MAKEBA BENNETT-EASY:
‘LITTLE but tallawah’ is how people often choose to describe her — she’s dynamic, vibrant, flexible, a stiletto queen, a fixer-upper, no-nonsense, fair, genuine and quiet storm who’s driven by challenges.
Born and raised in Kingston, Makeba Bennett-Easy, 34, tells All Woman that she’s never been afraid of stretching her limits.
With this temperament, after leaving Immaculate Conception High, she worked as a call centre agent with popular telecoms company Digicel, then was quickly promoted to a regional quality assurance and training executive.
As such, being a go-getter by nature, Bennett-Easy, who has post-graduate certification in training and human resource development from the University of Leicester, London, and who is currently pursuing her master’s in management at the University of Durham, has always believed in personal development.
“I don’t have an undergraduate degree. After leaving Immaculate it came time for college and the decision had to be made. Did I have enough money or should my grandparents and mom who raised me use all they had to send me to school so I could go to American colleges like the rest of my friends, or should I take a step back, get a job and send myself?
“Working at Digicel, I was able to do a short course here and there and move further, then I decided it was time to get a degree. When I was ready and I applied to Durham, they asked why I would want to do it at my stage, and based on my experience, they thought post-graduate certification and then matriculation to the master’s was appropriate.”
With a passion to see people develop holistically, Bennett-Easy remained in human resources while doing her studies. And she has never regretted it.
In her current job as vice president of organisational development at Flow, she’s also known as the Olivia Pope of the company, as her initial draft there was as an optimisation consultant with responsibility to figure out all the gaps and fix them.
However, in her true role as a gladiator, she thought it necessary to re-brand the human resource department (HR) to organisational development, to ensure every aspect of the ‘people agenda’ was taken care of.
“HR was known for people who came in, took over the small companies, and there wasn’t a lot of love. When people historically thought of HR, what they thought of were policies, procedures, recruitment, separation, but HR is so much more than that. In order for myself and the department to start working as business partners and function as leaders to get stuff done, to increase productivity levels, we had to come different and it wasn’t HR alone anymore; we had the learning and development unit, the optimisation side, quality assurance and I thought it necessary to re-brand and operate as we should, while partnering with every other area of the business to make things work.”
Bennett-Easy, young and also full of life, says another aspect of her mission was to inject fun into the organisation and make people look forward to not only work, but meetings, which they would have once labelled as boring.
“When I joined staff meetings were like town hall, with everyone in one room, the CEO talks, you listen and ask questions. In my life I’ve proven that the adult attention span is 20 minutes. I decided you have to make people want to come to the meetings, get them excited about it. So it’s as simple as how you create hype that the meeting is coming. So you come up with creative ways to do that.
“One meeting in particular we started putting out teasers weeks before and on the teasers it said, ‘if you want to, come and tell a story about self. If you come wearing black, you’re telling your colleagues you’re confident and sassy, if you come to the meeting wearing orange, it means you’re sporty and fun’. A different colour meant a different thing. But what they didn’t realise was when they came to the meeting, they would be seated based on the colour they had on. Everyone has their friends and cliques they get along with in the office. But we wanted to find a way to get people who don’t normally gel to sit together and work together.”
She says she also had to eliminate the us-versus-them practices regarding management.
She’s also big on image and believes in dressing for the job you want and not the one you’re in.
“I’ve always been accused of being a fashionista, stylish, you name it, because I don’t believe you need to take your individuality out of your professional life. I’m always confident in how I carry myself. How I dress is my personality in clothes –elegant and classy, with a twist of sexy,” she says.
Also proclaimed a powerhouse by those who work with her, Bennett-Easy admires the likes of Condoleezza Rice, Hilary Clinton, Minna Israel and Richard Branson for their leadership styles.
“Rarely do you see my feathers ruffle and that’s something I admire from Israel. Branson is a maverick and his maverick ways have led to his success. I admire how Rice and Clinton own a room and that’s the leader I aspire to be — when I walk into a room and sit, to have everyone silent, which means they’re listening.”
Bennett-Easy, who also sits on the Jamaica Employers’ Federation board, sees her age as a relevant part of her decision-making.
“I have a youthful mindset balanced with a professional maturity — I can’t have one and not the other. I’ve lived on my own since I was 18/19 and that has matured me, and at the same time my youthful aura helps me to relate to what’s happening in technology. I’m able to understand what this generation wants or thinks. The flip side is when I’m sitting on a board, like the JEF, I’m able to give a youthful view on certain topics and I’m able to balance it. I believe my age is something to be proud of, not something to hide.”
She also champions the call for women to increase their self-confidence.
“As women we’re hesitant to speak up about what we want and that’s primarily because of how we were socialised. It’s nonsense. You have to be assertive, determined and confident. No one is confident all the time; we all have little things we feel insecure about, but it’s important to never let that win you over.”
When not at work, Bennett-Easy and her husband Brian make it their duty to help less fortunate children — a legacy she continues from her late mother.
“My husband and I will ‘adopt’ a kid or have a couple of street kids we make sure we take care of on a Sunday in terms of dinner. We make sure they’re fed, counsel them, and ensure they have books and school bags. My mom is from Westmoreland and she passed in 2009. When mommy was alive, everybody who lived in New Works, Westmoreland, was well taken care of, from exercise books to pencils, so that’s something I try to keep alive from my pocket. I’m big on education, I’m big on kids, because they’re the future.”
