The Caribbean has no shortage of entrepreneurs. But why do so few businesses make the transition from start-up to scalable enterprise?

In this episode of Caribbean Business Review, Joseph Cox sits down with Harold Davis, Deputy CEO of the Jamaica Business Development Corporation (JBDC), to examine one of the Caribbean's most persistent development challenges: turning entrepreneurial activity into durable, productive and scalable businesses.

The conversation challenges the assumption that every small business must grow to be successful. But where entrepreneurs do want to scale, Davis explains why ambition alone is not enough.

They explore why access to finance is often really a financing-match problem; why start-ups need capital appropriate to their stage of development; and why governance, financial records, compliance and repeatable operating systems become the hidden infrastructure of business growth.

The discussion also examines why export readiness begins long before a business enters an overseas market, whether Caribbean economies have developed a stronger start-up culture than scale-up ecosystem, and what policymakers and business-support institutions must do differently if more firms are to grow beyond their founders.

Also in Episode 11:

Another CARICOM unforced error? Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerritt says Secretary-General Dr Carla Barnett “will continue,” raising a deeper question about whether Trinidad and Tobago's objection can carry meaningful consequence if the political outcome has effectively been determined before the agreed CCJ advisory opinion has even been sought.

CBI diplomatic blunder? With the European Union's September assessment of five OECS Citizenship by Investment programmes now upon the region, CBR asks whether CARICOM has allowed a critical diplomatic window to narrow.

Three different issues. One underlying question: are Caribbean systems and institutions delivering the outcomes we need?

Caribbean Business Review — Season 4, Episode 11

Topics: Caribbean business, entrepreneurship, MSMEs, small business growth, business scaling, start-ups, enterprise development, SME finance, export readiness, JBDC, Jamaica business, Caribbean economy, CARICOM, regional integration, Citizenship by Investment, CBI, European Union.