Anne Shirley new Executive Director of JADCO

Financial Consultant, Renée Anne Shirley, has been appointed the new Executive Director of the Jamaica Anti-Doping Commission (JADCO).

Her appointment, which became effective June 12, was announced recently by JADCO’s Board Chairman, Dr. Herb Elliott, and follows a short stint as Senior Advisor to Local Government and Community Development Minister, Hon. Noel Arscott, between January and May.

Established in 2005, JADCO is the government agency mandated to administer Jamaica’s anti-doping in sports programme, in accordance with the international governing body – the World Anti-Doping Association (WADA).

Ms. Shirley’s assumption of her new post re-unites her with an area with which she is familiar, as she previously had responsibility for leading and co-ordinating, from inception, development of Jamaica’s Anti-Doping in Sports Programme, while serving as Senior Advisor to Prime Minister, the Most Hon. Portia Simpson Miller.

She also has the distinction of being elected as one of four Vice-Chairpersons for the First Session of the Conference of Parties to the International Convention on Doping in Sport, in February 2007. 

For three decades, Ms. Shirley, who has an extensive professional background, incorporating investment management, commercial banking, micro-enterprise consulting, and sport administration, has distinguished herself in various career pursuits. These have encompassed the private and public sectors, and multilateral agencies, both locally and internationally.

Ms. Shirley has served as: Chief Executive Officer, Jamaica Rugby Football Union, from 2009 to 2011; Senior Advisor to Prime Minister Simpson Miller between 2003 and 2007, during which she had responsibility for handling all matters related to the Prime Minister’s Parliamentary Affairs; Managing Director and Chief Country Officer for CIBC Jamaica Limited; and Head of the defunct Eagle Unit Trust.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             

She is the founding Director of the Foundation for the Development of Caribbean Children (FDCC) – the first indigenous Caribbean not-for-profit organisation dedicated to the development of children aged 0 to 5 years in disadvantaged circumstances – which was launched in June 2011 in St. Vincent. She has also served as a Board member of the National Solid Waste Management Authority (NSWMA) and its subsidiaries; and the National Insurance Fund (NIF); and was also a member of the National Sport Museum Committee appointed by Prime Minister Simpson Miller.

Her other engagements include: membership on the Jamaica Football Federation’s (JFF) Appeal Board, and Finance, and Youth Committees; Chancellor's Representative on the University of the West Indies (UWI) Mona Campus Council, Finance & General Purpose Committee and Investment Committee from 1996 to 2000; member of the UWI Advisory Group with responsibility for the funding of infrastructural requirements by University development bonds between 1997 and1998; and member of the UWI's Working Group on Finance & Planning – Chancellor's Commission on Governance, 1995 to 1996. 

She was appointed a member of the Overseas Examinations Committee's Steering Committee in 1996, and subsequently served as Chairman of its Development Sub-Committee, and as a member of the Finance Sub-Committee, from 1996 to 2000.

A past student of St. Andrew High School for Girls, Ms. Shirley holds a Bachelor of Arts (BA) degree in Economics (Honours) from Hollins University, Virginia, and a Master of Business Administration (MBA) degree from the Colgate Darden Graduate School of Business Administration, University of Virginia, U.S.A.             

By Douglas McIntosh, JIS Reporter