By Janelle de Souza

Copyright newsday

SOMETIMES, the most courageous thing a person can do is step away from certainty to be true to themselves. It is a leap into the unknown, guided by conviction, passion and the quiet confidence that one’s skills and values will carry them through.

For sisters Fern and Avion Gray, that leap has defined their careers, their choices, and the legacy they are shaping for the Caribbean.

Both women, who grew up in Diego Martin in a household that prized long-term thinking, education and self-belief, have charted impressive international careers. Yet both have chosen to step away from established roles in global finance and energy to create new pathways – ones that are more aligned with their identities, passions and the futures they want to shape for themselves and their region.

This October, their journeys come full circle as they return home to contribute to IGNITE 2025, a start-up summit hosted by the non-profit organisation Caribbean Dragons at the Central Bank Auditorium, Port of Spain, from October 13-15. Created by Andrew Seepersad and Marc Persaud, the founders of Caribbean Dragons, the event is designed to foster entrepreneurship and investment in the region.

Fern will bring her expertise in energy, climate change and diplomacy to a panel on climate technology while Avion will highlight the urgent need for financial literacy and long-term wealth-building among youths in the Caribbean, share her story and be a source of information and inspiration for aspiring founders.

A Family Rooted in Values

The Grays are a family of high achievers, but their beginnings were humble. Their father Vernon Gray grew up in Tobago and did not have the opportunity to attend secondary school. He became a policeman, later moved into life insurance, and, understanding the importance of long-term planning, instilled those values into his daughters.

Avion told Newsday, “He eventually went on and studied finance at Howard University in the 90s, while we were in school at Bishops. So we sort of followed his track, but it was ingrained in us from a young age. He would talk to us about money, talk to us about long-term thinking, about investing. And so, from my perspective, the influence was him, and it’s continued through all of us. And then he actually lectured managerial accounting and financial management at UWI at the end of his career.”

Their mother Donna Wharton gave them the gift of confidence, self-worth, dignity and respect for others, leaning heavily on teachings based on her Christian faith.

Fern recalled, “She would tell us whatever we decided to do, we shouldn’t consider ourselves better or worse than anyone. It’s important to remain humble.”

She said their mother always stressed they could accomplish anything they set their minds to, but once they decided what they wanted to be, they should work to be the best at it. She let them know their voices are important no matter who they were dealing with.

Their parents raised four daughters, all of whom attended Bishop Anstey Junior and High Schools before going on scholarships to Howard University in Washington, DC.

Fern stressed that she and her twin, Falon, were accepted and enrolled at UWI, Mona, in 2004 but, at the last minute, decided to attend Howard in the footsteps of their father and older sisters after being inspired while attending Avion’s graduation.

Three of the sisters went into different aspects of finance, while one became a veterinary pathologist.

Their parents encouraged them to leave home to study and spread their wings, confident the values instilled in them would keep them grounded. So, although they built careers abroad, the sisters have kept their ties to TT strong.

Avion has held on to her Trini accent even after 25 years abroad and she returns home every chance she gets. She has already been to TT three times for the year so far.

“So we come home for Christmas, we play mas and stay very close to the culture. That’s important in keeping me personally grounded. That has gotten me through a lot,” Avion said.

In addition to playing mas together, Fern said they also loved playing J’Ouvert with their mother, paranging with friends, attending steelpan and cricket events with their father, attending lively family gatherings and more. They look forward to their family and their culture, and so they are driven to keep coming home.

From Diego Martin to the World

When Avion was young, she dreamed of becoming a lawyer because she had a natural penchant for debating and formulating convincing arguments, even considering a dual law and business degree. But in 2000 she left TT to attend Howard University, where she graduated in 2004 with a degree in international business with a minor in finance.

She entered investment banking in the US, advising companies on raising debt and equity capital. After four years, she went on to Stanford University, California, graduating in 2010 with an MBA specialising in entrepreneurship and venture capital.

She said the two years she spent in Silicon Valley was transformative, as that was where she developed a love for technology.

“Silicon Valley is the hub of innovation globally, and being exposed to that literally changed my life, my perspective, I believe, changed my path. And when you merge finance and tech, you get FinTech.”

In 2013, Avion joined the FinTech start-up Clover, helping to launch its point-of-sale system in the US and later expanding it to the UK, Ireland, Germany, the Netherlands, and Austria. Under her guidance, Clover’s revenue grew to US$1.5 billion annually.

Then, in 2021, after years of success, Avion felt the pull to create something of her own. She left Clover and co-founded Belong, a UK-based wealth-building FinTech platform for young people, aiming to help them move from saving to investing.

Pointing out less than two per cent of venture capital goes to women founders and less than 0.2 per cent to women of colour she added, “My co-founder and I are both women. She’s a behavioural economist, I’m a FinTech product leader and former investment banker, and we raised the largest pre-seed investment round ever in history for women in Europe at £4 million from high-calibre investors spanning the globe. So it was record breaking. We never set out to break a record, but we did, and it was trailblazing.”

