Douglas Orane joined GraceKennedy Limited in 1981 as a corporate planner and held several senior leadership positions throughout the Group culminating in his appointment as CEO of GraceKennedy Limited from 1995. An engineer by training, Orane holds a degree in mechanical engineering from Glasgow University. He is also a graduate of the Harvard Business School where he earned a master’s degree in business administration and was named a Baker Scholar, a Harvard award reserved for those who placed in the top 5% of the graduating class. As president of the Private Sector Organization of Jamaica, Orane gained national attention for his incisive, rational and pragmatic views on topical issues, particularly on electoral reform. In 1998, he chaired a task force to examine ways to reduce waste in the public sector. The implementation of the resulting recommendations, known as 'The Orane Report', saved the Jamaican government millions of dollars. In 2002, he was conferred with the Commander of the Order of Distinction (CD) in recognition of his contribution to commerce and the private sector. In 2009, he was appointed to Jamaica’s Privy Council by Governor General Sir Patrick Allen and has received honorary degrees from both The University of West Indies and the University of Technology. Orane’s great love in life is giving back to the younger generation. During the 2000s, he initiated the GraceKennedy Jamaican Birthright Programme for young second and third generation Jamaicans in the diaspora to return home to reconnect with their roots. Retirement has given him the opportunity to increase his commitment to young people. He led the fundraising drive to raise $171 million in donations to build a new 1,800 seat capacity auditorium at his alma mater, Wolmer’s, completed in 2015. Wishing to be involved at the ground level, he has mentored five first and second-form students for a year each, since 2011. Out of a desire to spread across Jamaica the fundraising skills he has honed, he has written a manual called “A Guide on How to Conduct a Fundraising Drive for a Jamaican School”, and has been running workshops to pass on this knowledge to other schools and NGOs.