In 2021, I announced him as the new General Managing Director & Chief Executive Officer at Caribbean Mercantile Bank N.V. He arrived here from Bangkok, Thailand, and immediately loved it, became quite popular in social and business circles, did well for the bank, welcomed quite a few visiting family members from Canada, and then, as expected became a grandfather.
As you know, we lose our minds when grandchildren are concerned, we find goo-goo-gaga irresistible, and thus the decision was made to go back to Halifax, Nova Scotia, and live close to the new adorable arrival.
The DeWolfes went international in the window of opportunity between becoming empty-nesters when their kids left home to study, and the time when their kids started coming back and settling down. Their heart strings are now pulling them home, and there is nothing we can do about it.
If we thought the Aruba bureaucratic welcome is complex and daunting, DeWolfe reports the Canadian repatriation process is even more involved.
For the time being, DeWolfe will shuttle back and forth until the bank identify a good fit as his replacement, it ain’t easy to find a banker that can be comfortable in both banking capitals of the world, and on the islands.
We had a friendly talk, we agreed on everything, he didn’t want to comment on the island’s finances, or on the political situation, in his book, Aruba could do no wrong, so I have nothing spicy to report besides that again, we say goodbye to a useful sometimes resident, and ask him to come back to see us, frequently.
His wife, Marlene, will go back to teaching, De Wolfe explains, and he will be here two weeks every month, don’t write him out yet, he is still very much part of the economic movers and shakers set.
The bank just migrated us to a new online platform. I enjoyed the experience and reported on it positively. At the time we spoke more than half of the bank’s clients made the transition, and I imagine many of them took care of the Big Switch, this past weekend.
One hitch: The list of payees did not migrate, now we have to fill it in manually, and my fat fingers hit and miss, but we have the opportunity to weed inactive contacts out. That’s a consolation.
