Rose Campbell, proud of her track record
The first woman president and chief executive officer of the country’s horse-racing promoting company Caymanas Track Limited, (CTL) Rose Campbell, left office last week after a rocky three years at the helm.
But despite this, she told All Woman that she was proud of all that she had achieved during her time.
“Personally I have grown. My character has grown. My integrity has been tested but I am proud that I never faltered along the way,” said Campbell, who was nearly fired by the CTL board at one point for what they said was her refusal to ‘carry out orders.’
“It was very lonely and very hostile. It was heart-warming to come to the end and see the outpouring of appreciation from so many there. So many persons had gifts to give. Even organisations in the community sent me farewell tokens,” said Campbell. “I did not realise I had made such a difference in so many lives.”
Campbell was first appointed to the board of directors of CTL in 1993, when former People’s National Party member of parliament, Danny Melville was executive chairman. She was at the centre of a number of squabbles with the board – immediately following the Melville era, during the chairmanship of businessman, Howard Hamilton, and embroiled with the Jamaica Racehorse Trainers’ Association (JRTA) over a number of issues.
It was during the time of the Hamilton board (September 2001) that some board members openly moved a resolution at a board meeting to fire Campbell. The matter was eventually sent to arbitration by Hamilton, and the end-result was a ruling for Campbell to continue in her substantive position as president/CEO, while the board was changed.
According to Campbell, despite the struggles and turbulence she was proud of the improvements that she had helped to make.
“I built a team while I was there and we worked together to make changes. I am proud of the improvements in the image of CTL – which I measure by the number of corporate sponsors we have attracted over the time. Before we only had a beer sponsor, now you have companies like Digicel and so on,” she said.
“We have improved the product at CTL. We invested in colour photo finishing so that you could tell which horse won in a tie. Before when it was black and white, you could not identify the winning horse. We have put in a satellite uplink system which means we could transmit information across the tough topography of Jamaica much better,”
” There was no budget for staff training before I came there and I worked on that. We offered scholarships and tried to work with encouraging employees to go back to school,” she explained. Campbell said that her immediate plans since leaving CTL also involved going back to school.
“I will start back school in September. I was in a doctoral programme at Nova University when I went to CTL. But I could not juggle both and I had stopped doing the course,” said Campbell. “I am also weighing some options I have business. First though I am going to take a much-needed vacation before I make any final decisions.”