Both Sides of The Coin: The Story of The Central Bank of Barbados 1972-2017

244 Marion Williams (Banking and Currency), Desirée Springer - later Cherebin - (Bank Supervision) and Monica Hinds (Accounts). Marion Williams, recruited from ECCA in 1973, had a Master’s degree in economics and was an Associate of the Institute of Bankers (AIB). Hinds, who had also joined the Bank in 1973, held the ACCA qualification and Cherebin, a 1976 entrant, had a Bachelor’s degree. During 1986, the position of assistant to the manager in the Exchange Control Department was upgraded to the level of deputy head of department and Melvina Robinson, who possessed the AIB qualification, was appointed to that post. Women attained the level of head of department in 1985, with the appointment of Hinds as accountant and Marion Williams as the Bank's second adviser. Allyson Leacock, whose background was in broadcasting and public relations, became the first manager of the Frank Collymore Hall in 1986. 119 Two years later, Yolande Bannister joined the Bank as legal counsel (at the level of a head of department) with special responsibility for the offshore financial sector. She brought a wide and varied experience in law, both in private practice and in the Government legal service, latterly as chief parliamentary counsel. Bannister had two areas of specialty - international taxation and health legislation - and had provided consultancy services in those areas to a number of international organisations and governments in the Caribbean, Africa and the South Pacific. In 1988, Muriel Saunders, another 1973 recruit from ECCA, was appointed deputy manager (statistics) in the Research Department. By the end of the same year, both posts of adviser were held by women when Desirée Cherebin was promoted to that position, with responsibility for internal audit and financial institutions. However, by then the Bank's women executives were also becoming more marketable. The first to leave the Bank’s employ was Monica Hinds, who resigned the post of accountant in October 1989 to take up a senior appointment in the private sector. Marion Williams qualified as a Certified Management Accountant during 1990. In the following year, she became a Fellow of the Institute of Bankers and was promoted to the newly-created post of senior adviser. 120 In 1991, too, Janice Marshall, for some time the officer-