If you have the opportunity to make someone’s life better, to support someone in their journey, you do it without looking for any fame, glory or thanks. Just do it.

That is how Charlene Pedro lives her life, what guided her towards her career and why she works to help people become better humans and leaders. And that mentality is evident in her accomplishments.

Pedro is the founder of Conventus Consultinc, an HR consultancy firm, the designer of the Mastery of Me and Conversations Over Coffee With Charlene Pedro leadership programmes and a talk show host at a digital radio station centred on professional development.

She volunteers at St Vincent De Paul and is a partner in service with the San Juan Rotary Club. She is also the past president of the Association of Female Executives of Trinidad and Tobago (AFETT), former director of the Employers’ Consultative Association, is on the PR committee of the Human Resource Management Association of TT and is the author of Journey to Me – A Guided Journal to A Better You.

She told WMN she got her giving spirit from her late mother who developed it in her six children from a young age. She recalled her mother making a big pot of pelau on most Saturdays, putting it into boxes and the family heading to Port of Spain where the children would distribute them to the homeless.

Her mother was also part of many groups at their church, St Theresa RC Church in Malick, Barataria, and would make sure to be there to sing in the choir at every funeral. Pedro herself volunteered at the church since she was a teenager.

WALKING IN FAITH

Growing up in Barataria, Pedro had a home full of love and fun. As her parents had three boys and three girls, with her as the youngest, they called themselves the Brady Bunch.

Because her mother worked in the office of the chief justice, she wanted to become a lawyer. At some point she changed her mind and did not know what she wanted to do, so she focused on working. A friend encouraged her to do a business certificate programme at UWI and the lecturer encouraged the class to do a degree, so she did.

“In our home we never had conversations about going to university. My parents were senior civil servants and going to university just never came up, so it wasn’t a goal of mine until much later in life.”

In 1996 she decided to pursue business management at UWI. But the class was full so she studied management which introduced her to the human element of business, a circumstance for which she was forever grateful.

[caption id="attachment_1072500" align="alignnone" width="1024"] Charlene Pedro performing master of ceremony duties at the 2023 HRMATT Legacy Awards and Gala at the Hyatt Regency Trinidad, Port of Spain, in November 2023. - Photo courtesy Charlene Pedro[/caption]

She graduated with a bachelor’s degree sociology and management from UWI, St Augustine in 2000. She earned her master’s degree in business administration from the Edinburgh Business School, Heriot-Watt University in Scotland with a local tertiary education institute