The Chamber Board of Directors is elected annually at the Annual General Meeting which is traditionally held on the last Wednesday of November. Everybody is eligible for reelection and there are no restrictions on who and how long one can serve for. The only requirement is that the 1st Vice President must come from the Commercial Sector while the 2nd Vice President shall come from the Manufacturing Sector. The immediate Past President remains on as part of the Board of Directors. The Executive Director is not elected but is in fact appointed by the Board of Directors. The tradition is for the President to serve two consecutive one year terms at a minimum.
Board of Directors 2012- 2013
Mr. Gerard Bergasse
(President)
Tropical Shipping
Mr. Chester Hinkson
(Immediate Past President)
Bank of Nova Scotia
Mr. Gordon Charles
(1st Vice President)
J Q Charles Group of Companies
Gordon Charles earned a B.A. from the University of Western Ontario (UWO) in Canada, and an MBA from the University of the West Indies (UWI). Gordon has been working within the family business, J.Q. Charles Ltd., since 1984. He was appointed to the position of C.E.O. in 2003 of the now restructured J.Q. Charles Group of Companies, which has operations and interests in automobile retail & distribution, food retail & distribution, real estate development & management, manufacturing and horticulture.
Gordon is a director and shareholder of all of the Group’s companies. He currently functions as 1st vice president on the Board of the St. Lucia Chamber of Commerce, Deputy Chairman of Invest St. Lucia (National Development Corporation) and served from 1997 until 2010 as Chairman of the Water and Sewerage Company (WASCO), the state owned water supplier.
