FORMER People’s National Party (PNP) senator and co-executive director of the Caribbean Policy Research Institute (CAPRI) Imani Duncan Price has been appointed chief of staff at the Office of the Leader of the Opposition.
Duncan-Price will give up her post at CAPRI at the end of this month, the Office of the Leader of the Opposition said in a media statement yesterday evening.
“Mrs Duncan-Price brings to the table years of experience in strategic planning, project management and marketing and will draw on her political work within the party in leading the charge at the Office of the Leader of the Opposition,” the statement said.
“In her role as chief of staff, Mrs Duncan-Price [will be] advisor to the leader of the Opposition, the principal manager of his office and a key interface between the Office of the Leader of the Opposition and the PNP, as well as the broader political, business, academia and civil society community,” the statement said.
In addition to overseeing the Opposition’s team, Duncan-Price will be responsible for implementing agreed key strategic goals and initiatives to ensure that the Opposition leader’s mandates are effectively carried out.
Opposition Leader Dr Peter Phillips said the decision to appoint Duncan-Price is part of his commitment to ensuring targeted delivery of the highest standard of service to the country and to strengthen the overall effectiveness, efficiency and communications structures within the Office of the Leader of the Opposition.
The appointment comes just over a year after Duncan-Price surprisingly was not reappointed to the Senate as was widely expected, after she lost to Juliet Holness in the race for the St Andrew East Rural seat. The former senator has been an executive member of the PNP since 2013 and co-chairs the party’s gender commission. She was formerly group chief strategy cfficer for Jamaica Money Market Brokers Group, a post which she gave up to sit in the Upper House.
Duncan Price was also employed as management consultant at the Boston-based OTF Group, where she worked with companies in the Caribbean and east central Africa in the areas of marketing, national competitiveness and consumer analytics.
In the meantime, veteran journalist Jeni Campbell will head up the information arm of the Office of the Leader of the Opposition as director of communications. Campbell, who was up to late last year managing editor of the Gleaner Company, has close to three decades of media and communication expertise. She is also former head of the Press Association of Jamaica.
Donovan Nelson, Dr Phillips’s long-time aide, has been named press officer at Phillips’s office and will work closely with the team.
All the named appointments are already in effect, Nelson told the Jamaica Observer yesterday. Phillips’s office said other key staff appointments are in the making and will include a research officer, political assistant, and technical advisor, among others, which are to be named by month-end.