Part 3

This is Part 3 of the interview I had last month with Charlie Kirkconnell, Chief Executive Officer, and Hilary McKenzie-Cahill, Vice President of Marketing at Cayman Enterprise City (CEC).

STEM – study of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics

Enterprise Cayman is a partnership between Cayman Enterprise City and the Government of the Cayman Islands

•          We are investing in Cayman’s youth and sponsoring meaningful STEM initiatives with a view to encouraging greater interest in mathematics, science and information technology from a young age

•          We are committed to training and further education that will enable young people to enhance their STEM education and to hone their technical skills

•          We are working in partnership with all interested stakeholders to provide mentoring, career counselling and the associated skills necessary to take advantage of opportunities in Cayman’s Special Economic Zone

•          We are aiming to target scholarships to maximise developmental opportunities for local talent

•          We are seeking to facilitate the creation of a new generation of highly skilled Caymanian technicians, innovators and entrepreneurs

•          We are supporting the growth of a new culture of entrepreneurship in the Cayman Islands

•          We are identifying the new jobs that are projected to be generated by the Special Economic Zone and are creating developmental pathways to assist Caymanians in accessing these opportunities

•          We are working to connect Caymanians with employment opportunities in Cayman’s Special Economic Zone

•          We have created a free jobs portal to bring Caymanian talent and expanding Special Economic Zone companies together

Charlie Kirkconnell and Hilary McKenzie-Cahill took great pains to emphasise CEC’s initiative in partnering with the Cayman government to support and create programmes within the Economic Zone in making young Caymanians aware of the opportunities there.

Charlie said he wanted to show Caymanians a path to flag and advance their interest in STEM careers. “These are the things you have to do,” he said. “These are the things you have to do in order to gain a qualification to take jobs that are being created in the Special Economic Zone. We are very active in helping to develop skilled technical workforce that will become the employees who make up the Economic Zone.”

He said it was a “pleasant surprise” to learn that the companies who are here or are contemplating coming here want them to find local people. “In many cases it’s in their business model to hire local people. The bigger the company the more likely this is. They are going to bring their initial team and their key people. They don’t have to.”

It has raised a big flag to Charlie and Hilary especially when they learnt that places like Costa Rica have a skilled STEM qualified workforce available and Cayman doesn’t. They have found this is a key factor when potential clients are evaluating a jurisdiction.

Professor Vaughan Carter who is responsible for further and higher education and human capital development at the Ministry of Education, Training and Employment of the Cayman Islands Government, is actively looking at the school curriculum and types of courses that can be put in place specifically for the Zone they told me.

“We must be able to compete with Costa Rica,” Charlie emphasized.

Charlie and Hilary highlighted the new skills such as, app and software developers.  They (CEC) are working with the University College of the Cayman Islands (UCCI) as well to get the necessary courses in place.

“This is a very, very, serious part of what we are trying to do. Many of the clients are interested in being involved in these training programmes. Clients are not just interested in what they can take out but investing in the jurisdiction,” Charlie said forcibly.

“One of our newest clients has been very active in the local employment market and hired five people already and anticipates hiring a significant number more. He is actively out there looking for Caymanians to work in the zone,” he added.

It is often cheaper to hire locally than to relocate a larger group of employees.

“To this end,” he said, “CEC offers a jobs portal that is free for jobseekers to post their CVs online and for companies to post job openings. CEC has also introduced clients to the National Workforce Development Agency.”

Another area they have had to deal with is to counter the bad publicity the Cayman Islands has and still is getting from the media and politicians.

When USA President, Barack Obama, called the Cayman Islands “the biggest tax scam in the world” just before the 2008 Super Bowl it was seen and heard by one of the biggest audiences in the world and damaged our reputation. The constant portrayal by movies as Cayman being a hotbed and haven for crooks is also having a negative affect on the country’s reputation.

UK’s Prime Minister, David Cameron, has thankfully countered this recently when he said the Cayman Islands couldn’t now be called a “tax haven”. The recent appearance by Cayman’s Premier, Alden McLaughlin, on the BBC’s “HardTalk” programme has also helped.

CEC have tried to counter the negatives with positive press releases and other documents that potential clients receive pointing out how ill-informed and ignorant certain media and politicians are.

We now take our final break and look for the concluding part of my exclusive interview with Charlie Kirkconnell and Hilary McKenzie-Cahill next week here on iNews Cayman.

To read Part 2 of my interview that was published on March 2 2014 “CEC: It’s not lost revenue – it’s revenue we wouldn’t have had” and the link to Part 1 published on February 23 2014 “CEC: What works with a handful of clients won’t work with hundreds” go to: http://www.ieyenews.com/wordpress/cec-its-not-lost-revenue-its-revenue-we-wouldnt-have-had/