5 Facts About Incoming CEO – Lisandra Rickards

*Originally published on December 20, 2016 on BransonCentre.co by Trudy-Ann Hylton

If you haven’t heard that Lisandra Rickards has been appointed as Chief Entrepreneurship Officer at the Branson Centre of Entrepreneurship – Caribbean, then you must be living under a rock. That’s right! Lisandra, often known as our resident pitch guru, takes over full-time as our CEO in 2017. Lisandra started with the Branson Centre in 2013 as an Entrepreneur Development Trainer, then transitioned to Entrepreneur Programme Manager. Shortly after, she was promoted to Entrepreneur Programme Director and was finally offered the role of CEO in September 2016. We sat down with Lisandra to learn a little more about her and what makes her tick.

Here are five fast facts about Lisandra:

    1. She doesn’t have a favourite colour: Lisandra loves neutral, taupe and stone colours for her home but does admit to owning lots of navy clothing. She certainly couldn’t leave out the colour red out of her favourite colour group, though. That’s the Branson Centre brand colour, of course!
    2. Lisandra spends most of her leisure time with family and friends and enjoys a great book on history or a foreign culture: “(Reading) helps to give me  a real mental break so that when I come back to work my mind feels more open and ready for the week ahead.”
    3. She’s the proud daughter of a civil servant and an entrepreneur: “My mother retired from Jamaica Customs last week, after working there since high school. She spent 41 years at the same company – something that is very difficult to imagine today! My father is very entrepreneurial.”
    4. She handles stress by seeing the chiropractor: Lisandra handles stress by practicing meditation, sweating it out in the gym or trekking to the mountains for coffee to centre her mind. She’s also a strong believer in regular visits to the chiropractor. “I hold a lot of tension in my back, so when I’m very stressed I tend to get back pain and migraines. Chiropractors have helped me a lot with that.”
    5. Lisandra defines success as peace and meaning. “Success is peace and meaning. Peace comes from a balance of wealth, family and friends, and spirit. Meaning comes from feeling like the work I do on a day to day basis is changing lives for the better.”