Caribbean region is stuck on neo-colonial-ism, “where people and corporations suck out the resources of the region but give back nothing and then dismiss it as too small.” She also believes that the region is disre-spected and, as an exam-ple, points to the fact that “the Obama administra-tion just hosted its second summit on Africa” while “CARICOM leaders have

asked President Obama since he took offi ce for one for the Caribbean but we still have nothing.”

She insists that, “Real money must be spent to harness the Diaspora and amass a data base of Dias-pora nationals while mar-keting to them, getting them to vote, contributing to a Diaspora fund to build both sides of the water…

(and) the Diaspora must sit at CAR-ICOM Summits and their agendas incorporated into the overall summit agenda.” In effect, “Progress will only come when we move beyond the borders and en-gage in lobbying together – fi rst for a category on the census, then for global economic investment.”

Added Felicia: “… without a bloc, without a major market that’s ac-counted for and documented, with-out a major media house, without funds that invest in small to medium businesses to cre-ate jobs and grow wealth in our com-munities, we have no power and are useless.”

In looking back at how far she has come, Felicia re-

fl ects on the many chal-lenges she’s faced and continues to face. In par-ticular, “there is the still daily challenge of try-ing to operate a business without any real fi nancial investment and one that focuses on a niche market that is disrespected and ig-nored so often times you feel like you are a giant failure.” But through it all – both personal and pro-fessional tests – the lesson learnt is clear: “Things always work themselves out… just let go and let God, whoever He may be and whatever He may mean to you.”

Felicia Persaud is passionate about U.S. immigration laws and Carib-bean self-identify.