British American Tobacco Caribbean - Kathryn Anne Abdulla

Position: Chairman, appointed to the Board of Directors of Demerara Tobacco Company in April 2020; Caribbean Head of Legal and Company Secretary, The West Indian Tobacco Company Limited.

Skills & Experience: Kathryn is an Attorney at Law with over 20 years’ corporate commercial experience. She has operated at a strategic level in various functions largely in the private sector. In her current portfolio, Kathryn provides strategic perspective to achieve the Company’s mandate of sustaining market leadership of tobacco products for the Caribbean, which includes some 24 markets. Kathryn operates at a senior management level to operationalise the mandate in various functions and is responsible for matters inclusive of legal, corporate governance, security, identification of business risks, pension plan issues. Kathryn manages Board administration in Trinidad and Tobago ensuring compliance with local statutory requirements and compliance within the BAT Group and manages share registration and shareholder relations services and brings a wealth of experience in this area.

Directorship: Kathryn has provided national service to her country as she held the position of Director on the not for profit Friends of the Blood Bank Association board until December 2019. This board provides oversight and direction to fulfil the Blood Bank’s mandate of fundraising under the Ministry of Health and collecting the nation’s blood supply. For many years, Kathryn was a Trustee serving a not-for-profit committee that had responsibility for sustaining local wildlife in Trinidad and Tobago. Vijay Singh

Qualifications: Kathryn is a graduate of The University of the West Indies, Cave Hill Campus located in Barbados and of the Hugh Wooding Law school located in Trinidad and Tobago. She was appointed a Notary Public in 2018 and is a member of the Law Association of Trinidad and Tobago and of the Caribbean Corporate Governance Institute. She has completed many training programmes both locally and overseas in various disciplines and obtained a postgraduate certificate in the field of Corporate Governance from the Arthur Lok Jack School of Business in 2017.