ICreate restructures board, management
TRAINING INSTITUTE iCreate Limited has cut its board in half amid a restructuring of the young business as its losses climb, and created the new position of executive chairman to help run the company.
The job of executive chairman was given to director Dr Jennifer Bailey, who says the board reorganisation, which saw the number moving from nine to five, was purely coincidental to the COVID-19 pandemic.
“We’ve had a transitioning at the board, which was not related to but was simultaneous with COVID. We’re taking the opportunity to look at one through the lens of the other to ask the question: how can we move forward?” said Bailey.
She reiterated a message enunciated last week by CEO Tyrone Wilson, that the company is looking for the opportunities for digital learning programmes that the lockdowns have spurred.
The company is partnering with digital entrepreneur, Ricardo Allen, who she says has done a lot of work in the online educational space, to drive that effort. Specifically, iCreate said in a market filing of its restructuring programme that it will be utilising the 1on1XL online training platform owned by Allen’s company, One on One Educational Services Limited, to continue serving the digital marketing students that have signed up for its courses.
“We want to look at everyone as a digital, creative entrepreneur in any circumstance in which you find yourself and ask two questions: How can I use digital to take advantage of the markets that I serve, and what are the new opportunities out there to use digital solutions?” Bailey said.
As executive chairman, Bailey has assumed the functions of general manager, chief operating officer and chief financial officer – positions that were made redundant under the restructuring. Some of the responsibilities are shared with the CEO.
Sophia Harris, who had been appointed general manager just weeks earlier, on March 1, was said to have tendered her resignation; while Antoinette Hamilton’s resignation as CFO took effect April 20.
The restructuring comes alongside concerns raised by the company’s auditors that it was not hitting revenue targets; and amid losses that have accumulated to $61 million. Most of those losses, $46 million, were made by iCreate in its last financial year ending December 2019.
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The training institute subsequently closed its Montego Bay office and is looking to deliver more course content online.
The six persons who have given up their directorships at iCreate are: former chairman Lissant Mitchell, Sheree Martin, Misscha McLeodHines, Rhys Campbell, Vinay Walia and David Wan.
Bailey, Devon Lawrence and Tyrone Wilson retain their directorships, while Natasha Dixon and Ricardo Allen were added to the board on April 22.
Demetrie Adams also replaced Stephen Greig as corporate secretary.
“One of the things you will see in the short term is that we should both be in agreement that decisions are good for both the revenue and sales side and for the operational and cost side,” Bailey said.
Wilson, who founded iCreate, says Bailey has been providing guidance to the iCreate management team from the early stages, taking the company through to its listing on the junior market of the Jamaica Stock Exchange last year. While noting that he has no problems with her new role, he also advised that there are guidelines for how the board chairman can assume operational roles without unduly interfering with management.
“There are a lot of governance documents in place that will ensure independence on both sides. What this creates is a kind of opportunistic synergy that will allow us to be more agile and nimble,” Wilson said.
Although iCreate grew revenues by 50 per cent last year, from $32 million to $46.16 million, its losses still quadrupled in the period from $15 million to $46 million.
The restructurings and scaling back of operations are meant to cut costs so the company can stay afloat, Wilson said.
Equity in the company remains $5 million in deficit. The top five owners of the institute, up to the last disclosure for December 2019, were Wilson’s company eMedia Interactive with a 51 per cent stake, Sagicor Investments with 12 per cent and Andrew Pairman with 7.7 per cent, GK Investments 5 per cent, and Kenneth Benjamin 1 per cent.
In February, Sagicor Investments threw iCreate a lifeline by taking up a $24-million bond issued by the training institute. It provided liquidity for iCreate, which had a working capital deficit of $33.5 million, bank overdraft of $12.5 million and a net cash deficit of more than $9 million at year end.
“The Sagicor financing arrangement that we closed in February helped significantly to boost our cash flow and to continue to manage our relationships with our suppliers,” Wilson said.