A leader can inspire change for the better so profound and far-reaching that he deserves to be called a genius. Jock Campbell, Chairman of Bookers in the 1950s and 1960s, comprehensively transformed his company in Guyana and thereby improved the lives of hundreds of thousands of people. He re-organized, virtually re-invented, the sugar industry – converting a run-down, ramshackle, inhuman, paternalistic, expatriate–dominated business into a modern, innovative, forward-looking, productive and dynamic enterprise basically run by Guyanese for the much-improved good of Guyanese and Guyana.
He had negotiated the Commonwealth Sugar Agreement which laid the foundation for improved sugar prices. Wealth creation rapidly increased with sugar production rising to more than 360,000 tonnes sugar per annum. It was a remarkable transformation.
In doing all this he consistently and enthusiastically practised what he preached – that any business had a four-fold responsibility to people all equally important : to shareholders, to employees, to customers and to the community in which the business operates and finds its meaning.
