Up close with Kayree Berry-Teape

KAYREE Berry-Teape knows how to turn her hand and make a profit, and that ability has served her well for all of her 59 years. Even while growing up as the ‘least bright’ of four children born to a pair of teachers, little Kayree was obsessed with collecting coins, and she would pick up the tamarinds at school to make and sell tamarind balls, just so that she could have more money. As she grew older, she found innovative ways to make even her most unsavoury experiences profitable so that she could ultimately afford to live life on her own terms. Today, as CEO of the Mayberry Foundation, Berry-Teape is constantly finding new ways to make money to assist those in need.

“It wasn’t a decision. I think it is a gift that I was given. I started collecting money on my own when I was about four,” she told All Woman. “I used to have some jars, and if I found thrupences and sixpences on the road, or was given them for lunch money, I was more interested in collecting them than spending.”

The little entrepreneur grew from tamarind balls to Girl Guides cookies, and from her earning she managed to pay for her own school uniforms.

“We were a struggling teaching family,” she said in explanation. “We used to patch shoes on the weekends. I wore hand-me-down clothes from my cousins, and I remember my mother going to the supermarket and counting out the slices of bread to buy.”

After leaving Immaculate Conception High School, she found herself at a crossroads.

“I got seven subjects, but they were not great grades, so I just decided that I would put in the work,” she recalled. “I wanted to do law but I knew my grades wouldn’t get me into law school, so I took a paralegal secretarial course at what is now the University of Technology.”

But after getting her certification and doing a very short stint at Myers, Fletcher and Gordon, she realised that law was not for her. She decided to try the hospitality field instead.

“So I went to work at Half Moon,” she recalled. “The minimum wage at the time was $50 for the week. I was paid $20 a week. I was being paid less than half the minimum wage, but I didn’t look at it like that. I saw a world of possibilities.”

Berry-Teape lives by the mantra, ‘Love the parts of the situation that you can love, and you leave the rest’ and that is exactly what she did while working at the resort.

“I soon realised that some of the housekeepers were doing babysitting work, and I saw where I could make my week’s pay in a day by babysitting for the guests. I would do my work in all the other areas, then I would go to the housekeeping department and babysit,” she shared.

Soon Berry-Teape was ready to expand her horizons. She wanted to study hotel management, so she applied for a scholarship to Shannon College of Hotel Management in Ireland.

“I was one of two black persons in the college at the time, and that’s where I learned about colour prejudice,” she said seriously. “I experienced racism first hand, but I decided to love the parts of the experience that I could love, so I completed my four years in three different European countries, and I travelled extensively in the region because it was so easy. I also learned to speak German fluently.”

Upon returning home, she landed a job at the Jamaica Pegasus hotel in Kingston, as a sales executive, where she used her gift of innovation to come up with new events and ways to drive business to the hotel.

“The Pegasus gave me three suits — a morning suit, a midday suit and a dark suit for the night,” she remembered. “I worked gruelling hours. I would be there from 6:00 am, and up to 10:00 pm I was still there. I spent many nights sleeping in the parking lot, and I would sneak into the Pegasus in the morning to freshen up and be ready for another day.”

After over a year at the Pegasus, Berry-Teape concluded that working 12-14 hours a day was not going to make her financially free. She had loved art, so she enrolled at the Edna Manley College of the Visual and Performing Arts.

“Then I realised that when you paint, it’s a touch-and-go thing, and I wanted something sure, so I went to The University of the West Indies and I did marketing and economics,” she recalled.

She then got a part-time job at Butterkist, where she was instrumental in the creation of the very successful butter cookie, which is still a favourite today. But while she was riding high off the wild success of the cookie, a series of events happened in quick succession that permanently altered the course of her professional life — she got married, got pregnant, started her master’s, and her father died.

“I loved my father dearly and when he died I was devastated. I just stopped,” she said abruptly. “I wasn’t able to function, and that led to my demise there. I was replaced.”

She was called to Facey Commodity where she worked for three years until she got pregnant with her second son. But though she would eventually graduate with distinction from the Mona School of Business Management, Berry-Teape was fired once again.

Frustrated by her experiences in the corporate world, she started her own gardening business.

After twelve years of designing beautiful gardens in the Corporate Area, including the one in the middle of the Knutsford Court Hotel, Berry-Teape finally gave in to her brother’s pleas for her to join the burgeoning family business — Mayberry Investments.

“I started as marketing manager,” she said. “I knew how to work hard, so I just threw myself into working at Mayberry.”

After five years of driving excellent profits to the company, her brother Christopher, the executive chairman, changed her title and put her in charge of the foundation, in which she was already playing an active role. As CEO, she raised funds and sought sponsorship for several impactful projects, including refurbishing a computer lab in Naggo Head, St Catherine, raising funds to assist over 100 Jamaican children with life-saving heart surgery, and building bathrooms in five schools in rural Jamaica.

Berry-Teape now spends her off days dancing Salsa, cooking, baking, travelling, reading and mentoring.

“It is not just about making the money; it is about helping the people,” she said. “And it’s still not just about helping the people. It is creating a mental state that causes people to change their lives, so even if they lose the money, they can do it all again by themselves, because they have changed their perspective.