Melissa Barrett

MELLISA BARRETT is the Business Advisory Services Manager at the JBDC.

A graduate of the University of the West Indies with a Bachelor’s in Accounting & Management and a Master’s in Banking & Finance, she provides strategic direction to the analysis, adaptation and implementation of business solutions to ensure optimum team output.

This ensures the provision of a full-suite of business development services to the various players in the MSME sector that will promote their growth and development.

In her over nine years of serving the entrepreneurs of Jamaica, Melissa has spearheaded several projects to fuel the development of the sector. This includes the establishment of a Financial Support Services programme focused on financial literacy, financial management, financial readiness and readiness to access funding partner. Additionally, she contributed to strengthening the JBDC’s client management system that now includes mechanisms to measure success, track the economic impact of each business and monitoring that supports these entities.

Actively involved in client management, she is a Certified and Licensed Growthwheel Professional, Certified SBDC Counsellor and Director, Certified Strategic Data Analyst, among others.

Melissa’s vision is to see continued increases in access to business development services across the island as well as business formalisation. She also hopes to see an improvement in the access to financing for MSMEs.