Lenore keeps going

IN HER adventurous incursion into public relations, she has found herself having to defend the sometimes indefensible. She also became a “good spin doctor” while she worked with the Pageant Company which was responsible for the controversial 1999 Miss Universe International pageant. In an interesting career which took off as a flight attendant with BWIA, Lenore Joseph has soared to the top of the corporate communications arena, landing the plum position of Manager Government Relations and Public Affairs at BGTT (formerly British Gas). Lenore’s various jobs have taken her across the world and as a result, she says, she is able to “network very easily with people.”

“I prefer to see myself as an international person rather than just a Caribbean person or a citizen of TT. I became a citizen of the world because of my travels as a flight attendant,” she said. On those journeys she met royalty, movie stars and important people. She has “never had trouble finding jobs” and worked with three governments — the NAR, UNC and PNM, before the head hunters reeled her in for the post at BGTT. “I don’t know how many people have been head-hunted from the public sector to the private sector,” she said. “The job was advertised but I did not see the ad and I received a call from an employment agency to submit my resume.” She has successfully completed the six-month probation period, which she described as challenging — this being her first assignment with a multi-national corporation which operates in 22 countries. She now heads a department of five and her mission entails ensuring smooth relations between the company, Government and the public. She joined BGTT at the start of its rebranding campaign and it’s her first permanent job since leaving BWIA in 1983.

Lenore credits her training as a flight attendant for the ease with which she is able to function in her various job ventures. “It’s just that I think I am selected for the position based on experience and the ability to network and the ease and confidence with which I can,” she affirmed. At BWIA, she was “hand-picked” and formed part of a contingent that included 48 flight attendants. “It was a privilege in those day to become a flight attendant. It was not an easy career to get into. You certainly had a different image, certainly in the way that flight attendants are viewed now. There are sometimes derogatory remarks made about them which I get upset about. I am still a flight attendant at heart, and I remember very fondly the days I spent at BWIA, because I feel the training and the opportunity I was given at that time served me well in all the fields I have entered into.”

After a back injury grounded her, she was forced to switch gears at 36, and gave up the job she held since 1966. Not daunted, she used the ten-year free travel she received from BWIA to start a clothing business and also got into image consulting. When the free travel ended, she changed her business mode and became a tourism promotions officer with the Tourist Board, where she held her first desk job. Five years later, when the reorganisation of the board began, she launched into public relations, starting off with the Family Planning Association (FPA) in 1990. A stickler for causes, the FPA provided Lenore with her raison d’etre. “The FPA had a mission, I felt I needed to go somewhere where there was a cause,” she said. Her next stop was YTEPP, where she went for one year and ended up staying for six years, but it was at the Pageant Company that she really honed her PR skills.

“The more I learned the more I felt I could do more, so I was always challenged to go on to something else.” Her first public sector posting was at the Ministry of Consumer Affairs as communications manager. She was seconded to the Pageant Company to work with the production team. The operations of the Miss Universe contest and the Pageant Company came under severe public scrutiny and Lenore found herself  “leading the defence.” She faced the local and foreign media mostly from countries represented by the Miss Universe delegates. “I found myself very challenged, having to respond on my feet to things I did not have the answers for, so I became a good spin doctor,” she said with a slight chuckle. “You sort of relied on your own skills to get through. That was my baptism of fire that changed for me in terms of how I saw PR and how I interfaced with the media. “I got the opportunity to work with Donald Trump’s organisation, with his PR people and I had countless interviews with the foreign media, some of which I, regrettably, did not keep.”

If the Pageant Company was fire, at the North West Regional Health Authority (NWRHA) she found herself “embroiled” in the ever-problematic and perennial woes plaguing the health sector. Issues affecting doctors, nurses and patients were constantly in the media and Lenore was called on at any time for explanations and on one occasion was touring the hospital’s Casualty Department at 5 am just to be on the ball. “I did not know what I was getting into,” she said, adding that at least three people advised her to take that job. “I was defending something that was sometimes indefensible and having to deal with an organisation of 6,000 employees, (and) patients who took issues to the media. I was on call 24-hours and I would get calls from the media sometimes at midnight on public holidays and weekends. I must say I became quite friendly with some of the people I had to deal with. We had a good working relationship and they would give me time to respond.”

Her employ at the NWRHA was at the height of the 2000 general election, when “image was everything” and she was “drilled” into getting it right. “It was really a very trying time when I went in. It was an election time where issues of image of the institution were the order of the day so you were drilled into giving the correct responses. One had to keep the image in mind foremost.” After the NWRHA she did a stint at the National Housing Authority (NHA) before taking up the mantle at BGTT. She finds her new role “very challenging” and says it’s an environment “where you have to perform and for which you are rewarded.” It’s no “glamour job” but very hard work and very long hours, including weekends. (It entails many social events which are “enjoyable but compulsory.”) Her workday begins at 7.30 am, but she is up at 4.30 am to begin her exercise routine which varies from the gym to walking the Savannah. “It is certainly not a glamour job. It can be very stressful. I like to work and get along very well with people. Once you are able to work well on a team you can survive.”

With work cutting into some of  her social time, she does not feel hard-pressed about staying indoors whenever she is able to create free time. The social aspect of the job keeps her life balanced, she said. She has had to give up pet projects like interior designing, image consulting and events planning, but she has made the adjustment without regrets. “Now that I am older, the need to go out and do things is no longer there.” However, she has not severed ties with some of the institutions for which she once worked and still supports her “causes.” She functions as master of ceremonies at YTEPP events, became a volunteer for the FPA and she recently assisted the NWRHA in getting funding for a ventilator for five-year-old Darion Wade, which allowed him to leave the hospital after five years since his birth. Darion has been suffering from Type 1 infantile spinal muscular atrophy (SMA). She has never married and has no children, but her nieces and nephews “are my children.” “I never had the driving need to get married... I’ve just allowed everything to flow.