From the Caribbean to Campus

Pace has long been a hub for Caribbean students pursuing their academic and professional goals. Now, three successful alumni are using their stories to inspire a new chapter in Pace’s proud history of Caribbean student success.

Decades after first crossing paths as Pace University students, Joseph Benfield ’91, Kathy-Ann Edwards ’93, and Franklyn Smith ’89 are still among one another’s closest friends. In fact, they count themselves as part of a broad and close-knit community of Caribbean Pace alumni whose bonds of friendship have endured long past their final walks across the Pace commencement stage.

From the tropics to the towering skyscrapers of Lower Manhattan and beyond, Joseph, Kathy-Ann, Franklyn, and their network of kindred Caribbean Pace alumni have been there for one another through it all: new cultural acclimations, the rigors of university life, challenging CPA exams, first jobs, and the many professional triumphs that have defined their respective careers.

The root of their success? They say it all goes back to the community of like-minded, big-dreaming Caribbean students they found when they first arrived at Pace.

“The Caribbean Pace Community has been absolutely instrumental,” Kathy-Ann said. “We’ve made each other the people we are today. If I had to rewrite our story, I wouldn’t write it any other way.”

A Seismic Transition

While the trio share a cherished Caribbean heritage, their distinct journeys to Pace NYC speak to the vibrant diversity of experiences in their home region, the varying paths to university achievement, and the global connections that bring students from around the world to Pace’s New York City Campus.

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Kathy-Ann, born and raised in Trinidad, was encouraged to attend Pace by her high school guidance counselor, who was a Pace alumna herself. Joseph, who arrived in the United States from Guyana with just $200 in his pocket, was referred to Pace by a cousin, also a Pace alumnus, who had ascended the ranks at CBS as a company controller. And Franklyn, the fourth youngest of twelve children from a small village in Antigua, worked for three years after high school to save money for college. He enrolled at Pace because that’s where he felt he could get the most bang for his hard-earned buck.

For all three, the transition was seismic: a new country, a new culture, and the new pressures that come with pursuing—and paying for—a college education. But at Pace, they found a vital support system ready to inspire and uplift them as they worked toward fulfilling their dreams.

“We all basically started from nothing,” Franklyn said. “But there were so many Caribbean students at Pace who were behind us. With our Caribbean classmates, regardless of what island we were from, we all had similar backgrounds, so it was easy to get connected. Once I got to Pace, with our Caribbean folks, I was comfortable.”

“That was our family in the United States,” Joseph added. “I worked full-time and went to school full-time, but meeting these people at Pace, getting involved with organizations like the Caribbean Student Association, that was hugely important. Whether we were from Trinidad or Antigua or Guyana, we were all from the Caribbean. It felt like home.”

Finding a Path at Pace

Energized by their community of Caribbean classmates and buoyed by support from organizations like the Caribbean Student Association and the National Association of Black Accountants (NABA), Joseph, Kathy-Ann, and Franklyn all excelled as accounting students in Pace’s Lubin School of Business. They credit instructors like Emeritus Professor of Accounting Rudy Jacob (a fellow Guyanese, Joseph was quick to note) and advisors like Professor John Aheto with identifying their innate potential and challenging them to reach beyond the limits of what they believed they could accomplish.

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The Pace administration, too, played an essential role in their success, the trio added, especially through efforts to connect them with the resources and financial aid they needed to complete their programs.

In the end, that support and special attention from Pace mentors paid off. Each member of the trio passed their CPA exams on the first attempt, and they weren’t the only ones.

“There were probably 25 people who all passed the exam on the first try in my class,” Franklyn said. “We were well, well prepared by Pace.”

Industry Excellence

Franklyn, the first member of the trio to graduate from Pace, quickly secured a position at PwC, one of the Big Four accounting firms and among the most prestigious firms in the world. Kathy-Ann and Joseph soon followed in Franklyn’s footsteps, landing their own positions at the firm after receiving their Pace degrees.

PwC was a competitive and intense environment, the trio said, but they felt positioned by their Pace education to tackle its challenges and distinguish themselves as leaders among their peers. Franklyn recently retired as a partner at the firm after 32 years and now sits on the boards of several significant companies. Kathy-Ann just passed her 32-year mark at PwC, where she serves as a trust solutions partner and mentor to countless colleagues. And Joseph departed PwC’s New York office in 1997 after a successful six-year tenure—“I could no longer handle the cold,” he quipped—to continue his career back in the Caribbean, where he has served as a banking services CFO, the CEO of Josa Investments, and, by special request of the prime minister of Barbados, the CFO of the Cricket World Cup, the third-largest sporting event in the world.

According to each of them, their decades of professional success can be traced back in large part to the career preparation Pace provided.

“The opportunities we had at Pace put a lot of tools in our toolkit,” Kathy-Ann said. “It taught us how to survive and thrive in corporate America. Organizations on campus like NABA and the Accounting, Finance, and Management Association put us in situations where we had to build professional skill sets before we even graduated. Those experiences prepared us well for where we landed.”

Paying It Forward

Today, Joseph, Kathy-Ann, Franklyn, and their Rolodex of Caribbean Pace alumni are working hard to ensure future students receive the same career-centered opportunities that were so foundational to their own success.

In 2024, the group came together to establish the Legacy of the Island Scholarship Sponsored by Pace Caribbean Alumni, a fund designed to support Pace business students with financial need who have a demonstrated interest in Black or Caribbean culture. Establishing a scholarship was the natural culmination of their journey, from Pace students to alumni to industry leaders, they said. Added to their extensive service to Pace as volunteers and alumni advocates, the scholarship further affirms their dedication to giving back to the University that meant so much to them.

What better way to show students, particularly students from the Caribbean, like them, the extraordinary things that can be achieved when a community unites to lift one another up?

“This University did everything for me,” Franklyn said. “It’s done so much for all of us. I’m very proud of Pace, and I always want to help make someone else’s life just a little easier while supporting the University as well.”

“I can’t imagine my life without the circle of friends I met at Pace,” Joseph added. “We support one another, we look out for one another—these are the people who are the pillars of my life. These friendships have sustained me. And if you get help along the way, I think it’s important to bring somebody else along. For me, it’s about paying it forward.”

Want to learn more about how you can support the Legacy of the Island Scholarship Sponsored by Pace Caribbean Alumni? Email Carmen Santos-Robson.