Majeed takes over exchange duties
Stabroek News
April 23, 2004
Rajesh Majeed is the new acting general manager of the local stock exchange and says his new position is both challenging and far from routine.
Patrick van Beek, a director on the Board of the Association of Securities and Intermediaries Incorporated(GASCI), which the exchange falls under, recently resigned.
But van Beek remains a consultant with the exchange under contract.
"I don't like a company that does routine things... routine things get you bored," says Majeed.
Majeed, who officially took up his position on March 12, was hired in December as the operations manager.
He is responsible for the administrative duties including running the exchange and facilitating trades; ensuring that all the stakeholders comply with the rules; listing all new stakeholders; and developing a marketing plan to promote the exchange as well as publishing the exchange's weekly publications.
Majeed says his new position means he has many more responsibilities but that he is well equipped since his previous position was a transition post to the general manager.
Nevertheless he admits that being the general manager does represent a challenge since the Guyana Stock Exchange is 30 years behind the Barbados and Trinidad and Tobago exchanges.
Being in the financial side of business management was not the dream of this son of Berbice. He wanted to become a manager at the Guyana Sugar Corporation, the largest employer in that region besides the government.
After completing his education at the New Amsterdam Multilateral High School in 1990, he began studying mechanical engineering at the University of Guyana through funding from the Guyana Government and from the Inter-American Development Bank.
As a result of his dedication and perseverance at UG he graduated in 1996 as Best student in the Faculty of Technology. He was hired as the shift manager at Guysuco's Albion factory and worked there up to September 1998.
It was then to Birmingham University, in the UK where he completed his master's degree in project management. This course of study was funded by a British Chevening Scholarship through the British High Commission.
His studies in the UK allowed him his first break away from the factory environment and into commercial finance in such areas as how to develop a product, business accounting, economics, marketing, project planning and launching.
After completing his masters at Birmingham in October 2000, Majeed then worked at Demerara Distillers Limited as a project co-ordinator. But in 2001, he received notification that an application he had sent for a World Bank Scholarship was approved, so off he went for a second masters at Warwick University in the UK.
Returning home in 2002, now with a masters in business management, he quickly found a position as the business development manager at Neal and Massy Group of Companies and worked there up to November 2003.
Majeed says that if Guyana is to gain credibility as an investment domain, regulations to facilitate investment as well as international accounting practices will need to be adhered to.
"The market will not develop in a vacuum," he says, of the stock exchange, noting that the necessary regulations will have to be implemented.
For example, Majeed says the government will have to devise tax strategies to draw foreign investment and local savings.
In the next three to five years the exchange will be integrating with other exchanges in the Caribbean so local companies are being encouraged to be officially listed so they can be cross listed on the other exchanges.