JN WAY Ambassador programme
Bethlehem Moravian College grad tops
AVA-GAY LINDO, a graduate of the Bethlehem Moravian College in St Elizabeth, was named the 2017 recipient of the General Manager’s Award for Exceptional JN Youth Ambassador during the JN Wise Aspiring Youth (JN WAY) Awards Banquet 2017, held at the Mona Visitors’ Lodge in Kingston on Sunday, May 20, 2017.
One of 31 JN WAY ambassadors from 20 tertiary institutions across Jamaica who completed the fourth iteration of the initiative, 24-yearold Ava-Gay distinguished herself among her peers during her yearlong tenure.
Ava-Gay, who recently graduated from Bethlehem Moravian College with an associate degree in hospitality and tourism management, said that her greatest challenge as an ambassador was convincing persons to open accounts.
Her success in JN WAY was buoyed by the fact that she averaged up to 25 new or reactivated accounts each month of her tenure, a testament to her bold efforts to encourage her peers and members of her school community to become regular savers with JN Bank.
“My view on savings before this programme was, ‘what is savings? As a young girl, live life’; but with JN Bank, I started to realise that savings is for rainy days and there will be emergencies where I will need money,” she noted.
Hailing from the parish of Portland, Ava-Gay attended the Sydney Pagon Agricultural High School in St Elizabeth before matriculating into the Bethlehem Moravian College where she was encouraged by her lecturer, Nadine Black, to apply to become a JN WAY ambassador in 2016.
As well as winning the top ambassador award, Ava-Gay was also named Sales Ambassador of the Year and JN WAY Marketer of the Year for her efforts, and she credits this success to persistence and hard work.
She explained that, “I went out and just tried to get persons to understand why it was important to save. I was always willing to answer questions from persons about the products and JN Bank, and just tried to represent the organisation to the best of my ability.”
Since its inception in 2014, the JN WAY programme has been responsible for the opening and reactivation of just over 2,000 savings accounts, which continue to be maintained.
Angela Fletcher, chief of sales, JN Bank, in congratulating the outgoing cohort of ambassadors, pointed out that they stood at the “frontline of the organisation’s effort to engage with the next generation of movers and shakers in Jamaica”.
She noted further that “JN Bank continues to roll out new and innovative product offerings that we believe will meet the evolving needs of our clientele. Already, we have optimised our online banking experience, making it peerless in terms of functionality, range of services, and responsiveness to the needs of our members”.
Sectional awards for Most Reliable, Most Improved, Team Leader and Team Player of the Year were presented to Suwayne Mendez of the Caribbean Maritime Institute (CMI), Kerece Stewart, (CMI), Odale Sinclair, University of Technology, and Rasheda Blake, Montego Bay Community College, respectively.