When Pritipaul Singh Jr. walked onto the stage at the BizX 2025 Awards in Houston, Texas, to accept the Entrepreneur of the Year Award, he wasn’t just representing himself or his company.
Pritipaul Singh Jr.
He carried a vision of what a new generation of Guyanese entrepreneurs can achieve in the oil and gas sector. For Singh, Managing Director of Guyana Port Inc. (GPI), the award is both deeply personal and profoundly symbolic.
I feel it’s very gratifying to be able to be recognised internationally for the award. It is also a feather in my cap to be able to achieve something like that at such a young age. And also it helps me to push beyond my capabilities to continue to achieve and become a much larger company, and also a person that continues to push himself.
Those words are consistent with how Singh is regarded in Guyana’s emerging maritime economy. A visionary business leader with a strong background in vessel management and a passion for strategic decision-making.
Under his leadership, the company has experienced rapid growth and carved out a prominent position in the ship repair industry. His keen eye for identifying opportunities, his insistence on excellence, and his unwavering dedication have earned him a reputation for delivering exceptional results and helping clients keep their vessel maintenance routines on schedule and within budget.
FROM FAMILY BUSINESS TO FORGING HIS OWN PATH
Before founding Guyana Port Inc., Singh honed his skills working alongside his father in business.
I worked with my dad and with his company. I always found it interesting to always want to learn, always want to express myself and always challenge myself in new things.
That constant desire to stretch beyond his comfort zone became the foundation for his entrepreneurial journey. Starting GPI, he says, was a deliberate step into a space where he could test himself in a new but related field.
I found it to be an opportunity for me to go out beyond the realm of my father’s company, to be able to challenge myself in a new business, completely and still relatively similar to what I was doing. I always looked for a better challenge.
Founded in 2019, Guyana Port Inc. emerged from a clear market gap created by Guyana’s rise as an oil-producing nation. By 2021, the company had commenced operations and made history as the country’s sole provider of a 2,000-metric-ton floating drydock—a major milestone for the local maritime industry.
Over time, Singh and his team refined the company’s vision into a simple but powerful statement:
To empower people to shape a sustainable future through maritime solutions.
For Singh, that vision is as much about human development as it is about ships, ports, and infrastructure.
I believe Guyana needs capable people to embrace the vision, not only for my company, but for the larger vision of Guyana and what we have based on these newfound resources.
BUILDING A MARITIME SOLUTIONS POWERHOUSE
Today, Guyana Port Inc. positions itself as a full-service maritime solutions company. The firm focuses on repairing ships ranging from cargo vessels to platform supply vessels, ensuring they remain seaworthy and efficient.
It is also heavily invested in dredging and has already completed three major dredging projects, with a fourth currently underway, involving maintaining ports, dredging river channels, and improving port efficiency.
More recently, the company launched its shipbuilding division, geared toward supplying vessels to the local market and, increasingly, to the wider region.
These services are not optional add-ons; they are central to Guyana’s economic ambitions. Singh believes that as Guyana invests in roads, cleaner, more affordable energy, and new infrastructure, the gateway to long-term economic efficiency still lies at sea.
In terms of what we want to focus on specifically, it would be maritime solutions. I think the gateway to Guyana is specifically through the waters.
He argues that if Guyana wants to be truly competitive, it must understand and maximise the advantages of sea trade.
To be able to be economically efficient, we must be able to understand what it means to trade by sea, which is the most efficient and cost-effective method.
With more ships expected to ply Guyana’s waters and a global fleet renewal cycle that will see many vessels needing to be built or replaced over the next 20 to 30 years, Singh sees sustained demand for shipbuilding, repairs, and dredging. GPI’s long-term strategy is built around that horizon.
Dredging will always be a need for Guyana, and that’s where we see the continuous growth and where our strategy is built on to continue to propel itself.
LEADERSHIP IN A DYNAMIC INDUSTRY: PEOPLE, CHALLENGES, AND CONSISTENCY
Pritipaul Singh Jr. at the BizX 2025 Awards in Houston, Texas
Behind the impressive infrastructure and expanding list of services is a leadership philosophy that is demanding, disciplined, and deeply grounded in problem-solving.
Singh is the first to admit that entrepreneurship is not a straight or smooth road.
The journey is, it’s never smooth, it’s never a straight road. There are always going to be hills, bumps, and pitfalls where you’ll completely mess everything up. There is no book that says that this is the way you need to chart the course to become an entrepreneur, because for every entrepreneur, it’s different.
While capital, regulations and technology all pose challenges, he sees people as the most complex and important part of the puzzle.
Being able to properly equip people and find the right individuals to fit into the business’s structure, he says, is one of the biggest tests. The work of GPI demands growth-oriented people who are comfortable tackling unscripted problems.
Sometimes you need to think off your feet. And it is important that we work strategically as well. It is a continuous process, and as for being a leader in such a dynamic industry, it definitely is a challenge.
This reality has pushed the company to look beyond Guyana’s borders for specialised expertise, while also using that process to build up Guyanese talent.
It also pushes us to look beyond the bounds of Guyana and want to be able to find those talents that need to be added here in Guyana. And that also allows us to be able to bring in fresh Guyanese talent as well, to learn from these people that we bring in to run our business.
“I DON’T GET MOTIVATED. I AM DISCIPLINED.”
When asked what keeps him going through all the challenges, Singh doesn’t talk about inspiration or passion first. Instead, he talks about discipline and routine.
I don’t think motivation is the core of my existence. I think it’s consistency. You never get motivated to get up in the morning. You’re disciplined to get up every morning at a specific time to be able to solve those challenges.
He frames entrepreneurship as a long-term commitment to solving hard problems.
It’s about being able to say to yourself that tonight at 12 a.m. that you will be faced with a challenge that will take you 365 days to solve. It’s about being consistent for those next 365 days that will allow you to be able to solve that problem.
For him, discipline and consistency are more dependable than fleeting bursts of motivation.
TURNING PROBLEMS INTO OPPORTUNITIES AND HIS MESSAGE TO ENTREPRENEURS
Singh’s mindset is deeply solution-oriented. Where some see pressure and stress, he insists on seeing learning and opportunity.
Every opportunity to fail is an opportunity to learn. Learning is all about not giving up and finding solutions to every single problem that you have or every challenge that you have.
His advice to other entrepreneurs, especially those feeling discouraged, is both practical and philosophical.
Entrepreneurship is about being comfortable with the uncomfortable.
Rather than being paralysed by problems, he encourages viewing them as “opportunities to be solved for something new to be learned.” When problems feel overwhelming, he recommends breaking them down into smaller parts and then into even smaller ones if necessary.
If the challenge is too big, then break it down into 100 pieces. If 100 pieces are too big and those pieces need to be broken down even further, break them down further again.
The key, he believes, is to rely on discipline and consistency.
If you’re disciplined, you’ll get the job done. And if you’re consistent, you’ll keep doing it every single day until you get it done.
