If he didn’t say you would probably not guess that Chris Persaud has built one of Guyana’s most successful agro-processing companies “from scratch.” He appears too youthful, too laid back and too ‘distracted’ by his family, an engaging wife and two busybody sons, to have mustered either the inclination or the discipline to ‘work’ all of the various ‘angles’ associated with building a business that has left its own unique mark on the local agro-processing sector.
Arguably his most noteworthy accomplishment up until now is his success in steadily building a market for the UMAMI brand in many of the smaller islands of the Caribbean. Once you understand the level of competition for the range of food seasonings offered by the company it eventually sinks in that UMAMI’s breakthrough successes on the regional market amount to a significant achievement.
You know that too from the seeming ease with which he manages his employees, coming across as ‘one of the boys,’ until you watch him issuing instructions with the deliberateness of a seasoned leader then moving on after he is persuaded that he has gotten his instructions across clearly.