Jamaica’s Don Wehby wins the YCPN’s award as the International Entrepreneur of the Year

Don Wehby the CEO of Jamaican-based GraceKennedy Group, became the first Jamaican last week to win the Young Caribbean Professional Network’s (YCPN) award as the International Entrepreneur of the Year.

Wehby accepted the award for his leadership in making GraceKennedy a major player in the global marketplace; for the company’s commitment to investing in downtown Kingston by building a world class headquarters there and for GraceKennedy’s commitment to education and sport in Jamaica.

This was “demonstrative of your leadership in the community and to our young people” YCPN said in a statement, in honoring Wehby with the third award in the group’s history.

In accepting the award, Wehby thanked the organization for the recognition, zeroing in on an area of focus for the GraceKennedy Group. He noted the work of the Grace and Staff Community Development Foundation, which currently assists in sending some 500 children to school, adding that the company intends to double that number to 1,000 students by 2020.

“I am confident that education is the solution to our nation’s challenges and this is a main area of focus for the GraceKennedy Group and Staff Foundation and the YCPN has also accomplished much in this regard,” Wehby said.

”In Jamaica, the private and public Sectors talk a lot about the International Monetary Fund (IMF), structural adjustments, fiscal management and growth through investment. But we need to speak more about education to transform our country to a knowledge-based economy. We need to invest more in education for a knowledge-based economy to ensure that we have sustainable growth and job creation. If we do this, Jamaicans can have a better standard of living in line with vision 2030.”

He commended the YCPN, which also provides scholarships to students in need, on its work to enrich the lives of young people across the region, as well as a current initiative to create global market place through the creation of a job bank.

The awards ceremony event saw an impressive list of business people from the Caribbean, and the Americas.