Conscious Leader – Mark Loquan
DIFFERENT NOTES, ONE SOUND
At the helm of The National Gas Company of Trinidad and Tobago Limited (NGC), sits a man with a sense of purpose, a gift for music and a love of Country. Mark Loquan joined NGC in September 2016 as its president. He brought to the Company considerable experience gathered over a 30- year Career in energy, which included leadership of Yara Country offices in Australia, Angola and Trinidad and Tobago. Here, the head of the Country’s most profitable state enterprise talks about business sustainability, leadership and his passion for pan.
Sustaining Business Through Change
The story of the Trinidad and Tobago energy sector began more than a century ago. For decades, oil was the driver of our economic growth. Natural gas was a by-product with little commercial value until the government saw the value in its monetisation, and incorporated NGC. As our natural gas industry evolved, so too did our downstream capacity and expertise. Today, because of our natural gas model, Trinidad and Tobago has 11 ammonia plants, seven methanol and four LNG plants, not to mention power and scores of light industrial consumers. We moved from being a tiny ammonia producer in 1959 since Federation Chemicals Ltd., to become the largest ammonia exporter in the world, accounting for 25% of global exports in 2017.
We have been in this business for a long time, and we are now a global player. However, achieving sustainability in business today is not the same task it was 20 years ago.
The industry in which we operate is challenged due to a confluence of factors. For one, energy and related commodity prices have fallen. Market balance has shifted with the emergence of new gas players: ten years ago, the USA was an importer of LNG; today it is an exporter with a shale gas revolution. Domestically, we are faced simultaneously with declining reserves and simultaneous expiring supply, midstream and downstream contracts. Gas supply is further constrained because investments in upstream exploration and production were not made in a timely manner.
Given the different dimensions of the problem, NGC must approach sustainability from various angles. We can no longer maintain our business by simply buying, selling and transporting gas. We should operate in our value chain more deeply and proactively. We must now focus on how to keep downstream plants in business, in a market where acquisition costs have risen significantly, and contracts must be renegotiated for significantly shorter durations relative to previous contracts. We must find new sources of gas – there are small and marginal fields here in Trinidad and Tobago to be monetised, but there is also gas in Venezuela and Grenada from which we can negotiate supplies. We must broaden our business horizon – find new direction, grow internationally and offer different products and services.
NGC recognises that sustainability in business hinges as much on a solid internal structure as it does on business strategy. It is therefore equally focused on developing our people, technology and a culture of safety and asset integrity within the organisation. The company is hiring persons with new skills: geologists for instance, and commercial and legal officers to handle contracts that are expiring. We must look at incorporating new technology, such as E-auctions in procurement, using drones to inspect pipelines, upgrading to new information systems and renewable energy. There is also a need for greater alignment with our stakeholders, such as our line Ministry, and a clear focus on extracting synergies across all NGC companies. We cannot operate in silos and must work with all stakeholders with greater collaboration at the strategic and operational levels.
This is especially true when we speak of taking our business abroad. Mozambique for example, on Africa’s east coast, has considerable gas reserves and is now developing its gas business. The NGC Group has been engaging with Mozambique, and while they have the resources, the nation has challenges with its skillset, strategy, development of infrastructure, and even literacy. We in Trinidad and Tobago can leverage our experience across many sectors to assist – we can collaborate in the construction of pipelines, industrial estates and ports, offer training through entities such as The University of the West Indies (UWI), University of Trinidad and Tobago (UTT) and the National Energy Skills Centre (NESC), and even get our business community and chambers involved in jumpstarting Mozambique’s development. If we seek to position Trinidad and Tobago internationally in this way, we can generate vital foreign exchange for the country.
Trinidad and Tobago and NGC have been in steady business mode for a long time, but it is time for disruption. We need to do things differently to remain viable. As our business environment evolves, we need a culture of transformation. Our leadership must be more forward looking, to understand the business in a broader context than before. Within the organisation, leadership now depends on strong teamwork, and alignment towards a common direction. This can only be achieved with good communication across functions, across groups and development of our institutional capacity and skills.
Communication is also key to delivering our business objectives. Our leaders must now have regional and international conversations as we elevate the business to a global platform. Locally, to manage the allocation of our now limited resources, we must build relationships and communicate with our stakeholders. This involves coordination of work plans of upstream suppliers and downstream customers, so gas can be distributed optimally across the supply network, and of course, contract renegotiations.
With our public, NGC is opening new channels of communication, beyond our annual reports and more formal methods, using social media networks for example.
On Leadership
I believe leadership starts with the values you have as a person: work ethic; integrity; self-discipline. A good leader leaves a place better than he finds it. To do this, you must have a sense of direction. You have to be clear about where you want to go, and make it well-known to the whole team.
You must be accountable to the whole team. At NGC quarterly meetings, for instance, the Leadership Team shares all the information with the employee body. Sometimes this means having to confront issues in real time, but it is important to be transparent and have no secret agendas.
