Mr Lyndon A. Hodge is a Small-Medium Business Sales Manager at Lime BVI. Photo: VINO

Lyndon holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Business Administration with a concentration in Marketing from the University of the Virgin Islands. Photo: Provided

Mr Lyndon A. Hodge's advice to youth is for them to choose their friends wisely. "It is really really easy to get caught up with the wrong company or be in the wrong place at the wrong time, and just be thrown into a different life. So my one solid and firm advice to youth is to choose your friends wisely," Mr Hodge emphasised. Photo: Provided

Embodied in his passion is his love for his country.

He is the youngest of his siblings and rather than becoming the spoiled baby of the family he felt compelled to complete the circle of success through academic and professional accomplishment. This week we feature Young Professional Mr Lyndon A. Hodge, a young and ambitious Virgin Islander who is currently employed at LIME BVI.

“I think I am the youngest manager at LIME and have been working there for about four years in that section.” He is the Small-Medium Business Sales Manager at the telecommunications giant in the Virgin Islands.

Growing up as the youngest in his family, one would think that his parents and siblings would have treated him as the family baby by giving him everything he wanted, not scolding him, or allowing him to live a carefree life. “That was not so. My siblings were always much older and they were really successful so that pressure was always on me to do big things. There was always the pressure that I have to go to college, there was always the pressure that I have to be successful, be in senior management,” Mr Hodge told Virgin Islands News Online.

For him mediocrity was never an option as he was compelled to push himself to meet certain standards in life. “It fueled my ambition from a household perspective because my brother is a general manager, sister is in management, so it was a norm and it wasn’t unachievable in my eyes to do big things,” he said.

Having completed his root education here in the Virgin Islands; Lyndon proceeded to the University of the Virgin Islands where he graduated with a Bachelor’s Degree in Business Administration with a concentration in Marketing. He immediately returned home thereafter and went straight into the private sector industry working for LIME where he still is after four successful years.

Lyndon entered the company as a temporary staff member. “When I came back around late 2008 early 2009 the economy of the British Virgin Islands was so bad, that was a time when everybody was getting laid off, there was a ton load of people on the unemployment line trying to get work,” he vividly recalled. He started out in the sales department and because of his natural knack of dealing with people he was very successful at accomplishing the mission of the company. “I started to tear apart the sales target and they were like awe we can’t let you go,” said Mr Hodge.

Ten months later he was rewarded with a promotion to the Corporate Department. A year after a further promotion was in order as a Sales Manager and he led a team of three in the Small Business section. “Growing up I never really had a specific career that I wanted but I guess I ended up in the right place because I never really wanted to be tied to a desk, I always wanted to interact with people and I studied Marketing while Sales is like a fly by night Marketing ….so it all fits without actually putting a name to it, when I fell into it, I fell natural and easy for me to be good at.”

Today Lyndon is confident he has a professional career that will see him soaring into the most senior position at the company, to the extent that he will one day and not in the too distant future, ascend to the most senior position of General Manager of LIME. He was already fortunate to get a number of ground setting experiences while holding his current position. He recalled the most memorable one that threw him right to the top of the company for a short period when he was asked to hold the fort for the general manager for approximately one week.

“The opportunity presented itself. It was a challenge tabled at one of our managers’ meeting and was opened to anyone of us who was willing to take on the role and I immediately opted to take it on. It was a very good experience and it opened my eyes to so many thing that I would have to work on along the way to becoming the man in that position. I am confident that I can do it and one day, not when I am old and grey, I will be there,” said a very positive Lyndon A. Hodge.

Apart from his current profession, Lyndon said he would love to see himself in the arts doing some level of video/movie production. “I always had good imagination in terms of how things should be put together and always able to paint an actual picture in someone else’s mind what I want them to see and how it should look. Even now I still have that in me and maybe some time in my retirement age I might give it a shot,” he laughed in bringing out the picture that even while still very young he has a retirement plan already laid out.

Lyndon A. Hodge considers himself a well rounded young man and does a number of things socially in making himself so. He spends quality time with his peers and has a passion for the game of basketball. Whenever his company is involved in the sponsorship of leagues, which is most often than not, he positions himself to be around helping out with the sport. He also loves playing the game. “I love sports, I work out at the gym, I really try to stay active, try to stay healthy and fit, it’s a really good way to relieve stress,” said Hodge.

He loves the sport of shoot pool as well.

Through his association with the company for which he works for, Lyndon found a passion to serve and said it was birthed after sharing moments with the elderly at the Adina Donovan Home. “It was a really humbling experience because a lot of these people were just like me, real ambitious, always out there and now they are in a position where they are incapable of feeding themselves because they are now so advanced in age. I would love to do something like that again,” the young professional noted.

Lyndon also wants to see himself in a position doing what his parents did for him, and that means having a family of his own for that to happen. He said he cherishes family and the strong values that go with it as was instilled in him by his parents and siblings.

Expressing his views that brought out his passion to see the Virgin Islands grow, develop and provide a homely home for its citizen and even those who visit, Lyndon said “I have a major, major concern about the leadership of this country and it seems like everyone has their own agenda and no one is pretty much collectively looking at the BVI as a whole,” opined Mr Hodge.

He said that based on his assessment and observations, the ‘I’ man has taken preeminence in the governing realm of the country as opposed to the position where they should be collectively working towards one common goal, which is the overall development of the Virgin Islands. “I would like to see more unity within our leadership so that we can have strict goals and not just the ‘I man’ or this party want to do this and the other wants to do that so we going to stop it. We need to have some level of united leadership going forward,” stressed the young professional.

His parting word of advice, especially to the younger generation of the Virgin Islands, is to be mindful of the people you hold as friends.

“One piece of advice that my mother used to always tell us while growing up was to choose your friends wisely because friends can build you up and they can carry you down and I have always taken that into consideration. I have a great circle of friends, we motivate each other, and we push each other in the right direction. I could have seen myself going easily in the opposite direction if it was another set of friends.”

He added, “It’s really really easy to get caught up with the wrong company or be in the wrong place at the wrong time, and just be thrown into a different life. So my one solid and firm advice to youth is to choose your friends wisely,” said young professional Mr Lyndon A. Hodge.