MANDEVILLE, Manchester – As an example of success in a challenging world, the Northern Caribbean University (NCU) could hardly have found a more suitable motivational speaker for its 2007 graduation ceremony than the Jamaican/Canadian billionaire, Michael Lee-Chin.

“Make no little plans, plan big, think big … aspiration is the real fuel for progress,” Lee-Chin, who was earlier conferred with the NCU’s Honorary Doctor of Laws degree, told the second commencement of a record 1,136-member graduation class at the university’s gymnatorium last Sunday.

Lee-Chin, chairman of the National Commercial Bank of Jamaica and its parent company AIC, one of the largest money management companies in Canada, told the NCU fraternity that “persistence and determination are prerequisites” for success.

He said the students should seek to build success on “an enduring value system based on openness, honesty, integrity, meritocracy, fairness, transparency and excellence”.

Sharing a story of how in 1999 he transformed a crisis into a “wonderful opportunity” by boldly buying shares when the experts expected him to be selling, and ended up making C$500 million in profits for his company and clients, Lee-Chin encouraged his listeners to take heed of the “Chinese definition” of crisis: “Crisis equals danger, plus opportunity.”

“When there is a crisis, most people focus on the first component but there is also the second component …,” he shared, adding that “progress requires calculated risks and bold moves …”

The 56-year-old Lee-Chin studied civil engineering in Canada in the early 1970s with the help of a Jamaican Government grant before he gained sensational success in the financial services.

On Sunday, he argued that “there is a fine line between success and failure”.

“That line is defined by your attitude,” he told the graduates.

He lauded the advantages of a stable, healthy upbringing. That reality dawned on him in 2002 as he prepared to sign the cheque that gave his AIC control of the National Commercial Bank, he said.

Then, he asked himself, “How is it possible for the son of two clerks to buy the National Commercial Bank …?”

He said it was possible because he was “blessed” to have been born “in a country that nurtured my confidence (and) blessed to be born to parents who set standards, who led by example, showed consistency of behaviour, who were transparent”.

By extension, Lee-Chin – who has invested J$155 million in the building of a nursing school, the Hyacinth Chen School of Nursing (named after his mother) at NCU – said it was incumbent on those who are “blessed” to help others not so blessed.

His parting shot to the students were the words of National Hero Marcus Garvey: “What you do and what you say, form part of the influence you are able to wield, a man who is to lead and a woman who is to be a leader must be clean in thoughts and clean in actions.”

Lee-Chin apart, honorary degrees were also conferred by the Seventh day Adventist-run NCU on retired oral surgeon, Dr Byron Robinson, and his wife Dorothea Robinson, a nurse. Businessman Everard Daley was honoured as the NCU’s 2007 Product Sample.