From teaching to finance

Marjorie Seebaran’s life to this point has been an amazing journey, driven mainly by her curiosity and a willingness to explore possibilities beyond locked gates and glass ceilings. Seebaran maintains that her greatest motivation to succeed and excel is being told something cannot be done or has never been done before.

The First Rock director was born in Kingston, Jamaica, but spent her early years with her grandmother in the parish of St Ann. “I have no recollection of meeting my mother until I was seven when I came to live with her and my aunt in Kingston. My time with her was cut short due to her untimely passing by my 12th year, but the indelible values of integrity, fearlessness and scholarship were her gift to me and became the foundation of who I am and what I have since become. My mother was an avid reader, and so am I. Absent the distraction of television and movies in my day, I found my escape in reading. At 11 years, I had read huge novels, many with mature content, from which I shamelessly plagiarised to earn plaudits for my essays in school,” she explained.

From these early beginnings, it came as no surprise that she first pursued a teaching career, but she soon found the experience, although rewarding, somewhat limiting. The Computer Age had not yet dawned; digitisation was not even a dream, and the use and reuse of the same material for each round of students begged for creativity and expansion. “I wanted to experience what I was teaching, to travel to places that I taught about and to learn more so that I could deliver more.”

A stint in teaching at Kingston College exposed Seebaran to staff members, many of whom were graduates of local and international universities. “Some had little mastery of teaching techniques, but their world view and breadth of knowledge in their field was admirable. I had no money to fund a degree, having already spent three years at Shortwood Teachers’ College,” she shared. Despite then being slightly older than the average undergrad, the prospect of higher education remained an ultimate goal for her; she submerged herself in thoughts of progression. “In any event, I was told that general scholarships at The University of the West Indies (UWI) were for 18-year-old applicants, so I would not qualify. Although discouraged, I sat the exam anyway, and to my utter amazement, I was awarded one of the five exhibitions available to the region. These were full scholarships with no bonding requirement and an additional stipend for travel. From then on, no one would ever dissuade me from anything I wished to pursue, neither would I disqualify myself.”

Her studies in economics gave her a glimpse of a world not yet known locally. There were no financial markets in Jamaica at the time, and ideas of stocks and bonds could only be gleaned from textbooks. Seebaran yearned for expanded horizons, one that would quell her curiosity and allow her to explore emerging frontiers. “I had visions of being in the exciting world of Wall Street and learning the language of the trade.”

In 1970, with a newly minted Bachelor of Science degree, she migrated to the United States with her one-year-old son, in the wake of her husband’s death, but could only find a position as a technical clerk at a banking institution. “There, I had to insist on the proper classification for my degree, which the HR division of the bank would not recognise, assuming it to be a two-year Baccalaureate. This pushed me to gain matriculation to pursue an MBA course of study at New York University. My acceptance finally convinced the bank to update my records, which ultimately led to my entry into their management training programme. Of course, I had never before heard of the Master of Business Administration degree with its many specialisations, but the notion of an MBA (Finance) degree seemed heady enough from the viewpoint of a technical clerk, so I strategically pursued it at the bank’s expense and was awarded the degree in 1976.”

BIG PROMOTION

Despite graduating from the bank’s management training programme with top credit grades, Seebaran was met with the news that no black person had ever been given a credit officer’s position, and the best she could hope for was an assignment in operations at a branch. “While this negative lunchtime talk among my peers at a Brooklyn branch was taking place, I got my call to report to the 277 Park Avenue office in Manhattan the following Monday. This was the beginning of my journey into the world of finance. Within six months, I was promoted to the position of credit officer in the retail bank. This was the most difficult but also the most rewarding transition of my life, from clerk to officer in a major New York bank on Park Avenue.” In 1995 she became senior vice-president.

“During this period, I had not forgotten Jamaica and sought the right opportunity to give back. This came through awareness that there was no alumni organisation in the New York Metropolitan area. I reached out to my network and soon created The University of the West Indies Guild of Graduates (UWIGG). This organisation, in addition to awarding numerous scholarships to UWI applicants, was instrumental in securing the 501(c)(3) designation under the IRS Code in 1986, which allowed for the non-taxable transfer of money and other gifts to the UWI.”

In 1997, Seebaran returned to Jamaica to serve as executive director of the newly created Business Development Office on the Mona campus. She successfully monetised and operationalised many UWI assets that had lain dormant and unproductive for decades during her tenure. “My final opportunity to give back from the depth of my professional experience abroad was the call to be part of the team at the National Commercial Bank (NCB) that had just emerged from FINSAC. With an exciting and ambitious Plan of Reorganisation, including new ownership, new capital, new management, new technology and the aspirational goal of bringing internet banking to Jamaica, the invitation to join such an effort was very persuasive. I planned for two years of service in this venture and remained for 12 years as general manager of the Corporate Banking Division. The challenge was astounding, the birthing pains excruciating but being given no blueprint to follow, I had a relatively free hand at devising a first-world paradigm which created value for underserved corporates while creating value for the bank,” she said.

Her son has carved a similar path in finance. “I am happy to have transferred the love of the work I do in some small part to my son and am gratified to see that the attributes my mother passed on to me are now embedded in him and his two sons. After excellent scholastic achievements at Brown University and The Anderson School in California, where he obtained his MBA (Finance), he became a managing director at Goldman Sachs in his mid-30s,” she said.

Her advice to young people just starting out in their careers: “Explore the opportunities around you until you find something that excites your passion. If you are passionate about what you do, it will be reflected in your work output, and opportunities will come looking for you. If your job does not inspire such commitment and dedication, move on. Be aspirational. Do not settle for less than you deserve and keep naysayers out of your circle. You should entertain only those who encourage you to pursue your goals. If you look upward and there is a glass ceiling, grab a hammer and, like me, enjoy the sound of shattering glass,” she said.