Ambassador Audrey Marks’ – pioneer, entrepreneur, social champion

With the future of the country’s national airline uncertain, Audrey Marks wanted to leave Air Jamaica after 10 years. But the proposed separation terms were unfavourable. Marks, in her 20s at the time, didn’t surrender.

She hired an attorney and negotiated an amicable separation instead – but that came later.

From filing clerk to accounting clerk, and then to vice president of marketing and sales, Marks advanced during her 10 years at Air Jamaica.

While working at Air Jamaica, she obtained a bachelor’s degree in Business Management at the University of the West Indies, Mona in 1991 and later gained a Master's in Business Administration at Nova Southeastern University’s H Wayne Huizenga School of Business and Entrepreneurship in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

She would go on to hold a post at Telecommunications of Jamaica (TOJ). At the time, there was a special share offer for employees. After determining its value, she deemed it a huge opportunity and took out a loan to purchase a sizable number of shares. The value of those shares tripled in short order.

Marks cashed out.

But her decision was questioned by a senior manager, who worried that the move would impact Marks’ job. Unperturbed, Marks was determined to create her own security. Soon enough she resigned and founded six businesses, including a holding company called AP Marks & Associates, a 100-acre banana plantation exporting farm, a real estate development firm, a transportation company and Paymaster.

A visit to a bill-payment facility in Florida in the early ‘90s and some imaginative thinking, induced by planning meetings at TOJ inspired a template for Paymaster.

Marks founded Paymaster (Jamaica) Limited in 1997. It operates payment agencies from which all types of bill payments and remittances can be made. Paymaster is the first multi-transaction agency in the Caribbean. In December 2015, Marks sold 80% of her ownership in the company to the Digicel Group but remained its chairman.

Her Excellency Audrey Marks is Jamaica's 13th Ambassador to the United States of America and the Permanent Representative of Jamaica to the Organization of American States (OAS). Marks assumed ambassadorial duties at the Embassy in Washington, D.C. on September 12, 2016. She served in the same capacity from 2010 - 2012 and created history by being the first Jamaican female Ambassador to the USA, and the first to be assigned to the same post twice.

Ambassador Marks has also served on several private and public-sector boards. She served as Chairman of the Central Wastewater Treatment Company Limited, Chair of the Tourism Product Development Company, Deputy Chair of the Urban Development Corporation, Director of the Board of RBTT Securities Jamaica Limited, Jamaica Trade and Invest, National Health Fund and the University of the West Indies (Mona School of Business).

She also has the honour of being the first female President of the American Chamber of Commerce of Jamaica- an organisation that encourages investment and trade between the United States and Jamaica.

Her exquisite experience in business and social engagement is recognised through awards like the Florida International University Business Leader of the Year Award in 2003 and 2010.

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