Tanya Miller: "I can't function well when I'm not challenging myself and solving multiple problems at the same time. Some people have to focus on one thing, I am less effective when I'm focusing on one thing." - Peta-Gaye Clachar/Staff Photographer
A Senior executive who answers her own phone sparing you the ordeal of doing battle with an over-protective assistant is a rare and refreshing find. Disbelief has you inquiring if this is normal procedure and Tanya Miller quickly responds with an emphatic yes. "I'm hands on," she tells The Gleaner. "I answer every call, unless I'm in a meeting."
You would think that the vice-president of marketing and new product development at Pan Caribbean Financial Services would gladly leave such mundane duties to someone else, but that's not Miller's style.
In her opinion, no assignment is too big and no task is too small and her only concern with each undertaking is to add value.
This mindset, coupled with her talents, training and skill set, makes Miller seem almost tailor-made for corporate life.
She enjoys a challenge, has a yen for problem-solving, loves to tackle complex projects and spurns inactivity. "I enjoy being occupied," she says. "I can't function well when I'm not challenging myself and solving multiple problems at the same time. Some people have to focus on one thing, I am less effective when I'm focusing on one thing."
In 2006, Miller was hand-picked by CEO Donovan Perkins to head up Pan Caribbean's Marketing Department, giving her responsibility for the company's brand strategy, marketing communication, advertising and public relations as well as new product development. Very soon after taking up office, she restructured the Marketing Department and revamped her team's job descriptions to give each person a more enriched role. She also changed the way the department did business by renegotiating arrangements with suppliers and making strategic readjustments to advertising spend and other expenditure.
Innovative new products
Within one year, the company's return on marketing investment (ROMI) had improved by 25 per cent. In addition, the Marketing Department spearheaded the roll-out of innovative new products and services, including Pan Cast, Jamaica's first weekly financial podcast which provides stock tips and financial advice, and 'Compass', a personal portfolio planner that allows Pan Caribbean's clients to evaluate their goals and choose financial services accordingly.
Miller is reluctant to take credit for her department's performance but instead is quick to highlight the work of her team. "Basically everything that I have achieved here I have achieved with the team. What is fabulous about Pan is that we have a very family-oriented environment so there is a lot of informal consultation and we draw on expertise from all over," she says.
Sharing the accolades is typical for a woman who is unconcerned about titles and hierarchy. "I'm not encumbered by structure and pomp and politics," she says simply. "I am extremely flexible to the point where I'll do anything. I've been a gym instructor, a farmer and a teacher and I can go and work at Wal-Mart if I need to because I don't have any kind of hang ups about position. My main motivation is if something makes me happy and if it makes me happy I'm going to put my all into it."
The result is a rich job history that includes coveted positions at some of Jamaica's top companies as well as entrepreneurial ventures and experience in several industries, including finance, tourism, beverages and agriculture.
Observing Miller, in a trim business suit, behind the desk in her Knutsford Boulevard office, it's a little hard to believe that she was once a farmer, but as she speaks about the experience it is obvious that making a living from the land was one of her most fulfilling personal and professional experiences.
Recounting what are clearly fond memories, Miller says, "My parents had invested in some land in St Mary and I came out of university having studied international business and management and I was really energised and I saw the land and saw opportunity. I started to grow peppers and I found a market and eventually I had about 20 people who were making a living off my farm.
"That was one of my most rewarding experiences because I was seeing the whole process through. I started with seedlings, got the crops up and ready for exportation, I exported them and collected payment, plus I did all the accounting and the marketing and I love that kind of heavy hands on work," she adds.
The experience gained was invaluable and when the economic climate in mid-1990s made it difficult to continue farming Tanya easily made the transition to the corporate world. She worked with Pragma Consultants and Caribbean Cement Company Limited before being snapped up by the Lascelles deMercado Group of Companies in 1999.
Over the next five years, Miller managed several of the Group's major liquor brands, including Appleton, Red Label Wine and Tia Maria and she conceptualised and launched Mudslide, which contributed to a 50 per cent growth in the company's portfolio of local and international liquor brands. In 2003, she was appointed Marketing Manager at J. Wray & Nephew Limited where she led a team of 12 marketing executives and managed brand investments of more than $250 million.
Most significant accomplishment
While she is proud of all she has achieved in the corporate world, Miller says her most significant accomplishment isn't even on her resume. Her greatest personal triumph occurred last October when she completed the 26.2-mile Amsterdam Marathon after being told by doctors that she would never be able to run competitively.
Since a series of accidents had left Miller with what one doctor described as "the back of a 70-year-old" she was told to limit her exercise to swimming. This was an unacceptable proposition for the former gym instructor and lifelong fitness enthusiast.
Her quest to regain optimal physical form led Miller to take up distance running and she soon discovered that physical preparation was only one aspect of the necessary training regime.
Of equal, or even greater significance, was the process of conditioning her mind to go the distance. "At one point, when I had never run more than a mile a friend took me to Constant Spring Golf Club and had me run three miles without telling me the distance. After that I realised it's the mental barriers that you have to overcome."
After completing shorter distance courses, Miller, who is the president of the JamDammers Running Club, fixed her sights on the Amsterdam Marathon, one of the world's most popular distance races.
She was among a delegation from the JamDammers Club which entered the race last year and describes it as "the most defining moment" of her life since the birth of her two children.
Recalling the experience, she says, "The race was being measured in kilometres and I always track myself in miles so I was having a great race and I had no idea how far I had gone until someone turned to me and said 'you just passed 20 miles' and my body crashed. But our group had such good camaraderie that we supported each other all the way to the finish line. At one point we literally held hands so we could keep running."
Back in Jamaica, Miller's colleagues at Pan Caribbean, who were watching the race live on the Internet, cheered and clapped as she crossed the finish line.
Really proud of her
"We were really proud of her," says Karlene Dennis, Pan Caribbean's senior corporate public relations officer.
"When she came back we gave her a crown and a trophy."
Pushing beyond the limits of her physical endurance was only one of the life-changing lessons Miller learned from that race.
"At the starting line I saw a lady who looked like she might have had polio because her leg was at an angle and she ran past me at the end. I saw a young man who was blind and his father who was elderly held his hand and ran with him for the entire 26.2 miles and they finished way ahead of a lot of us. It was such a test of human strength, mental more than physical, and when I completed that marathon I knew I could do anything I put my mind to."
Track record
Although her track record seems to indicate otherwise, Miller does not classify herself as an overachiever. "My friends say I'm driven and I certainly have a strong sense of purpose but my drive comes from wanting to achieve certain milestones.
"So I wanted to climb Blue Mountain and I did that but I also wanted to sip wine in France and I did that too. It's not necessarily always about challenging my body or my mind, it's about experience, I don't want to just exist, I want to live."
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