AFTER nearly two decades of piloting the Jamaica Stock Exchange (JSE), Marlene Street Forrest, who has transformed a stodgy Caribbean exchange into one which has repeatedly made international headlines, has set herself to share the formula for leadership.

On Leadership, Discipline, Discretion and Daring, a March 2022 publication, is a collection of speeches and thoughts by Street Forrest who is managing director of the exchange.

The book asserts that “hype” and empty marketing is highly overrated, with the market head indicating that she chose visioning, discretion, team building and dedication to goals instead.

In her acknowledgement, Street Forrest said, “My parents nailed into my young and impressionable psyche respect for others, a preference for gratitude in all things and the joy that comes from having good manners.”

Diplomacy, she indicates, has helped her as leader at the exchange to navigate change and implement innovation. The author states, “The thrust of this book is that in diverse ways and under countless circumstances, we become through painful dedication and singularity of mind, what we could not have imagined, before we decided to choose the path traveled.”

In her book, Marlene Street Forrest describes herself as “A mature professional, focused on accounting” before beginning her journey in finance in 2000.

Street Forrest is recognised for her commitment to pushing the envelope on technology adaptation, market deepening and product innovation. The implementation of the Junior Market on the JSE which allows smaller companies to raise funding for growth, and the JSE bond market, are notable areas.

Under the tagline: “Committing to be the most efficient, transparent stock exchange”, her leadership of the JSE has resulted in significant deepening of the capital markets and improved market performance, leading to the stock exchange being named in 2015 and 2018, the best-performing exchange in the world.

In 2015 the JSE returned an impressive 80 per cent growth, topping 92 markets tracked by Bloomberg. It’s a record which was the result of a new management approach of the JSE in close cooperation with the Jamaican Government to revive Jamaica’s capital market. Market capitalisation has frequently topped the two trillion dollar mark since then.

Under the watch of Street Forrest, the US denominated market and the Junior Market were launched. Street Forrest spearheaded the Registrar Division of the Jamaica Central Depository (JCSD) when she served as general manager for this subsidiary of the JSE.

Frequently, the stock exchange head’s public speeches were a tour de force of visioning, an overview of plans in progress, and a forecast of what could be if commitments were made to best practices in business.

The stock exchange boss seeks to communicate to readers how the knowledge of wealth creation, investment in education, best practices and good governance can lead to tremendous success.

Through the best practices awards implemented under her watch, she gave repeated speeches encouraging local companies to pursue best practices in governance as one means of achieving not only individual corporate growth but also to produce better economic conditions for Jamaica.

It is her belief, she would outlined, that profitability and a direct return on shareholding flows from outstanding corporate governance, a fact recognised in the JSE’s awards to the Best Performing Company and the PSOJ/JSE Corporate Governance Awards, as well as the Governor General’s Award for Excellence.

Value of discipline

The book, as outlined, shows practically how leadership, not built on hype but by daring actions, discretion and discipline, can achieve immense benefits for a company and the wider stakeholders.

On the matter of the discipline required on a daily basis, she quotes Edwin Grover who said, “What we call luck is simply pluck and doing things over and over. Courage and will, perseverance and skill are the four leaves of luck’s plover.”

Street Forrest stated, “I have learnt that discipline requires a steely resolve to make IT happen, to ride the wave of disappointment, delay and self-doubt and to remain focused despite.”

Three sections

Reflecting on her unconventional hire as head of the JSE at age 39, first as deputy and then general manager, Street Forrest discusses the personnel and professional disciplines required to break new ground, which, she said, engages a process of investigation, alignment and collaboration in the first part of her book.

The second focuses on “the use of discretion as a strategy for both building and nurturing an environment and organisation, oriented towards investment and the implementation of a capital market.

Street Forrest outlines that here emphasis is based on finding balance, identifying parallel priorities and matching tasks with talents will get results.

The final section of the book deals with the secrets of leveraging brand. The book defines branding as the mix of the right attitudes needed to actualise and market awareness.

Pathways chosen here by the leader include the formation of the Jamaica Social Stock exchange, market education at home and across the diaspora, the establishment of the eCampus and the encouragement of fresh talent such as Women’s Leadership in corporate boardrooms initiative.

Gregory Fisher, managing director and head of EM Fixed Income Wealth division at Jeffries, said in his review published in the book describes Street Forrest, as “one of the Caribbean’s most acclaimed readers in the competitive, risky and exciting world of finance, investments, and capital market formation. She does not merely operate from a place of innovative breakthroughs.”

Fisher stated, “These speeches capture the dignity, the determination and diplomacy of Dr Marlene Street Forrest’s leadership of the Jamaica Stock Exchange for over 15 years.”

The book includes several reviews, including by Prime Minister of Jamaica Andrew Holness, other leaders in Government and corporate company heads who share the best lessons extracted from the book by the stock exchange head.

Cecil Foster, managing director of FosRich Company Limited, stated, “On Leadership, Discipline, Discretion and Daring provides an incredible paradigm for execution. It captures the subtleties of how Dr Street Forrest, an executive like me, engineered a cultural shift during tumultuous moments, to facilitate pioneering change. The thinking and practices outlined in this book are deserving of quiet role modeling.”

The stock exchange head is married to Franklin and has two daughters, Francia and Keena. To women who seek to follow in her footsteps she has said elsewhere: “Do not consider yourself, when you are making the changes or you are trying to move up, as a woman, consider yourself as a human, which means that you are as important as anyone else. Any career that you want to get into, it is a career for you as a woman. Do not expect favours.”