As the CEO of Belong she is working on growing and scaling the business, while caring for her husband of seven years and three children ages six, four and two.

Fern’s journey through the fields of international relations, diplomacy and the energy sector began due to a passionate economics teacher in Form Six.

“She just got me lit up on macroeconomics. And that was, I think, the start of my passion for global affairs, how markets move, and the determinants of supply and demand.

“The interesting thing is she was also involved in local politics, so very early on I made a strong connection to and became keenly interested in geopolitics and the interplay between market behaviour and political activity and decisions.

“I was so on fire for macroeconomics that I was very curious about Trinidad, and what made Trinidad unique, and how did Trinidad interact with the rest of the world.”

She graduated from Howard in 2008 with a degree in international business and interned at Morgan Stanley, an American multi-national investment bank and financial services company, for three summers.

Though she received a job offer from the company, she turned it down to pursue a career more closely aligned with the energy sector. She chose to work in Houston at Wachovia Securities, now Wells Fargo, as an investment banking analyst doing sales and trading for energy derivatives.

Taking the advice of a mentor, Fern was encouraged to expand her knowledge beyond the paper and speculative market to how oil and gas were produced and the economics of the value chain.

So Fern returned home and joined bpTT’s Challenge Programme from 2010–2013. She worked as a finance and economic analyst with the company at a critical time when there was an oil spill in the Gulf, so it was a period of immense growth for her.

“I learned some of my most technically challenging skill sets around, not just modelling, financial analysis and economic analysis, but really looking at how our numbers worked, how our division planning worked. I really had to understand the business very, very deeply. I may not have gotten that experience had we not been in that crisis mode.”

She said it strengthened her finance skills and gave her a full understanding of energy sector market dynamics and how energy companies contributed to the GDP (gross domestic product) and development of TT.

When the Challenge Programme was complete, she returned to her passion for international relations and, in 2013, she pursued a master’s at The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, specialising in natural resource conflicts and negotiations, and climate change technology.

“During that time, I would have spent half a year in Geneva, Switzerland at the Graduate Institute doing international and development studies where I focussed on strengthening my core functional competencies in international law, particularly looking at natural resources, climate and he environment, and conflict.

“So that is where the breadth around the energy sector came for me, where I started to look beyond oil and gas and look into some of the disruptive technologies that were coming into the traditional energy sector, around the climate change agenda.”

Her expertise took her to the World Bank Group, where she helped deploy US$20 million in climate finance to various public sector projects around the world, and later to the private sector arm of the World Bank Group, the International Finance Corporation after getting a certification in public private partnerships.

In 2023, however, she made the decision to resign and returned to TT in February of this year. She said the decision was not an easy one but she wanted to reconnect with the professional and social communities here. Also, she had worked on projects around the world when she was at the World Bank but never got to work on initiatives in the Caribbean.

“Coming back home represents so much more for me than just changing geography. It represents being able to use the skills and the expertise and the knowledge that I’ve gained through all of the years being abroad, on topics and issues that we are dealing with in the region. And that’s why speaking at the conference is really relevant as well.”

She is now actively working on merging her professional experience with what she is passionate about at this stage of her life – regional energy cooperation, small state energy diplomacy, advancing public sector infrastructure, decarbonisation and the climate change agenda.

“I’m really focussed on thought leadership around how Caribbean countries, TT as a unique actor in the context, how we really tell our story, and how we cooperate with each other on some heavy themes and of integration around our energy sector and around some of our other productive sectors.”

Now, she is charting her own path, advising climate technology start-ups, consulting on renewable energy and exploring regional energy cooperation.

“I’m very much designing the next chapter of my career. It’s very exciting and scary, because I’m untethered and unaffiliated with an institution for the first time in my life. So it’s been quite a journey to really sink my teeth into the industry and the market and the network just as Fern Gray and knowing just being Fern Gray is enough.”

Sisters in Courage

Though their careers followed different tracks, Fern and Avion found themselves making the same leap: walking away from certainty to design a life and career truer to themselves.

Fern remembered the encouragement she received from Avion during her transition. That pep talk reminded her she was her own brand, and she would not lose her skill and experience by stepping away from an institution. It gave her the confidence to step out on her own, and she thanked Avion for her advice and compassion.

Fern said, “I really want to design what (her career) looks like. It’s going to be a little bit of lecturing, consulting, mentorship, community based work, it’s going to be regional diplomacy. It has so many different elements and I can’t get that in one institution or one corporation. That has to come from me. And that’s really going to be how I tell the rest of my story for the season that I’m in now.”

Avion agreed, pointing out that, though born two years and three months apart, they both pursued a high level of education, gained global experience and then chose to branch off.

“I got to the point where I wanted to do something where I could bring every atom, every fibre of my being to it. I wanted to do something where I bring every fibre of my being – from my roots in Trinidad, my journey, all of my experience, my passion, my everything – to it. And I think entrepreneurship was that track for me. And what Fern is doing is entrepreneurship.”

For both women, the courage to be true to themselves was not about turning away from their pasts, but about building on them – bringing their heritage, values and international experience back home to the Caribbean.