Lopez credited as champion of business class
Published:Monday | November 25, 2019 | 12:00 AM
Businesswoman Beverley Lopez, who passed away yesterday, has been praised as a Jamaican patriot and champion of the private sector.
Lopez, who served as president of the Private Sector Organisation of Jamaica (PSOJ) between 2003 and 2005 – only the second woman to hold that position – has been recognised as a strident advocate of exporters. She also served on the Jamaica Exporters’ Association board for more than 14 years.
“During her tenure at the helm of the organisation, she spearheaded a number of multilateral projects aimed at finding long-term solutions for exporters. Her legacy will remain forever etched in the annals of Jamaica’s commercial history,” said the PSOJ in a statement issued last night.
Sandra Glasgow, a neighbour and decades-long family friend of Lopez’s, said she was shocked by the businesswoman’s passing.
“My husband and her worked at D&G (Desnoes & Geddes), where she was commercial director at the time, and we have been close since ... . Everybody in our neighbourhood watch group has been stunned by her sudden passing because many of us talked to her very recently,” Glasgow told The Gleaner yesterday.
As one of the industry’s foremost campaigners for a robust and unified private sector, Lopez led the resounding call for the nation’s politicians to publicly sever ties with criminal associates and dismantle electoral garrisons.
Addressing an anti-crime rally at Emancipation Park in Kingston in June 2005, Lopez delivered a three-week ultimatum to political representatives to renounce their connections with gunmen and other lawbreakers or face the possibility of being voted out of office. She was adamant that Jamaicans demand high standards from political representatives.
Born Beverley Wong in St James, she later married Anthony Lopez. Her husband predeceased her last year.
Educated at Alpha Academy in Kingston, she got her first job as a keypunch operator at Ariguanabo Textile factory in Spanish Town. Later that year, Lopez left to work as a sales clerk at D&G, the long-standing brewer and beverage producer, where she rose to prominence.
During the 1980s, Lopez migrated to Canada, working with an insurance company before returning to Jamaica and D&G. She later formed her own company, Kingston Hub Distributors.
Lopez was inducted into the Order of Distinction (Commander class) in 2002.