About Us

Who We Are

ExeQtrust Limited (EQ) was established in Trinidad and Tobago by Aliyah Hamel-Smith, a lawyer with over 2 decades of experience and a Notary Public.

EQ is actively managed and run by Aliyah, who has years of experience in both estate administration and financial planning matters. EQ is not a law firm – it offers tailored estate and financial planning services to both individuals and groups, including Will Preparation, Estate and Pension Administration.

She and her husband Glenn Hamel-Smith are the directors and owners of the business.

Our story

The concept for EQ came during the stay-at-home measures that were instituted in March 2020 after Trinidad and Tobago’s first recorded case of COVID-19. Family, friends and former and existing clients reached out for financial and investment advice, and on how best to structure their assets to pass on to their loved ones.

There is nothing like a pandemic to bring us face to face with our mortality, but it brought home the realisation that there really is no time like the present to:

Re-assess your assets
Be aware and make the most of investment opportunities
Ensure that you live, spend and save today so that you are able to leave behind some sort of legacy.

EQ is passionate about imparting that knowledge to ensure that everyone has the same opportunities available to them. We are keen on simplifying and demystifying jargon and legalese, so that important concepts are easier to understand.

The vision for EQ is to empower you and light the way, as you plan for the life you want and structure the legacy you deserve to leave behind.

Our directors

Aliyah Hamel-Smith,

LLB, LEC, MBA

An attorney-at-law with more than 20 years of local, regional and international corporate legal experience, Aliyah leads the EQ team as its managing director. Having completed her law degree at the University of the West Indies, Aliyah began her career as a litigation attorney at M. Hamel-Smith & Co., and later obtained her MBA at Oxford-Brookes University, England. She then spent close to a decade of her career at RBC, where she was promoted to head up its Trust company and then was made responsible for the Bank’s regional financial planning arm.

Seeking a new challenge, Aliyah moved to become vice president of Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) and Shared Services Development at the Trinidad and Tobago International Financial Centre (TTIFC), where she worked to make the outsourcing of finance and accounting functions attractive to foreign investors. While there, she brokered and secured the first international company to set up local operations under the TTIFC’s diversification programme—a company that is still thriving and which has created a significant number of jobs to date.

Aliyah then became the CEO of two affiliated insurance brokerage and employee benefits firms, where she offered clients customised benefits and insurance packages designed to increase employee wellness in the areas of health, investments and retirement planning.

She is now the Managing Director at ExeQtrust Limited on a mission to simplify the daunting tasks of Financial Planning and Estate Administration by:

Optimising how persons’ assets work for them during their lifetime, so
They can leave a legacy behind.

Throughout her career, Aliyah has gained invaluable expertise in:

Estate planning, including financial planning, asset restructuring and long-term insurance assessment and planning
Probate and estate administration services, including applying for grants from the probate registry and distributing the deceased’s assets either in accordance with their Will or with the laws of Trinidad & Tobago
Pension advisory services, including assessment of the best retirement structure for companies based on head count, revenue and market performance of relevant funds
Pension and annuity enrolment, including day to day administration

Aliyah currently sits on the boards of National Flour Mills (where she is a member of the Procurement and Board Tenders committees), JMMB Bank (T&T) Limited, JMMB Express Finance (T&T) Limited (where she sits on the Enterprise Risk Management Committee), L.J. Williams Ltd. and the investment management firm, Admiral Capital.

Always generous with her knowledge and time, Aliyah is actively involved with Searchlight TT, an NGO that teaches young adults critical, non-cognitive skills needed to successfully navigate both work and life. Additionally, she works behind the scenes with the charity and fundraising arm of her children’s primary school. She has also worked to support the fundraising and awareness arm of the Coalition Against Domestic Violence. Most recently, she has been inducted into the International Women’s Forum of Trinidad & Tobago, where she supports the development of professional women in Trinidad & Tobago.

Aliyah was appointed as a Notary Public for Trinidad & Tobago in February 2022.

Glenn Hamel-Smith,

BBA, JD, LEC

Attorney-at-law M. Glenn Hamel-Smith is an equity partner and head of the Banking and Finance Practice Group at the law firm M. Hamel-Smith & Co., where he actively practices commercial law and has been doing so for more than twenty-three years. As a board member of EQ, he provides strategic direction to the company.

Glenn is admitted to practice law in both Trinidad and Tobago and in the state of Florida in the United States where, in 1988, he began his legal career in the international and corporate departments of Steel Hector & Davis LLP (now Squire Patton Boggs), then one of the largest international law firms, headquartered in Miami. He returned to Trinidad in 2002 to join Hamel-Smith.

Glenn graduated at the top of his class as a Faculty Scholar with a Bachelor of Business Administration degree in both International Business and Management Information Systems from Florida International University (FIU). He then obtained his law degree from the University of Miami School of Law as a Dean’s Honor Scholar, and subsequently obtained his LEC from Hugh Wooding Law School in Trinidad.

His legal practice focuses on bank finance and regulation (including secured and unsecured lending), project finance, mergers and acquisitions, merger control regulation, securities advisory matters and capital markets

transactions, including bond issues and IPOs. He is trusted counsel to lenders, borrowers, arrangers, underwriters, securities companies, trustees and financial advisers, and has led and closed transactions valued at over a billion dollars, in both local and US currency. Glenn has also published and co-published several articles on merger control, corporate governance, securities laws, bank finance and regulations, taking security over collateral, and mergers and acquisitions.

A former vice-president of the American Chamber of Commerce of Trinidad & Tobago (AMCHAM), Glenn currently serves as the organisation’s director and as corporate secretary, having previously sat on its Transparency, Accountability and Governance Committee. For more than eight years, he was a member of AMCHAM’s Legislative Committee, the last three of which he served as Chair. Glenn is a former director of Trinidad Cement Limited and currently serves as the Chairman of Readymix (West Indies) Limited and as a director of Island Finance Trinidad & Tobago Limited.

He and Aliyah have been married for more than 10 years, with two children who are still their proudest achievements.

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Life is all about navigating change. EQ is flexible enough not only to go with the flow, but to anticipate shifts in the tide.

Who We Are

Our story

The vision for EQ is to empower you and light the way, as you plan for the life you want and structure the legacy you deserve to leave behind.

Our directors

Aliyah Hamel-Smith,

LLB, LEC, MBA

Glenn Hamel-Smith,

BBA, JD, LEC

CONTACT US

Get in touch with us to chart your future, today.

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