Potter Announces Four Nominees To Serve On VI Banking Board

ST. CROIX — Lieutenant Governor Osbert Potter announced on Tuesday the nominations of four individuals to the serve on the Virgin Islands Banking Board.

Mr. Potter nominated Rosalie Javois, Richard E.W. Grant, Roy D. Jackson, CPA and Laurel Hewitt-Sewer. All nominees, if approved by the Senate, will serve on the board for a two-year term.

In accordance with Title 9, Section 42 of the Virgin Islands Code, the lieutenant governor serves as Chairman of the Virgin Islands Banking Board. Section 42 also allows for five other members to serve on the board. The remaining members include four members appointed by the territory’s sitting governor with the advice and consent of the Legislature, along with the commissioner of finance, who is an ex officio member and serves as secretary of the board. Title 9, Section 42 of the Virgin Islands Code further requires that of the four members appointed by the governor, two shall reside in the district of St. Croix and two in the district of St. Thomas-St. John, according to the release.

The two nominees from this island are Rosalie Javois and Richard E. W. Grant.  Ms. Javois possesses extensive senior management experience in banking, accounting and financial management.  She was a former chief financial officer at Governor Juan F. Luis Hospital and Medical Center, chief operations officer at St. Thomas East End Medical Center and chief operations officer at Frederiksted Health Care, Inc., according to the release, which also made known that Ms. Javois is fluent in four languages.

The other nominee from this district, Mr. Grant, has wide-ranging and extensive banking, financial management, and business development experiences. He is former president of Lockhart Finance Corporation, founder and former president of Premium Finance Company, and a former vice president and manager at Barclays Bank. Mr. Grant is very active in community affairs and is a former district governor of Rotary International, the release further stated.

The two nominees from the district of St. Thomas-St. John are Roy D. Jackson, CPA and Laurel Hewitt-Sewer.  Mr. Jackson resides on St. Thomas and is the founder and principal of Roy D. Jackson, CPA.  He earned his MBA at the University of the Virgin Islands and performs ongoing professional accounting, auditing, tax, real estate, loan packaging, management advisory and consulting services for a variety of individuals, partnerships, corporations, non-profit organizations and other agencies and departments of the Government of the Virgin Islands.  Mr. Jackson has served on numerous community, civic and professional boards of directors.

Mrs. Hewitt-Sewer resides on St. John. She is a highly accomplished educator and human services administrator with twenty-seven years of outstanding service in the Government of the Virgin Islands, according to the release. Ms. Hewitt-Sewer has served as a Family and Consumer Sciences teacher at Bertha C. Boschulte Middle School on St. Thomas, and as a daycare supervisor and elderly program director with the Virgin Islands Department of Human Services. Currently, she is a part-time professor at the UVI.

“I wish to thank Mr. Pablo O’Neil and Mr. Ernesto Gutierrez from the St. Croix District and Attorney Desmond Maynard and Mr. Winston Bennett from the St. Thomas-St. John District for their decades of outstanding service on the Banking Board,” Mr. Potter said. “We are now progressing into a new era of bank regulation in the territory, given the many additional legislative mandates that have been given to the Division of Banking and Insurance.

“Therefore, I thank the four nominees for their willingness to undertake the oversight responsibilities the Banking Board has for banks, foreign banks, mortgage companies, securities, small loan companies, saving and loan associations, non-bank ATMS, money transmitters, check cashing and currency exchange entities authorized to conduct business in the territory,” he concluded.