Ryan Ba­choo

Lead Ed­i­tor-News­gath­er­ing

ryan.ba­choo@cnc3.co.tt

For more than a decade, Dr Priya Mara­jh has been work­ing in the en­er­gy sec­tor. In many ways, her ca­reer has in­cor­po­rat­ed the tran­si­tion from tra­di­tion­al fos­sil fu­els to green forms of en­er­gy.

Of course, that tran­si­tion is still very much on­go­ing. How­ev­er, Mara­jh has been called up­on to mas­ter the era of fos­sil fu­els while un­der­stand­ing the fu­ture of the green en­er­gy in­dus­try.

To­day, the world marks In­ter­na­tion­al Day of Clean En­er­gy–de­clared last year by the Unit­ed Na­tions Gen­er­al As­sem­bly as a call to raise aware­ness and mo­bilise ac­tion for a just and in­clu­sive tran­si­tion to clean en­er­gy for the ben­e­fit of peo­ple and the plan­et.

She start­ed her ca­reer with the En­er­gy Cham­ber, what was then the South Trinidad Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce.

Be­fore join­ing the En­er­gy Cham­ber, she was em­ployed as an In­ter­na­tion­al Re­la­tions Of­fi­cer with the Min­istry of For­eign Af­fairs and was work­ing in the Africa, Asia, Mid­dle East and Pa­cif­ic coun­tries de­part­ment and has been ex­posed to po­ten­tial col­lab­o­ra­tion be­tween T&T and African coun­tries in en­er­gy through the African En­er­gy Ini­tia­tive.

She is cur­rent­ly the vice pres­i­dent of Ad­vo­ca­cy and Mem­ber En­gage­ment at the En­er­gy Cham­ber.

Mara­jh said the tran­si­tion has been both ex­cit­ing and chal­leng­ing. She told WE Mag­a­zine, "On the one hand, it's in­spir­ing and in­cred­i­ble to be part of a move­ment that pri­ori­tis­es sus­tain­abil­i­ty and in­no­va­tion. There is a grow­ing sense of ur­gency and com­mit­ment from gov­ern­ments and cor­po­ra­tions to de­car­bonize their op­er­a­tions."

On the oth­er hand, she says the tran­si­tion re­quires sig­nif­i­cant ad­just­ments—tech­no­log­i­cal­ly, eco­nom­i­cal­ly, and cul­tur­al­ly. "There’s a steep learn­ing curve, as we have to stay up­dat­ed with evolv­ing tech­nolo­gies, poli­cies, and mar­ket dy­nam­ics. It can feel over­whelm­ing at times, but I see it as an op­por­tu­ni­ty to make a re­al dif­fer­ence and help build a more sus­tain­able world," she added.

Mara­jh said be­ing a woman in the en­er­gy sec­tor was both em­pow­er­ing and chal­leng­ing.

Em­pow­er­ing be­cause she get to be part of a trans­for­ma­tive in­dus­try that im­pacts glob­al de­vel­op­ment. How­ev­er, she added that it is al­so chal­leng­ing be­cause en­er­gy has tra­di­tion­al­ly been a male-dom­i­nat­ed sec­tor "and women of­ten have to work hard­er to prove their ca­pa­bil­i­ties and se­cure lead­er­ship roles."

Grad­u­al­ly, Mara­jh said the in­dus­try has be­come more in­clu­sive and women are play­ing in­creas­ing­ly in­flu­en­tial roles in shap­ing the fu­ture of en­er­gy.

"I re­mem­ber when I first start­ed work­ing in en­er­gy, I would of­ten be the on­ly fe­male in the room and the youngest and this was in­tim­i­dat­ing at times. As a woman in the in­dus­try, you re­al­ly must un­apolo­get­i­cal­ly cre­ate a space for your­self where one is not read­i­ly avail­able," she re­called.

As the in­flu­ence of women grows in the in­dus­try, Mara­jh in­sists their role is even more crit­i­cal.

She ex­plained to WE Mag­a­zine, "We bring di­verse per­spec­tives and in­no­v­a­tive so­lu­tions to the ta­ble, which are es­sen­tial for tack­ling the com­plex chal­lenges of sus­tain­abil­i­ty. From lead­er­ship and pol­i­cy-mak­ing to tech­ni­cal and op­er­a­tional roles, women are dri­ving progress in re­new­able en­er­gy de­ploy­ment, en­er­gy ac­cess, and cli­mate re­silience. Our in­volve­ment en­sures a more in­clu­sive and holis­tic ap­proach to en­er­gy so­lu­tions, and we serve as role mod­els for fu­ture gen­er­a­tions of fe­male pro­fes­sion­als in the sec­tor."

As a di­rec­tor at Touch­stone Ex­plo­ration, which is now the largest on­shore gas pro­duc­er in T&T, one might won­der why Mara­jh is so heav­i­ly in­volved in sus­tain­abil­i­ty.

It might even seem like a con­tra­dic­tion. How­ev­er, she ex­plained, "Touch­stone Ex­plo­ration is the largest on­shore gas pro­duc­er in T&T and nat­ur­al gas plays a cru­cial role in the lo­cal and glob­al en­er­gy tran­si­tion by serv­ing as a bridge fu­el be­tween tra­di­tion­al fos­sil fu­els and re­new­able en­er­gy sources."

She is al­so a di­rec­tor at TOSL En­gi­neer­ing, one of the largest en­er­gy ser­vices com­pa­nies in the re­gion. She said even that com­pa­ny is ac­tive­ly con­tribut­ing to en­er­gy ef­fi­cien­cy and the adop­tion of re­new­able en­er­gy tech­nolo­gies in the re­gion.

As a young woman in en­er­gy, Mara­jh is de­ter­mined to use her knowl­edge of the past to build a stronger, clean­er en­er­gy fu­ture, em­pow­er­ing oth­er women along the way.