CEO of Honey Bun Ltd and President of the Jamaica Exporters’ Association (JEA), Michelle Chong was the featured CEO at the fourth edition of the Mona School of Business Management’s (MSBM) ‘Reasoning with CEOs’ series on October 19 at Mona.

Launched in 2015, the ‘Reasoning Series with CEOs’ is a student engagement and enrichment initiative of MSBM, which is aimed at merging the theoretical and practical aspects of business for undergraduate students of The University of the West Indies (Mona).

The series creates a forum for students to gain useful insights into how to achieve and maintain success in a competitive business environment through discussion and interaction with prominent business professionals in a fairly informal setting.

Chong was the first female CEO to be featured in the series, which so far has featured Denis O’Brien, chairman of Digicel Group; Gary “Butch” Hendrickson, CEO of Continental Baking Company (National); and Douglas Orane, director of GraceKennedy Ltd.

“Good corporate governance may take longer to achieve, but it certainly has much deeper roots for your business development, and the personal growth of you and your employees” was among the many useful lessons shared by Chong, co-founder of Honey Bun Ltd and certified HACCP consultant, with the eager students at the event.

Speaking to a packed lecture room of students who represented several faculties and departments on campus and who were very engaged with her, Chong stated that she had always wanted to be a teacher, which gave her confidence in fielding questions from the attentive students who commended her candour.

She raised the issue of the importance of balancing family involvement in business, the need for continuous learning and capacity building, as well as the benefits of mentorship, and the need for accountability.

Chong told the students that, despite the many challenges she faced throughout her career, one constant source of support was the contribution of her husband, sons and daughter, as part of the administration and management team at Honey Bun, at varying points since its inception.

She attributed much of her success to her penchant for continuous personal capacity building.

“Continuous learning, keeping abreast and knowledgeable, and engaging with others, outside of your four walls of business, is an ideal lesson for any student who wishes to enter into a business or start your own business,” she stated.

She also urged students to join programmes that will assist them in training, understanding business and what it means to set measurable goals.

Responding to her presentation, first year banking and finance student and UWI, Mona Banking League Club member Roosewell Lobban welcomed the way she highlighted how to brand oneself and one’s business, as well as how to show confidence to the general public.

“She also offered us students ideal lessons on how to market our ideas and the brand we aim to endorse,” Lobban said.

Trevene Walcott, a second year Operations Management student, said that as someone who one day would like to go into business, he enjoyed how open and informative Chong was in the session.

“Students normally do not have the opportunity to pick through the minds of Jamaican CEOs and, as such, I value this initiative and found it inspiring,” Walcott said.

“This event excelled beyond what I imagined, and it was interesting to hear her experiences as a woman CEO and being family-oriented in business,” he added.

The event ended with Chong imparting a few words of wisdom by which she and her company are guided.