Ryan Ba­choo

Lead Ed­i­tor-News­gath­er­ing

ryan.ba­choo@cnc3.co.tt

From lo­cal ser­vice to re­gion­al ser­vice, Ria Boodoo is on the rise. If the name sounds fa­mil­iar, she once served in rep­re­sen­ta­tive pol­i­tics at the lo­cal gov­ern­ment lev­el as coun­cil­lor for the Ma­coya/Trinci­ty dis­trict. Her work in sus­tain­abil­i­ty hasn’t on­ly been long-stand­ing, but it is al­so her pas­sion.

In 2013, Boodoo ral­lied around the “Save Our Green Space” Com­mit­tee to stop the con­struc­tion of a ten­nis cen­tre at the Or­ange Grove Sa­van­nah, Tacarigua. Though she has since moved on from rep­re­sen­ta­tion­al pol­i­tics, her ser­vice has ex­tend­ed be­yond the shores of T&T.

She was re­cent­ly ap­point­ed to the first Re­gion­al Ad­vi­so­ry Board of the Unit­ed Na­tions Glob­al Com­pact Net­work Caribbean. “This his­toric achieve­ment re­flects my ded­i­ca­tion to re­spon­si­ble busi­ness and sus­tain­able de­vel­op­ment in our re­gion,” she wrote on her LinkedIn page in an­nounc­ing the news.

The UN Glob­al Com­pact is a vol­un­tary, non-bind­ing ini­tia­tive launched by the UN Sec­re­tary-Gen­er­al, en­cour­ag­ing busi­ness­es to align their op­er­a­tions and strate­gies with ten prin­ci­ples in the ar­eas of hu­man rights, labour, en­vi­ron­ment, and an­ti-cor­rup­tion, and to take ac­tions that ad­vance broad­er UN goals.

The UN Glob­al Com­pact has been op­er­at­ing in the Caribbean since 2022, and Boodoo has been an ad­vo­cate for the work the or­gan­i­sa­tion does, so her ap­point­ment as one of five mem­bers of the Re­gion­al Ad­vi­so­ry Board came as no sur­prise. It will last from April 2025 to March 2026.

Boodoo sees this ap­point­ment as a con­tin­u­a­tion of her ser­vice to T&T and the re­gion which she start­ed at the lo­cal gov­ern­ment lev­el. She told the WE mag­a­zine, “While I served in lo­cal gov­ern­ment in T&T, I was very com­mit­ted–and I re­main very com­mit­ted–to build­ing very strong, sus­tain­able com­mu­ni­ties. My role right now in terms of the UN Glob­al Com­pact is a true pro­gres­sion from where I would have start­ed in lo­cal elec­toral pol­i­tics, so this pro­gres­sion now has giv­en me the op­por­tu­ni­ty to col­lab­o­rate be­tween gov­ern­ments, the pri­vate sec­tor, civ­il so­ci­ety, and in­ter­na­tion­al bod­ies to un­der­score and fur­ther serve com­mu­ni­ty de­vel­op­ment.”

Boodoo heads SRG Con­sul­tant Ser­vices–a com­pa­ny that pro­vides fi­nan­cial, book­keep­ing, tax­a­tion, pay­roll and cor­po­rate ser­vices to small and medi­um-sized busi­ness­es. The aim of her busi­ness is to pro­vide these ser­vices at a man­age­able cost for oth­er small and medi­um-sized busi­ness­es who may be strug­gling to stay afloat fi­nan­cial­ly.

As Boodoo as­sumes this role at the UN Glob­al Com­pact Caribbean, she is aware the re­gion faces unique chal­lenges in the face of chang­ing geopol­i­tics. She ex­plained, “We need to be in­clud­ed. If all eyes are on the Caribbean, it is a prime op­por­tu­ni­ty to con­tin­ue be­ing lead­ers of the in­dus­try in the Caribbean and move greater in­clu­sion in­to where we can take the re­gion. Last week we saw some un­for­tu­nate turn of events as it per­tains to tar­iffs be­ing set by one of our biggest trad­ing part­ners.

“What does it mean for the Caribbean? It means it gives us the op­por­tu­ni­ty to form and make new part­ner­ships around the globe. I’m not say­ing the Unit­ed States is not im­por­tant. They are very im­por­tant, but there’s a unique op­por­tu­ni­ty with the Re­gion­al Ad­vi­so­ry Board to in­te­grate with Africa, the UK, and oth­er glob­al com­pacts around the world and open up more op­por­tu­ni­ties to the peo­ple of the re­gion.”

She has made it a pri­or­i­ty to en­gage with busi­ness­es through­out the re­gion for them to join the UN Glob­al Com­pact Caribbean and con­tin­ue her march to­wards sus­tain­abil­i­ty.

Boodoo’s ac­com­plish­ment is no small task. She is the CEO of a small busi­ness that, like many oth­er mi­cro busi­ness­es, aims to punch above its weight. She fur­ther ex­plained, “Per­son­al­ly, the seeds have al­ways been plant­ed in­to a lot of hard work. As a woman who leads a mi­crobusi­ness, it is a lot of hard work and chal­lenges to be fi­nal­ly in­clud­ed, and it means we have to stay our course. We have to stay true to what our pas­sion and prin­ci­ples are.”

She plans on us­ing this role with the UN Glob­al Com­pact Caribbean to ad­vo­cate for women en­tre­pre­neurs to get on board with the or­gan­i­sa­tion. She says by women en­tre­pre­neurs ac­cept­ing this in­vi­ta­tion, it will give them ac­cess to greater ca­pac­i­ty build­ing and as­sis­tance to take their busi­ness­es to the next lev­el. She al­so said it will open up a glob­al net­work of op­por­tu­ni­ties for them to con­nect with. It’s a cru­cial time for such a move­ment, with the chang­ing glob­al land­scape leav­ing many busi­ness own­ers un­cer­tain what the fu­ture of their busi­ness­es will look like.

Though Boodoo’s ap­point­ment ini­tial­ly lasts for just one year, she is on a mis­sion to help as many women as pos­si­ble in or­der to leave the Caribbean re­gion stronger and more sus­tain­able than where she found it.