Vintoria Bernard was elected President of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Jamaica (ICAJ) last week at the 46th Annual General Meeting of the Institute, held at the Knutsford Court Hotel in Kingston.

She is the third female to be elected to the position, the others being Patricia Hayle in 1999 and Prunella Vassell in 2007. Bernard served as vice president from 2009 to 2011. She succeeds Archibald Campbell who served as president over the period July 2009 to July 2011.

Bernard is the managing partner of VB Chartered Accountants, and has been in practice since 1991. She has a wealth of experience in general management, and also internal and external auditing, some of which was acquired during her employment to PricewaterhouseCoopers at which she spent eight years. Her range of skills was widened by her corporate stints in statutory organisations and the manufacturing and distribution sectors.

An ICAJ Fellow, she has chaired the Institute’s Public Relations & Publications Committee and served on its Taxation Committee. She is a Fellow the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA).

The Principal Officers elected to Council were Dennis Chung as vice president, Dennis Brown as treasurer, while Mrs Ethlyn-Norton Coke continues to serve as honorary secretary. The other members who will be serving on the Council are Prunella Vassell, Ann Marie Rhoden, Glossie Stone, Audley Gordon, Martin Gooden, Linroy Marshall, Bruce Scott, Raymond Campbell and Archibald Campbell.

ICAJ was established on January 18, 1965 and formally incorporated under the Public Accountancy Act (1968) as an entity to regulate the practice of Accountancy in Jamaica as well as the use of Accountancy designations – CA and FCA.

ICAJ currently has over 1,000 members who are employed in top-level management positions in Industry, Commerce, Audit, Information Technology, Banking, Academia and the Public Sector. Membership is attained through a combination of academic examinations and accountancy experience at a senior level. Practitioner status requires supervised training by an ICAJ practising member.