T&T has long been a na­tion of pi­o­neers—vi­sion­ar­ies who leave their mark both at home and across the globe. Danielle Jones-Hunte is one such trail­blaz­er. With a ca­reer span­ning con­ti­nents and in­dus­tries, she is now set to take on a new chal­lenge as Vice Pres­i­dent of Com­mu­ni­ca­tions and Ex­ter­nal Af­fairs (C&EA) for the Mid­dle East and North Africa (MENA) at BP plc (for­mer­ly The British Pe­tro­le­um Com­pa­ny plc and BP Amo­co plc), a role she will as­sume on March 1, 2025.

Jones-Hunte’s ca­reer has been a mas­ter­class in glob­al lead­er­ship. With over 15 years in strate­gic com­mu­ni­ca­tions, she has spear­head­ed high-stakes pub­lic re­la­tions ef­forts, stake­hold­er en­gage­ment, and mul­ti-bil­lion-dol­lar merg­ers and ac­qui­si­tions. Her work has tak­en her from her is­land home of T&T to the cor­po­rate hubs of Lon­don, Mum­bai, and Wash­ing­ton, DC.

Now, her next chap­ter un­folds in Oman, where she will lead BP’s MENA C&EA team, re­port­ing to Nad­er Za­ki, SVP/CEO of BP’s MENA busi­ness.

From an ear­ly age, Jones-Hunte’s voice was des­tined to be heard. A proud alum­na of Bish­op Anstey High School, she re­calls a teacher’s words that stuck with her, “Speak up, girl—the world needs to hear you.” And speak up, she did.

Armed with a Bach­e­lor’s de­gree in En­vi­ron­men­tal Man­age­ment from Flori­da In­ter­na­tion­al Uni­ver­si­ty and a Mas­ter’s in Com­mu­ni­ca­tion and Cul­ture from Howard Uni­ver­si­ty, Jones-Hunte built a ca­reer that seam­less­ly blends tech­ni­cal ex­per­tise with a pas­sion for sto­ry­telling.

Her work has al­ways been about mak­ing an im­pact—whether lead­ing em­ploy­ee en­gage­ment strate­gies at BP, nav­i­gat­ing cri­sis com­mu­ni­ca­tions, or de­vel­op­ing brand­ing cam­paigns for ma­jor glob­al events like the Olympics. As a com­mu­ni­ca­tions leader, she has thrived in mak­ing com­plex is­sues di­gestible and en­sur­ing that cor­po­rate nar­ra­tives res­onate with di­verse au­di­ences.

A key les­son she has learnt in nav­i­gat­ing glob­al busi­ness en­vi­ron­ments is that “a great leader is a great lis­ten­er and an eter­nal learn­er. I’m hum­ble enough to un­der­stand and ap­pre­ci­ate that not every day is about be­ing right, but every day is an op­por­tu­ni­ty to serve oth­ers and be bet­ter.”

She ad­mits she has not al­ways un­der­stood net­work­ing—cred­it­ing her ear­ly days at the T&T Unit Trust Cor­po­ra­tion, where she sup­port­ed ex­ec­u­tives in net­work­ing with Gov­ern­ment, me­dia, and large-scale in­vestors. This ex­pe­ri­ence taught her the im­por­tance of un­der­stand­ing what mat­ters to dif­fer­ent au­di­ences and how to sup­port oth­ers to fos­ter busi­ness suc­cess.

This ap­proach has al­lowed her to build strong pro­fes­sion­al re­la­tion­ships and suc­cess­ful­ly sup­port high-lev­el ne­go­ti­a­tions across dif­fer­ent re­gions. I’m hum­ble enough to un­der­stand and ap­pre­ci­ate that—not every day is about be­ing right, but every day is an op­por­tu­ni­ty to serve oth­ers and be bet­ter.”

This ap­proach has al­lowed her to build strong pro­fes­sion­al re­la­tion­ships and suc­cess­ful­ly man­age high-lev­el ne­go­ti­a­tions across dif­fer­ent re­gions.

Look­ing back, there have been sev­er­al defin­ing mo­ments in her ca­reer. Re­lo­cat­ing to dif­fer­ent coun­tries and step­ping in­to lead­er­ship roles in high-stakes sit­u­a­tions has shaped her per­spec­tive.

“No suc­cess is a sin­gu­lar ef­fort,” she says. “Do great work, treat peo­ple well, and grow a net­work.” She be­lieves that build­ing re­la­tion­ships and ac­knowl­edg­ing the peo­ple who sup­port one’s jour­ney is crit­i­cal to long-term suc­cess.

“Say thank you—you’d be amazed how few peo­ple take the time to ap­pre­ci­ate oth­ers or give back.”

Bal­anc­ing a de­mand­ing lead­er­ship ca­reer while stay­ing con­nect­ed to her per­son­al life is a chal­lenge she open­ly ac­knowl­edges. “I’ve not al­ways ex­celled at this. Mom guilt is re­al. I’ve missed more fetes and fun stuff than I can count.”

How­ev­er, she has learnt to em­brace dif­fer­ent sea­sons of life. “Some­times, work needs more fo­cus. Oth­er times, life does. The key is to give your­self grace.”

Ref­er­enc­ing so­ca leg­end Machel Mon­tano, she adds, “He talks about the mid­dle, right? I try to find that bal­ance as of­ten as pos­si­ble—mak­ing the most of the time I have rather than dwelling on how much time I don’t.”

Jones-Hunte is not just a cor­po­rate ex­ec­u­tive—she is a men­tor, a coach, and an ad­vo­cate. With a lead­er­ship cer­tifi­cate from Stan­ford Uni­ver­si­ty, she is al­so a cer­ti­fied coach, pas­sion­ate about em­pow­er­ing oth­ers to shape their per­son­al and pro­fes­sion­al brands.

She has served as an ad­vis­er to glob­al sus­tain­abil­i­ty coun­cils, cham­pi­oned breast can­cer aware­ness, and even dab­bled in the fash­ion and beau­ty in­dus­try, in­clud­ing be­ing one of five women from T&T to place in the top five of Miss Uni­verse—a tes­ta­ment to her mul­ti­fac­eted ca­reer.

Be­yond her pro­fes­sion­al ac­co­lades, Jones-Hunte is deeply root­ed in fam­i­ly. Mar­ried to Quin­cy Hunte and the proud moth­er of a son, she cred­its her fam­i­ly as her great­est sup­port sys­tem.

“Be brave enough to pur­sue your every dream,” she ad­vis­es. “And find the sup­port sys­tem that en­cour­ages this.”

She re­mains deeply con­nect­ed to her roots de­spite leav­ing Trinidad al­most sev­en years ago.

“Grow­ing up in T&T’s mul­ti­cul­tur­al so­ci­ety al­lowed me to un­der­stand dif­fer­ent cul­tures, styles, and lan­guages. In­clu­sion is in my DNA, mak­ing work­ing in dif­fer­ent places eas­i­er.”

This cul­tur­al flu­en­cy will un­doubt­ed­ly serve her well as she tran­si­tions in­to her new role in MENA.

Danielle Jones-Hunte’s sto­ry is about am­bi­tion, strate­gic vi­sion, and glob­al im­pact. As she em­barks on this next jour­ney, she car­ries the spir­it of T&T with her—lead­ing, build­ing, and prov­ing once again that the world needs to hear voic­es like hers.