“We’re here to change the world,” says Gillian Wall. She laughs, but there’s no doubt she’s dead serious. Wall is Group CEO of the IBB Global Group of companies, the first company, being International Business Brokers (IBB) Limited, a company she founded 13 years ago. “We’re here to help local organisations think a little bigger, dream a little more.” IBB grew fast, as Wall added different partnerships with local and international organisations, expanding their scope of services each time. They now have eight international partners and six business lines, including Organisation Development, Leadership Development, Service Culture, Strategic HR Services, Lifestyles and Financial Coaching. “I’m passionate about the concept of globalisation, but many local companies see it as competition and loss of business.” Wall disagrees, saying that globalisation simply reminds us of all the other markets out there. “We need to look at diversity beyond these shores.”
When working with organisations to improve their business performance, Wall encourages thinking beyond CARICOM, especially since so many companies like IBB are successfully playing within the global market. “IBB’s changing the world one paradigm at a time; one home, one organisation, one community, one nation at a time.” Wall’s business is so much a part of her life that she even met her British husband through it. The marriage lasted seven years. “We are two very strong, very passionate people. We worked together, played together, and eventually ended it together.” Young, stylish, and beautiful, Wall has had clashes along the way with people who have radically different ideas about how a successful executive should look and act. Her positive attitude sometimes rubs more jaded individuals the wrong way. She recollects one remark in her younger days as an Accountant, when one female colleague sniped: “Gillian Wellington (her maiden name) there you go again, always walking around like someone blew sunshine up your....!” She gave her the only answer she could: “Why, thank you, I don’t believe anyone else has sunshine up there!”
Wall recalls her early years as a junior accountant within the Gillette Group of Companies, where she learned a great deal about business through the Group’s Chief Accountant, Debra Aboud and former Group Chairman, Lindsay Gillette. “I loved Debra’s meticulous nature and Lindsay’s drive and energy. He’d really push you. He also wasn’t conventional...not in the least!” The first tenuous encounter within the Group came when she was given a company car at age 23, so young that she had to earn her driver’s license in order to drive it. The ripples of resentment through the company were tangible. One supervisor, who had been with the Group for 9 years, actually tried to get them to reverse this award. Wall’s boss, bowing to pressure, apologetically asked for the car back. “I said, ‘No problem. Tell me what has changed in my performance, and I will gladly give you these keys.’” That challenge proved impossible to meet and Wall kept her vehicle. To this day, she maintains her tough stance on fairness and transparency, and it has infused every area of her business. “I’m passionate about being fair and unafraid.”
She’s nurtured that fearlessness since her teens, when, as a student at Holy Name Convent, she lobbied for a girls’ football team. Met with resistance, she and one of her classmates began sneaking her schoolmates out of school to meet with the CIC football coach. She almost got expelled for that covert operation. Rather than eat crow from the Principal in order to be allowed to do A’ levels at the school, she chose not to return and ended up at St. Augustine Senior Comprehensive. Even then, there was no taming her. “I was probably the only child to regularly skip school to spend the day with my grandmother. She was my mentor and motivator.” Wall is deeply devoted to her family, and has a beautiful 12 year old daughter who makes her proud daily. “We like to say our family is the best in the world.” (By the time you see this, she would have already hosted the annual family Boxing Day tradition, a 12-hour marathon of food, drink and liming, complete with family talent show and three live bands, including parang and tassa.) “Every year it gets larger and larger,” she says, undaunted by the prospect. Although her playful side is very much a part of her persona, Wall remains every inch a businesswoman devoted to nurturing growth and change in herself, her team and her clients. “The beauty with tapping into your potential is that every time you do so, it expands. I love helping people explore their talent, passion and enthusiasm for life – it helps unleash their power to transform their lives and the world around them.” Above all, she wants women in particular to overcome their self-imposed limitations. “It is only through a deeper understanding of our light and our might that we seize the opportunity to embark upon our freedom flight!”
