Director
1 Septeber 2025 - 31 August 2026
Kernilon Owens is an attorney-at-law and an infrastructure-focused electrical Chartered Engineer, registered in the U.K., with formal systems-level education and postgraduate engineering management training. He has 30+ years of experience in positions of responsibility.
He traces his lineage from Caymanian Seafarers whose ancestry includes the early settlers. After an engineering apprenticeship, in 1983, he was then awarded an engineering scholarship to attend Anglia Polytechnic University’s inaugural HND degree in electronics and communications which was followed by graduate electrical engineering examinations. Subsequently, he completed the MSc Engineering Project Management degree at Lancaster University UK in 1994. He then read part-time, the LLB(Hons) degree at Huddersfield University in 2011, and completed the Professional Practice (Bar) Course at the Truman Bodden Law School in 2012. His career has been diverse, and he has represented the Cayman Islands in the sectors he has been employed within, and is now in private practice as a multidisciplinary consultant.
He gained his early experience in the telecommunications utility business, and held various technical, engineering project leadership, engineering/operational/commercial management, and senior management roles. In 2000, he commenced his Civil Service career at the CAA-CI in the regulatory role as Head of Telecommunications & Engineering, establishing the CAA’s CNS section. There he gained experience in safety management systems and international relations, which segued to law studies and an attachment to the UK-CAA. At the end of four years, the CAA-CI was cited by external aviation safety auditors as having the best CNS section in the UK-OT’s.
He was called to the Bar in 2015, and retired in 2022 as General Counsel from the Office of the Commissioner of Police, after senior roles in government Ministries, and previously as Head of Department at the former Office of Telecommunications (OfTel). At OfTel, he was government’s Director and Chief Advisor for Telecommunications, and led the department’s public safety telecommunications and broadcast radio infrastructure operations, and was a member of the National Hazard Management Council, chairing the Infrastructure Division’s, Emergency Communications Committee.
Amongst his significant achievements has been his nomination as the ICAO-Deputy Task Force leader, for an international civil aviation VSAT infrastructure project planned and implemented for air-traffic control for 14 countries, spanning South Florida, the Bahamas, the Caribbean and Central America. He was also a key member of the project team for the planning, construction and management that implemented the world’s first unique type of submarine fibre cable - The Cayman Jamaica Fibre System.
He is a Charter Member of the Cayman Amateur Radio Society and the Rotary Club of Cayman Sunset, and past Deputy Chair of the board of Cayman National Cultural Foundation. He is a Senior Member of the IEEE, a Member of the Institution of Engineering & Technology, is listed in Marquis’ Who’s Who in Science & Engineering and a recipient of the Cayman Islands’ Quincentennial Award for Telecommunications Development.