Sherika Jackson-Grant recounts that one of the most significant’s influences in her life was her father’s insistence that she read the Sunday papers. Years later, Jackson-Grant is convinced that it was the start of her path to becoming a master communicator with a degree in communications and public relations from Carimac at The University of the West Indies.

Described by her peers as a shrewd, well-rounded professional, Jackson-Grant started in customer service roles before gaining experience as a communication and digital marketing professional for major brands. That’s the foundation for her current role as general manager of BlinkSky Jamaica, a global, mobile-first digital gifting platform that targets both B2B and B2C customers and currently operates in more than 10 markets.

Under her leadership, BlinkSky has helped micro and small merchant businesses understand the value that digital gift cards can provide for their enterprises through direct information campaigns. Additionally, for companies that are new to the e-commerce space, the BlinkSky platform manages their end-to-end process by facilitating the creation, issuing, redemption and marketing of digital gift cards from mobile and digital devices, therefore helping to drive business transactions globally.

The platform has been built from its first iteration using the latest cloud technology, providing a mobile-centric attitude, user experience, and built-in customer protection policies. The BlinkSky platform also has robust best-in-class anti-fraud measures using a proprietary rules engine that looks at more than 20 parametres to eliminate purchasing fraud. Further, being completely digital utilises rotating “tokens” or barcodes, making it nearly impossible for someone (or even a machine) to reuse a token or code.

Jackson-Grant credits the five years she spent as a customer service professional with providing her with a deep understanding and greater appreciation of how loyalty and brand affinity positively impact revenue. For her, customer loyalty is “the sweet spot”. In addition, Jackson-Grant enjoys the diversity of customer loyalty, thanks to its global evolution and the use of customer data to inform revenue decisions, which has become even more crucial since the onset of the pandemic. A customer loyalty blog is next on her agenda to fulfil her desire to be a voice for customer loyalty in the region by sharing knowledge and using it as a platform to create a sense of community in the customer loyalty realm.

Jackson-Grant is honoured to be leading BlinkSky, as the first of its kind in the world to create, manage and securely deliver digitally stored value. She wants to be remembered for making a solid contribution towards accelerating the adoption of digital distribution of gift cards between both Jamaican merchants and consumers and by playing a role in enabling a cashless economy.