Cherry-Ann Greene’s story: Pedalling forward and breaking cycles

Cherry-Ann Greene is Founder and CEO of Ride Along GY, a bike tour company in Georgetown, Guyana. Her business offers a range of tour experiences including sunrise tours, fitness tours, bridal party tours, and history tours, among others. By working with a mentor in our Mentoring Women in Business programme, she increased her confidence, improved her business outcomes, and gained valuable knowledge about catering to tourists from other parts of the world. What’s more, the programme supported her to increase her profits and revenue, allowing her to hire more people in her community, and help break the unemployment cycle. Here, she shares her story. 

“The story of my business starts a few years ago. At the time, I was working at the largest shipping company in Guyana and after a while it became monotonous. I realised that I wanted to try something different, but I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do. I knew I wanted to work for myself and that I wanted my work to provide a service to people. I just needed to find the right business idea.

That idea came when I took my husband for a birthday trip to Suriname. We rented bicycles and rode around Paramaribo for a day. It was so fun and easy. I wondered why there weren’t any businesses doing this in Guyana. I said “I want to do this in my country”. I didn’t know how, I didn’t know when, but I knew that I wanted to do it from the time we started to ride.

It ended up taking me six years to get it done, because I was working full time and studying. I ended up leaving the shipping company because it was too difficult to juggle everything. I got a job at a media house that was more manageable with my busy schedule, but then on Christmas Eve in 2019, I lost that job.

I decided to take three months off to work on myself and then, as everyone knows, Covid hit. Guyana went into lockdown and I had to stay home for the entirety of 2020. My savings were going down. I had nothing to do. It was just one thing after the other.

Then one day I was talking to a friend and he encouraged me to revisit the bicycle rental business idea. The tourism industry was struggling at the time, but people were still able to ride bikes. Plus, many people were looking for ways to stay fit and get fresh air while staying within the recommended distancing guidelines. Biking was the perfect solution!

The only problem was that I didn’t have any money to put into it. I finally had the time to devote to the business, but I didn’t know how I could possibly get it done without funding. That same friend of mine sent me a poster he’d seen about grant funding for small, eco-friendly businesses in Guyana. My business was a perfect fit. I sent off my application and was selected! It felt like for the first time in a long time the universe had worked in my favour.

With support from the grant, I was finally able to bring my dream to life. Ride Along GY has been in existence for four years now. It’s the first business of its kind Guyana. We offer bike rentals as well as a variety of unique bike tours. We’ve even won three awards: one for Most Innovative Business, one for Best Tours, and one for Best Emerging Tour Guide, the tour guide being me!

What I like most about running a bike tour company is seeing the satisfaction on guests faces when they come on a ride. It’s so fun to show them all the hidden gems within Georgetown. I love getting to show off the beauty of Guyana while having a nice relaxing bike ride. It’s the most amazing feeling.

Running a sustainable business is important to me. Bikes are a zero-emission vehicle, so they don’t contribute to the air and noise pollution of the city like cars do. They are good for the planet while also being good for people!

I prioritise sustainability in my supply chain as well, working with small local businesses whenever possible. I go to them when my bicycles need to be serviced and whenever I get new ones, I take them to local businesses for assembly. I would love to collaborate with more women-owned businesses, but there aren’t that many in the bicycle industry here. It’s quite male dominated, but maybe my business will help to change that.

I like to find other ways to collaborate with women. One of my tours, the rum tasting tour, requires the use of a party bus, which I rent from a woman entrepreneur. Another woman entrepreneur I know makes cards and prints, so I plan on using her services for event invitations. It’s important to me to support other women entrepreneurs. When we support each other and collaborate, all our businesses are stronger.

I joined the Mentoring Women in Business programme because I wanted to get guidance from an experienced mentor and build my confidence in a male dominated world. I also liked the idea of working with someone in another country, because cycling is much more popular in other parts of the world. Since I’m in the tourism industry, I also wanted to get the perspective of someone from a different country and culture so that I could appeal to foreign visitors.

I was paired with a wonderful mentor from India. She was very inspirational. She listened and offered advice, but never tried to tell me what to do with my business. It was great to have her as a sounding board to share ideas with. Cycling is huge in India, so she was able to speak from her own experience with cycling and give me some great ideas. She also supported me to build my network, by suggesting key people for me to connect with on LinkedIn.

Mentoring has had a huge impact on my business. Since the programme I’ve increased my profits, revenue, and hired more staff, most of whom are women.

I’m proud to be creating jobs and hiring good people, especially people who might otherwise get discriminated against. A lot of times employers will turn away candidates if they have tattoos or if they’re a pregnant woman or because they dropped out of school.  There are so many reasons that businesses will refuse to hire someone, but if the person can do a good job, then why should that stuff matter?

I wanted to create employment for everyone, regardless of their circumstances. Some people didn’t do well in school because the classroom setting wasn’t right for them or because they didn’t have support at home. Sometimes these kids grow up and make bad decisions because they aren’t able to find work. I wanted to end that cycle.

Women don’t often get to see themselves reflected as business leaders. That’s why it’s important to me to be a role model. Since starting my business, there have been a lot of women who have told me they look up to me.

One of these women was a friend of mine who used to work for an airline. I told her about all the challenges I faced when I was trying to start my business and how I worked hard to overcome them and achieve success. After hearing my story, she left her job to start her own business. On the day she handed in her resignation she called me and said I had inspired her to do it. Now she’s running a successful tour company too!

My future hope for my business is to expand into new regions! Next week I am launching in another region in Guyana and one day I hope to go international. Maybe one day you’ll see Ride Along Saint Lucia or Ride Along Jamaica!”