Lar­ry Howai is one of the peo­ple in the fi­nan­cial sec­tor who I hold in high re­gard, hav­ing re­port­ed on him since his ap­point­ment as the CEO of the First Cit­i­zens Group in 1997 and dur­ing his ser­vice as min­is­ter of fi­nance and the econ­o­my from Ju­ly 2012 to Sep­tem­ber 2015.

Hav­ing served as the CEO of what is now T&T’s sec­ond-largest com­mer­cial bank and as a min­is­ter of fi­nance, he brings a unique per­spec­tive to his new role as gov­er­nor of the Cen­tral Bank of T&T. I can not think of any oth­er Cen­tral Bank gov­er­nor who has his com­bi­na­tion of pro­fes­sion­al ex­pe­ri­ence. Mr Dook­er­an has served as both Cen­tral Bank gov­er­nor and as min­is­ter of fi­nance, but he did not have Mr Howai’s in­ti­mate knowl­edge of the in­nards of com­mer­cial bank­ing.

Mr Howai has al­so served on di­verse boards in T&T in­clud­ing as chair­man of the Na­tion­al Gas Com­pa­ny and its sub­sidiary Na­tion­al En­er­gy Cor­po­ra­tion. He serves as a di­rec­tor of ANSA McAL, hav­ing been ap­point­ed to that board in 2016. He al­so cur­rent­ly serves as a di­rec­tor of ANSA Mer­chant Bank, Trinidad and To­ba­go In­sur­ance (Tatil), Tatil Life As­sur­ance, Al­lied Ho­tels and Al­lied Innkeep­ers Ltd. ANSA McAL is the par­ent com­pa­ny of Guardian Me­dia Ltd.