Beverley Morgan, head of the Competitiveness Company in Jamaica, gave a presentation Feb. 8 at the Schwartz School of Business titled Towards Creative Practice in Social Enterprise. (Richard MacKenzie photo)

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St. F.X. business students and the general public had the opportunity to hear from a woman who, through her business, is helping marginalized communities and disenfranchised youth in her native Jamaica.
Beverley Morgan, head of the Competitiveness Company, was at the Coady Institute last week as a mentor for the global change leaders program for women. She said Linda Jones, manager of the Coady’s International Centre for Women’s Leadership, asked her if she would do a talk and the title of the presentation became Towards Creative Practice in Social Enterprise.
It was held at the Schwartz School of Business Feb. 8.
“It (the presentation) makes sense for the business school because they’re looking at all kinds of models of business,” Morgan said. “We know traditional businesses which are for profit and increasing shareholder value but what we’re doing, which is not so much new but there is more attention being paid to it, is social enterprise.”
Morgan said it’s about combining an interest in the “bottom line and profitability, with rigorous methodologies, while serving marginalized groups.”
“So our aims are to be good businesses, to be profitable but those profits go into our mission and serving our communities,” she said.
Morgan talked about why it’s so important to her to serve the greater good and help her fellow Jamaicans.
“What I always say is that if I’m going to grow old in this country then it’s in my own interest that it be a better place,” she said.
“So with such large numbers of marginalized and, let us be frank about it, violence- prone young men in inter-city communities, how could I not.”
So she started the Competitiveness Company. Morgan talked about the work they do.
“I had been observing how many international companies came to implement projects (in Jamaica) and the projects taking on a life,” she said. “So they would implement them for two or three years and then the project would end, most times successfully, and then they would pack up and go. There was no continuity and it’s very hard to build on the achievements.
“So I became quite determined that there had to be a way where local people could be perceived as being good enough to compete internationally so we could implement the projects and would remain there to provide the continuity.”
And often times those locales have been those marginalized in their society.
“Because there was such an obvious and huge need,” Morgan said. “We didn’t think that the firms that were stronger or individuals who had been well educated needed our help but it was clear (others did),” she said.