Former GML CEO Grenfell Kissoon dies

GRENFELL Kissoon, former chairman and CEO of Guardian Media Ltd (GML), has died at 79.

Reports say he passed peacefully at his Chaguanas home on Wednesday. He had cancer.

His funeral will take place on August 27 at St Charles Presbyterian Church, Caroni Savannah Road, Chaguanas at 1 pm.

On Thursday, GML managing director Dr Karrian Hepburn-Malcolm said, “Mr Kissoon as a past managing director was instrumental in building Guardian Media into what it is today. This included acquisitions of radio stations, the start of CNC3 and so on.”

She described Kissoon as being very passionate and committed to media.

“The legacy that many of us enjoy now and we are trying to build upon, a great part of that, was created by Mr Kissoon.”

Kissoon worked with ANSA McAL for 28 years, a statement from the company said. It also said he had worked at GML, the TT Broadcasting Company and Trinidad and Tobago Television (TTT).

It added he served as the manager of management controls at the Caroni 1975 Ltd and was its human resource administrator for ten years.

ANSA McAL said Kissoon first joined the group in 1993 as general manager of its TT Broadcasting Company and in 1994, he became the managing director of the Trinidad Publishing Company.

He retired from GML in 2016, after serving in several roles and capacities.

Last year he published a book, The People Factor in Enterprise Management Practices and Behaviours for Creating an Inspired and Motivated Workforce – Getting the Best from People.

On Thursday, Newsday columnist and photographer Mark Lyndersay recalled that he and Kissoon did not see eye to eye on many matters.

He said, “From the time I rejoined the Guardian’s staff in November 1998 until I left in October 2003, there was almost nothing that we could agree on except for the importance of the company’s success.”

Lyndersay said in his time there, Kissoon supported a proposal he put forward for a second daily publication (The Wire) and had put him in charge of setting up its infrastructure and hiring the photographic department. He ended up being that paper’s operations manager.

Lyndersay said, on balance, he found himself more grateful for the opportunities Kissoon gave him than resentful of his way of achieving his management goals.

“When he published a book on enterprise management, he politely asked for permission to use a photo of him I’d taken that he apparently liked.

“It was an opportunity to say thank you for the things that worked during our time at the paper; the rest is just blood under the bridge."