Stephen Hill
St. George’s College Valedictorian in 1959, Stephen Hill was born in Jamaica on November 17, 1942. A part from his academic success, he excelled in the sport of cricket representing St. Georges College as captain of the Sunlight Cricket team. In 1958 he was a member of the schools victorious Manning Cup Team, the Oliver Shield Champions in 1960, and winner of the first Walker Cup competition. The talented cricketer was also selected as the Vice – Captain of the All Schools cricket team which toured both Barbados and Trinidad and Tobago in 1960.
After graduating, Hill furthered his impressive academic record by receiving a Bachelor of Commerce degree from Sir George Williams University in Montreal, Canada and then went on to obtain a Chartered Accountancy degree, which he earned whilst working with Price Waterhouse Coopers in Montreal.
In the 1970s, Hill’s work in promoting and publicizing the Caribbean and its culture truly began. Hill played a key role in welcoming a range of iconic football teams to Jamaica for high profile friendly fixtures including a game between Chelsea and Brazilian side Santos which brought the legendary footballer Pele to Jamaica. A friendly between Watford F.C. and the team American all-star side saw Jamaican born England international John Barnes return to the island. He also presented Corinthians F.C. with the famous ‘Dr Socrates’, captain of the Brazilian National Team, Sao Paulo F.C., Club Champions of Brazil and the Brazilian National under twenty one (21) team.
Outside of the arena, Hill organized and promoted cultural events to raise Jamaica’s profile in North America and around the world. Events included bringing MTV’s world famous ‘Spring Break’ to Negril for two years and presenting Marvin Gaye live at the Carib Theatre and National Stadium to raise funds for the Trench Town Sports complex.
For the past 25 years, Stephen Hill has taken his efforts to spread and endorse Caribbean Culture in North America one step further, in his role as co-founder and CEO of the Caribbean International Network (CIN), a television network which airs in New York and the Tri-State Area.
CIN offers the bourgeoning Jamaican and Caribbean population in the Big Apple with a full range of news, sports, drama and music programming and has recently been measured as the most viewed Caribbean Channel in New York with a larger Caribbean audience than Fox, CBS, ABC and Discovery holding 558,025 viewers at any time CIN airs. The Hope Media Research Group which conducted the survey endorsed CIN as the “The Genuine Voice of the Caribbean.”
The CIN Lecture Series, which has become one of the Premiere Caribbean events in New York and is presented each year at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, was also the brainchild of Stephen Hill some 13 years ago. Some of the distinguished presenters over the years have been former Prime Ministers of Jamaica: Edward Seaga, PJ Patterson and Bruce Golding. Other presenters have been Rex Nettleford, Ronnie Thwaites, Lowell Hawthorne, Peter Phillips, Don Wehby and last year, Professor Trevor Munroe. Each year, the forum is streamed live and rebroadcast on CINTV reaching two million Caribbean-Americans in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut.
Stephen Hill has received the JAMPACT Community Service Award in 2013, the Jamaica College Old Boy Association Trail Blazer Award in 2015, and last year the Visionary Award from the Mavis and Ephraim Golden Krust Foundation in New York.
