The Barbados Investment and Development Corporation (BIDC) has announced the appointment of Mark Hill as chief executive officer following the retirement of his predecessor Sonja Trotman in December.
Hill, whose appointment took effect on April 5, was a design adviser at the BIDC before leaving to found the research and development companies Innogen Technologies Inc. and Biogen Biotechnologies Inc. in the clean energy market.
The BIDC said the new CEO had already met with staff to present his vision and approach following a period of orientation at the corporation and had introduced “a laser-focused vision for a BIDC tailored to building a new export economy that can drive growth and transformation”.
The BIDC said Hill’s vision was to “take the corporation back to its core focus with the prioritisation of CAP 340, the Act that established the corporation and outlined its purpose”.
Hill also pointed out the BIDC was an export-focused agency whose functions, according to the law by which it was established, were “To advise on, promote and facilitate the development of export trade; to conduct and facilitate research into investment; industrial development and the export of products and services . . . ; engage in the export of such products and services . . . .”
He emphasised that the functions of the corporation should be contextualised according to their value related to exports.
“Everything we do should be geared towards and support exports for Barbados. Every entrepreneurial client of the corporation, from the kitchen maker, industrial factory producer to the laptop creative must be thinking exports. Regardless of their size, every client can say: “I export!” Export Barbados is who we are and what we do,” he said.
Hill is a former European Union scholar, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology-trained product and service innovation specialist (utilising design thinking methodologies) and a doctoral candidate, specialising in governance and public policy, with a focus on design and economics for Small Island Developing States.
He is pursuing a research-based master of philosophy/doctorate of philosophy at the Sir Arthur Lewis Institute of Social and Economic Studies. (GC)