Payne appointed Digicel Barbados CEO

Bar­ba­di­an na­tion­al Kather­ine Payne has been ap­point­ed Chief Ex­ec­u­tive Of­fi­cer of Dig­i­cel (Bar­ba­dos) Ltd.

In a re­lease ear­ly this week, the com­pa­ny con­firmed the ap­point­ment took ef­fect on Wednes­day, April 1, 2026.

Dig­i­cel ex­plained, “Payne brings more than two decades of ex­pe­ri­ence in telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions, with a strong track record across op­er­a­tions, com­mer­cial per­for­mance and or­gan­i­sa­tion­al lead­er­ship. Most re­cent­ly, she served as Head of Dig­i­cel Busi­ness Trans­for­ma­tion, where she led re­struc­tur­ing ef­forts across the busi­ness, im­prov­ing per­for­mance and de­liv­er­ing in­stru­men­tal ser­vice en­hance­ments to our cus­tomers.”

Marce­lo Catal­do, Chief Ex­ec­u­tive Of­fi­cer of Dig­i­cel Group, said: “Kather­ine is a class act and deeply re­spect­ed in the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty. She knows this busi­ness and the Bar­ba­dos mar­ket, and has been cen­tral to im­prov­ing how we op­er­ate. We are for­tu­nate to be able to look with­in our own or­gan­i­sa­tion and ap­point some­one of Kather­ine’s cal­i­bre to lead the busi­ness in Bar­ba­dos.”

Payne said in the re­lease: “Dig­i­cel has long played an im­por­tant role in Bar­ba­dos, and I am proud to take on this re­spon­si­bil­i­ty. Our fo­cus is clear: to de­liv­er re­li­able, high-qual­i­ty con­nec­tiv­i­ty, in­no­v­a­tive so­lu­tions, strength­en our re­la­tion­ships across the coun­try, and con­tin­ue to evolve in line with our cus­tomers’ needs.

“I look for­ward to work­ing with our team in Bar­ba­dos and across the Group to build on the strong foun­da­tion al­ready in place.”

Pri­or to her ap­point­ment, Payne held se­nior lead­er­ship roles across Dig­i­cel Busi­ness, in­clud­ing Di­rec­tor of Op­er­a­tions, where she was re­spon­si­ble for rev­enue growth, ma­jor na­tion­al con­tract re­newals, and im­prove­ments in cus­tomer ex­pe­ri­ence.

A Bar­ba­di­an na­tion­al, Ms Payne has built her ca­reer across Bar­ba­dos and the re­gion, lead­ing large, cross-func­tion­al teams and im­prov­ing how the busi­ness op­er­ates.

Payne suc­ceeds Na­tal­ie Abra­hams, who stepped down from the role at the end of March. In the re­lease, Dig­i­cel thanked Abra­hams for her con­tri­bu­tion and lead­er­ship dur­ing her tenure.