Ian Chinapoo: Teaching finance

FOR SOME, money is regarded as the root of all evil, but Ian Chinapoo, CEO of Guardian Holdings Ltd, has always seen it differently. Chinapoo considers money an enabler.

“Over my career in banking, I have seen that some of the most unassuming, humble, simply dressed people could be the wealthiest,” Chinapoo said during an interview with Business Day at Guardian Holdings’ head office in Westmoorings. “And you know what they did with their wealth? They focused on building their communities, supporting their loved ones; some of them have never moved out of the original house they were living in. You can use the knowledge of finance to improve the quality of life for people and their beneficiaries.”

In one way or another, Chinapoo has been teaching people about finance for more than 28 years.

Now, after almost a year as CEO of one of the longest-standing insurance and holdings companies in TT, Chinapoo is using his passion, experience and knowledge to ensure policy-holders and their beneficiaries are financially independent for generations to come.

Finance is his profession

If you asked a Spartan what his profession was, he would say, “War.” If you ask Chinapoo what his profession is, he would say, “Finance.”

Chinapoo said he had been teaching finance to people from as far back as 1994, even before he graduated from his executive MBA (EMBA) degree at UWI. In the final year of his degree he began tutoring first-year students.

“My lecturers thought I helped people explain finance concepts pretty simply, and there were people in the EMBA who were not coming for the financial background. I was tutoring people who had never done finance before and teaching them MBA-level financial concepts.”

That course is now known as Finance for Non-Financial Managers, at the Arthur Lok Jack Global School of Business, a programme he says thousands of people have now passed through.

“I have taught in the EMBA programmes; the IMBA (International Masters in Business Administration) programmes; I have designed a masters in international finance programmes; I have taught in what was the diploma in human resource and is now the masters in human resource."

Coming out of university, Chinapoo worked with CIBC First Caribbean International Bank, Citigroup and Massy Holdings.

He said his passion for educating people in finance went on as he went further in his career. He started in Clico insurance in his early 20s, then moved on to Citigroup, where he worked in several areas, including the treasury and price risk management; foreign exchange; credit; corporate banking and lending; investment banking; structured finance; capital markets; and business leadership.

At CIBC he launched the Capital Markets group, which is now the investment banking group. Then he went to Unit Trust, where he worked in asset finance, and the Massy Group, where he worked in corporate finance.

In October 2022 he was appointed CEO of Guardian Holdings, the last leg in his journey in a financial career. He said he hopes to continue leading the company, using his passion for finance and people.

“I love what I do and I do what I love,” Chinapoo said. “It is important for me to bring out all of my talents to the job and find inspiration. I tend to work from something I call internal combustion, where you find the energy and you can generate the energy yourself, even in situations that seem to be challenging.”

Investing in the quality of life

Chinapoo said Guardian Holdings, which has a presence in 22 countries in the Caribbean, has seen the effects of covid19, the Ukraine/Russian war, climate change and other global shocks, and how they are affecting the needs of customers. He said while these needs remain the same, they are more pronounced.

“People want the assurance that their investments are being well managed, their policies are going to be honoured – they expect that.

"But more so, they are looking for more innovation. Everyone is looking for that customer experience. They want ease, convenience and access.”

Learning lessons from the recent global shocks, he said, Guardian is enhancing its customer experience through the use of technology. He added that Guardian has become more efficient, reducing its time to settle average claims from 30 to 40 days, to seven.

He also said their products have also been adapted to the current challenges facing people. One example, the Phoenix product, allows people to claim up to three times.

“If you buy a million-dollar health policy and you get sick from one thing, you could draw that million dollars. If you get a totally unrelated medical issue, we refresh that claim. The next year, you can claim another million, once it is an unrelated medical issue, all on the same premium.”

“These are the things that we can do or we are doing right to improve the impact of these things on people.”

He said Guardian Holdings also spent close to $200 million on technology, including cybersecurity, in the last four years.

He added that Guardian Holdings has plans to put its life, health and pensions policies on a single platform to allow it to be adjudicated and managed from anywhere.

“It makes things more dynamic. In case things have to shut down, you can operate from another terminus,” he said.

He added that Guardian’s investments allow for the company to meet its obligations to its customers in the long term. Therefore its horizon for return on investments would be longer than that of a bank or another financial institution.

He noted that Guardian Holdings owns real estate, but the majority of its investments are in government securities. It has $37 billion in total assets and insurance liabilities are less than $25 billion.

“When you look at our capital adequacy and our coverage across the region, you would see we have significant coverage above whatever is the minimum regulatory requirements.”

Guardian is solid as a rock

Dismissing claims by politicians that the company was in some form of financial trouble because of its connection with a bank, Chinapoo said the company has a 176-year history and is operating at a world-class level.

“We are a publicly listed company. You can go on our website and see our financials. We are regulated in 20 countries. So I don’t think it is fair to compare us to others that would not have the same oversight, because it is a different standard of governance.

At the beginning of August, Guardian Holdings recorded a 95 per cent increase in profits to $251 million in the second quarter of the year, ending June 30.

The Life, Health and Pension (LHP) and the Property and Casualty segments of the group contributed favourably to the group’s results.