By Colin Wilson

Part 1

My first thought when I sat down last week at the offices of Cayman Enterprise City (CEC) at HSBC House on West Bay Road, George Town, was how enthusiastic the staff were. From the welcoming smile from the receptionist to the two persons I was meeting, the feeling of enthusiasm being projected never waned. It was evident everyone here loved their jobs, believed in the project and wanted it to succeed.

CEC was passed into law in September 2011 and in just two years from its actual inception as a working business in February 2012 CEC has been a success.

Charlie Kirkconnell, Chief Executive Officer, and Hilary McKenzie-Cahill, Vice President of Marketing, sat down with me and enthused about their baby.

And it is their baby. Hilary was here at the City from its February birth and Charlie followed soon after although he wasn’t quite certain he wanted to be here at first.

He had a business background being the son of Charles Kirkconnell one of Cayman’s most famous businessmen with its range of shops spanning jewellery, hardware and groceries. He then studied law and worked for Walkers as an attorney but found it wasn’t the life for him. He enjoyed the excitement of competing so he left and spent six months doing very little. He was waiting for something to come along and when it did, an offer to work at CEC, he wasn’t too sure. He really didn’t understand the concept and was not convinced from what he had been told it would even work.

However he said he would give it a try and he started work part time three days a week in October. He quickly found it was a very interesting project for the Cayman Islands. The following January 2013 he committed himself fully to the job telling me “I said I would give it a shot” and soon after that he took over as Chief Executive Officer (CEO) from Jason Blick.

Charlie admits there is a huge difference from working in a company from startup than being in an established business. Even more so when you are the CEO. “Often,” he said, “you have to tear down what you have in place and restart now you have better knowledge.”

After doing my homework before the meeting I found there were 26 of these special zones and the nearest was next door in Jamaica. My first question, therefore, was why would I want to come to the Cayman Islands in preference to the others?

The answer was quickly explained:

1. Most of the other zones around the world, including Jamaica, focus on manufacturing whilst Cayman is knowledge and technology. Cayman wants the Microsofts, The Apples and the Hewlett Packards.
2. Cayman is more developed than Jamaica as a financial centre.
3. Cayman is a great place to work as it’s a leading Caribbean tourist destination.
4. It is a tax free location.
5. There are no visa restrictions.
6. The CEC website lists benefits as:

100% exempt from corporate tax

100% exempt from capital gains tax

100% exempt from sales tax

100% exempt from income tax

100% exempt from import duties

10 day fast-tracked set-up of operations

English-speaking British Territory

5 year work visas granted in 5 days

IP owned offshore

Strategic base to access global markets

Convenience of NY/EST time zone

Cross networking opportunities

Currency pegged to the US dollar

Safe, secure, first-world infrastructure

Charlie told me the concessions offered here are within the top 1% of concessions offered by special economic zones and the concept was modelled on the one in Dubai.

Their first mistake though was to market hard at Dubai as they thought it was a good market. If companies had an interest in Dubai why not also have one in Cayman? They could attack the markets in the Emirates from Dubai and the ones in North America from Cayman. It, however didn’t “pan out as we thought.”

So they refocused on North America, the traditional Cayman market.

The other area that has proved to be a disaster is their menu licensing system was inefficient. Setting up one or two companies and it was fine.

Charlie said, “What works with a handful of clients doesn’t work with hundreds.”

So it was back to the drawing board and the revaluation meant they needed an online application system that is being installed now. It will make the business easier to manage, Charlie said, there will be less paperwork to deal with and therefore his staff will have more time to deal with the number one priority of the business, finding clients.

And clients they now have. They broke the 100 barrier this year and at the time of my interview that have 105 clients from a staff currently at just 9.

As they say on television we will now go for a short break. Look out for Part 2 of my exclusive interview with Charlie Kirkconnell and Hilary McKenzie-Cahill next week here on iNews Cayman.