An important part of being a good leader is building and uplifting your people. You must tell your staff when they are doing a good job. You must also seek their interests through personal and professional development. For example, safety is an area where all employees and contractors are urged to raise the level of safety awareness, health and well-being in
the organisation with participation in wellness activities and on HSE committees.
In terms of professional development, NGC is working on equipping staff to better confront our complex new operating environment by investing in development and training. We encourage staff to also share their learnings with team members to widen the scope of impact of training interventions, and the company is now embarking on podcasts for knowledge transfer. Training and development are tied back to our corporate scorecard and bonus system, so we are making sure we motivate and reward employee growth. This will strengthen both staff and organisation and help us to be more sustainable as a business.
As a leader, my personal vision is to build a better organisation that is globally oriented, and with people who understand our business. With strong relationships and open communication, we can achieve a lot together.
My Life With Pan
I use pan and music for instruction because they are a big part of my life. With my own Leadership team, team building is one of the key components of our retreats, as well as the look ahead on the business. To illustrate how everyone can align in the same on one retreat, I taught my team to play Bob Marley’s “Jammin’” on pan.
We called the session “Different Notes, One Sound”, and its purpose was to show what can be achieved when every team member plays his or her part – performs his or her duty – in tandem with everyone else. My team had no prior experience playing pan and in several cases any instrument, but by the end of the session, what started as discordant noise ended as music. Now, we have been asked to conduct these sessions as corporate exercises for other companies.
Music has always been a part of life; Dad played the mandolin and piano and the family generally was also quite musically inclined. I learned to play the guitar in high school, composing ballads, or playing “backup” in school concerts. One year in the early 1990s, we had some visitors at Carnival and we took them to Panorama. At that moment, as the saying goes, I became hooked. After that, I went to Silver Stars panyard and told them of my need to learn to play. They were very patient, and with their mentorship, I played in Panorama the following year. It became a huge ambition for me to compose music for Panorama.
In 1998, I recorded “A Land for All”, singing with my guitar. A pan arranger heard the song and used it for a steelband, Belmont Super Sonics, in “Pan is Beautiful”. We won the Ensemble category. After that, I started composing music for Panorama, and began collaborating with several local artistes, writers, producers and arrangers. In 2001 Denyse Plummer took one of my songs and ended up working together for the next seven years. In 2006, Destra took my composition “Colours Again” and ended up working together for eight years. I’ve composed for Anslem Douglas, Chuck Gordon, Shanaqua, Blaxx, Kernel Roberts and many others.
Next year, 2019, will be my 20th year composing for pan, and it has been an incredible journey. Pan has allowed me to meet people and make music all over the world. When I travelled, I would search for steelbands. I played with a Finnish steelband, Steelpan Lovers, performing in France in 2002. In 2015, I visited several Japanese bands all playing my music. In Perth, I was Musical Director of the first steelband in Western Australia, Perth Pandemix.
I have been exposed to pan in a way that I never valued as a boy, growing up in the land where pan was invented with a colourful history. These experiences are so potent, so much a part of who I am as a Trinbagonian, that I want everyone to understand how important our culture is, that it must be preserved.
That’s why I started the Music Literacy Trust with the late Pat Bishop. We are continuing to preserve pan music for use in the schools. We have provided scholarships for talented students, who have moved on to become performers, arrangers, composers, conductors, and teachers. Children learning and playing our local music together will always feel a sense of belonging and connection to this place, and they will carry forward what they are taught. Moreover, as I see it, music education is a wonderful tool for bringing people together.
I also want to see pan music mainstreamed in our media. Junior Panorama churns out fantastic music, but it lasts a few hours. There is no recognition, no coverage for our young pannists. We must begin to air, appreciate, cherish and promote our local music.
Preserving the Past for the Future
Cultural preservation is a cause that drives me.
I am extremely happy that my company feels the same way. Last year, NGC launched a special initiative called the National Heroes Project, which intends to curate and present the stories of iconic individuals who have made significant contributions to our society. It aims to celebrate our unsung heroes, so they can be remembered, and their achievements immortalised.
In 2017, we shared the story of Hasely Crawford through a roving exhibition of press reportage and memorabilia. Even though Hasely won his Olympic gold medal over 40 years ago, children flocked to the libraries to view the exhibition as if he had won yesterday. Clearly, young people are looking for heroes to emulate, especially those with whom they can connect. This year’s honouree is Pat Bishop, who has also had a long association with NGC, and has done yeoman service to her country in many spheres. The activities scheduled to commemorate her legacy will showcase her art, music and allow visitors to learn about her work with steelbands.
I suppose the current running through this Project is the same one that imbues my work with pan – a desire to awaken consciousness of national identity and encourage our people to not take things for granted. We lose what we don’t cherish. We must make conscious efforts to keep these aspects of our culture alive.
