ICN'S FOUNDER/CEO/CHAIRMAN  - FELICIA J. PERSAUD

PictureICN Founder & CEO Felicia J. Persaud (Daniel Verala Image)

​Caribbean-born entrepreneur Felicia J. Persaud wears many hats. She is the founder and CEO of Invest Caribbean, the US-based global private sector investment agency of the Caribbean, as well as a journalist, news editor, columnist, mass communications expert and advocate.
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Felicia is a respected leader in the Caribbean US Diaspora on many fronts. She is a pioneer in the Caribbean American marketplace in the US, founding Invest Caribbean to serve as a conduit between governments, funders and developers; as well as of the only PR Wire of the Caribbean, CaribPR Wire, now part of CISION PR Newswire. She also founded the first daily news wire for the Caribbean in the Diaspora, now News Americas News Network, a network of 20 Caribbean sites that's syndicated; and the award-winning Caribbean PR, AD and Digital Media Solutions Agency, Hard Beat Communications, Inc. 

Felicia's extensive knowledge about the Caribbean and its Diaspora has seen her appearing and quoted in many major multi-media outlets including on CNN, The BBC, The AP, Reuters, CBS News The New York Times, The International Business Times, the Miami Herald, The NY Daily News, One Caribbean Television, New York One and by numerous Caribbean and Black media houses.

She is also a speaker at many events, including serving as a keynote speaker at the Turks & Caicos Investment conference; her own investment conferences between 2011 and 2015; and as a moderator of many events, including with the University of the West Indies in June 2020. In January 2021, Felicia teamed up with key Caribbean Diaspora groups to salute the Caribbean roots of the US' first Asian, black and Caribbean vice president, Kamala Harris ahead of her inauguration.

She is currently listed as an expert on the Caribbean in the US State Department's  speakers database, and on Feb. 25, 2021, presented a Ten Point Plan on US-CARICOM Investment and Trade for the UWI, The Shridath Ramphal Center in Barbados, and the US Embassy in Barbados. 

In the past, Felicia has worked as a news editor and print journalist at many publications, including the New York Daily News’ “Caribbeat In Focus;” The Queens Chronicle, The Caribbean America, Black Elegance Magazine, The New York Trend and Caribbean News Now, and freelanced for numerous Caribbean, African American and African publications. She has been consistently on radio since 1993 - in Guyana and the US - including on WWRL, WLIB, WBLS and currently on WRTN, and WBAI Radio, and has been an anchor, reporter and guest host on several television programs, including on One Caribbean, CUNY and PBS Television.

Felicia is also a passionate advocate for Caribbean people in the US Diaspora, and founded CARIB ID in 2008, which battled for 12 years for a way for Caribbean nationals to accurately self-identify on US Census forms. In 2020, that advocacy manifested on the 2020 Census forms, which for the first time in the US Census history, allowed Caribbean nationals and other immigrants to identify their nationality and ancestry. 

Her passion for recognition of the Caribbean also led to the November 2020 creation of the Caribbean American Action Network (CAAN), which collaborated with One Caribbean Television to host the first Caribbean global inauguration celebration of a US Vice President – the US’ first Black and Caribbean American VEEP – Kamala Harris, featuring Caribbean Diaspora and regional artistes and speakers.

In Feb. 2021, she was featured as one of 28 prominent Blacks in South Florida by the Miami Herald. 
 
She remains a major advocate for comprehensive immigration reform in the US and is a weekly immigration columnist for the 100-year-old New York Amsterdam News paper, while appearing as a radio news anchor weekly on WRTN 93.5 FM radio in New York. 

Felicia has received numerous awards for her work in the Caribbean Diaspora, including the April 2021 Woman Of Impact Award from ICABA, and numerous awards from the New York City Mayor’s Office, The New York City Council; the Office of the Executive, County of Nassau, the Comptroller of the City Of New York, the Caribbean Tourism Organization and many media and community organizations.  In March 2021, she was listed among the top '50 Caribbean Women In Tech,' by Silicon Caribe.

Felicia sits on the boards of the Sino-American Friendship Society and the Monroe College School of Hospitality Management and Culinary Arts.