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Since taking over as CEO of GraceKennedy Group in February, Frank James, who was promoted from within, is keeping his eye on the company’s prize: hitting US$2 billion in revenue by year 2030, which translates to about $320 billion at current exchange rates.
To get there, he would have to grow GraceKennedy’s revenue flows by around $25 billion to $30 billion on average, yearly – a tall order even for GraceKennedy, a food and financial services conglomerate that delivered top line growth of $12 billion last year.
James took over the reins after yet another record year of revenue for GK, $167 billion, or the equivalent of about US$1.1 billion. Counting 2025, he has six years to hit the long-held target.
Despite organic growth in its products and services, and inorganic growth through acquisitions in Jamaica and the region, GraceKennedy’s revenue growth has averaged less than $13 billion annually over the past five years. At that rate, the company is more likely to deliver revenue in the $240 billion range by 2030, based on Financial Gleaner estimates.
James isn’t saying how precisely he intends to move the needle, noting in an interview with the Financial Gleaner that it wouldn’t be prudent to say too much, for competitive reasons.
He spoke more around themes of trust and mindset and strategy – that is, defending what the conglomerate has achieved and building on it.
Food manufacturing and distribution deliver the lion’s share of GK’s revenue, and the majority of its the profit, with the rest coming from the financial division, where the century-old conglomerate’s money services operations, insurance, banking and investment banking assets reside.
Last year, food delivered $131 billion of group revenue and accounted for three-quarters of the increase in top line flows.
James, a former chief financial officer of GK, and prior to his promotion, CEO of the Domestic Foods division for around six years, would have been one of the drivers of that outcome.
“One of the key things I’m happy about is how we drove growth in that business. It wasn’t just about protecting our position, but it was also about building and growing,” he said.
“Over that six-year period, we grew the revenues by well over 70 per cent, and we substantially more than doubled the profits of the division.”
Business titans rank
As the top boss at GraceKennedy, James joins a list of business titans who have built out the group in Jamaica and overseas over the decades, namely, Carlton Alexander, Rafael Diaz, Douglas Orane and latterly Don Wehby.
James is answerable to GK’s current chairman, Professor Gordon Shirley, a man who tutored him at university.
“It was really full circle to come back and work with him as chairman at Grace Kennedy, and I would say he was one of the professors that had a big impact on me at UWI,” he said.
In the interview, James spoke of the necessary mindset of the leader of a century-old behemoth – one that looks beyond the company’s maturity and seizes “the big opportunities for growth out there”.
As to how he sees his mandate, it’s about gaining trust and engaging people, he said.
“I always remember staff members at all levels saying something which meant a lot to me: ‘Frank, we trust you; just give us the guidance and the direction and we will deliver’,” he said.
Early years
James’ career in business began with a temporary job at beverage company Desnoes & Geddes Limited.
“I actually joined D&G as a summer worker because I wasn’t finding the right opportunity. I saw this opportunity to work in the finance department for the summer and my philosophy was, it was better to be in a job, looking for a job, rather than out of a job,” he said.
The pay was paltry, he recalled, and there was a lack of permanence about the job. But those downsides were outweighed by what James really prized.
“For me, it meant experience and it meant a foot in the door, and once I got a foot in the door, it would be up to me to prove myself,” he said.
He worked in the finance department for the few months of summer 1997. When the job was coming to an end, the line manager at the time, Donna Doran, recommended that the company put him on the payroll.
“She spoke to Neil Glasgow, who was vice-president of operations at the time, and said to him, ‘This is a great guy. We need to find a position for him’,” James recounted.
A new position was created for him, he said. And while the company told him the broad objectives, James said it was up to him to write his own job description.
“It was actually a new position called ‘distribution planner’,” he said. “It was for me to really create what that position was to become.”
The job allowed him to interact with persons at all levels.
“I ended up being involved in meetings with senior management and, of course, operating with persons at other levels. It was distribution planning, so I worked a lot with the dispatchers and the guys in the warehouse. I learned to really operate and interact with people,” he said.
Two years later, in 1999, he broke from work to pursue graduate studies in business at the University of California – Los Angeles.
“When I was leaving, Neil (Glasgow) really expressed sorrow to see me go, but also a concern that I wouldn’t come back to Jamaica, because I was going to study overseas in California,” James said.
“I could have done it here, but I thought the world is a global village; and the opportunity to really understand and interact with different cultures from around the world was a big part of it,” he said.
James says the desire to broaden his horizons took hold around the time when his father and mentor, banker Rex James, was the head of National Commercial Bank.
James said that many of the moves he has made in business can be traced back to a time when he was literally sitting at the feet of some of the most powerful people in Jamaica.
Rex James “would have business meetings at home, with the NCB executives or whomever. I would actually sit on the stairs where they couldn’t see me, but listening to the discussions, which, from that age, I found fascinating in terms of leadership and business,” the now GK Group CEO said.
“A lot of who I am today I learned from him, and not just in terms of business, but also – and this was from both parents – values and attitudes. In his own career, he would have taken decisions based on his integrity and reputation, irrespective of the implications of that,” James said of his father.
One of those lessons for the boy sitting out of sight on the stairs came by way of an initiative that became known as the Save the Dollar Fund, where the elder James worked closely with the late Gordon ‘Butch’ Stewart and Leahcim Semaj on an April 1992 concept that would lead to a reversing of fortunes for the rapidly depreciating Jamaican dollar, which was under sustained speculative pressure after the liberalisation of the foreign currency market in 1991.
On his return home after graduate studies, James worked with auditing and advisory firm PricewaterhouseCoopers. Then in 2005, he joined GraceKennedy. It was also the year he got married to spouse Stacy, who also worked with PwC.
James said he was invited to join GraceKennedy but declined to say by whom.
“I’ve always enjoyed the team at GraceKennedy. Very passionate people. Very hard-working people. Lots of different personalities, of course; but, in common, you have the passion, the hard work, a commitment to the core values of GraceKennedy,” he said.
He describes as pivotal, his 2010 transfer to the GK corporate office, working under the guidance of Faye McIntosh, the first-ever female CFO of GK Group. At her departure from the company two years later, James took over as CFO, and joined the board of directors.
Then in 2019, serving under former Group CEO Don Wehby, James was appointed CEO of GK Foods Domestic, following the retirement of Ryan Mack.
“My colleagues said, ‘Boy, you’ve been up there counting the money as CFO and pushing us for more profits; why don’t you come and generate some of the profits?’ ” James recalled.
The team ended up growing revenue by 70 per cent and more than doubled profits.
“Basically, we had a kind of fortress-and-build strategy. We had to protect what we had and find new areas of growth,” James said.
“I’ve been mindful of not setting out too much of the detailed strategy for competitive reasons,” he added, regarding plans to grow revenue at GK Foods.
It starts with a growth mindset, he added.
It’s about “getting that mindset, setting certain goals that we wanted to achieve, and then engaging the team at all levels to see that this is something we can do,” James said.
Part of the secret sauce of the 103-year-old company is the continuity offered by careful succession planning, development training, constant mentorship at all levels, and numerous opportunities to learn and apply knowledge, he said.
The company provides formal training and guidance, and “they put you out there and give you the challenges and let you learn and grow”. James said.
As for keeping up with the titans who preceded him as company leaders, James said he has decided to take the advice of artiste and brand ambassador Ding Dong, given to him at a leadership summit earlier this year.
“He said to me, ‘You know, big shoes to fill. Don’t take his shoes, wear your own.’ So, that’s what I decided to do – following the great advice of Ding Dong – to walk in my own shoes,” he said.
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