November 26, 2023 • 45 mins
Have you ever wondered what it takes to transition from an executive to a non-executive role in a company? Join us as we uncover the answers with Caroline, a seasoned non-executive director for financial service companies and the 1st female Partner at PwC. Starting with the lighter side of life, we delve into what makes Caroline happiest, her skincare routine, and a few other fun facts. She then takes us on a ride through her life and career in Bermuda over the past 36 years, illuminating her journey with personal anecdotes and insights on success.
In a thoughtful discussion, we venture into the world of business, emphasizing the challenges and pressures endured by women in leadership roles. Sharing personal experiences of sexism and discrimination, Caroline and I reflect on the strides made in terms of gender diversity in Bermuda's business world while accepting there is still much work to be done. We broaden the dialogue to include racial parity, noting the advances and lapses in Bermuda's various sectors.
Lastly, we navigate the fascinating realm of non-executive roles, providing a comprehensive understanding of what they entail and how to transition into them. Caroline generously shares her wisdom and advice, highlighting the importance of having influence, building relationships, and harboring a passion for the business. She also delves into the significance of a strong executive background, reflecting on her own experiences and the value they've added to her current role. So, buckle up for a rich conversation that offers a glimpse into the life of a non-executive director, and balances the dynamics of a demanding career with family life.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
It's time for hustle her podcast.
I'm your host, deshae Keynes.
Hustle her is all aboutinspiring women through real
life experiences that havehelped to mold and develop not
only me but my guests into theentrepreneurs and leaders we are
today.
If you're an enterprising womandetermined to succeed and
(00:22):
looking for a bit of motivation,a bit of tough love and some
actionable takeaways to be thebest you girl, you are in the
right place.
Hey guys, and welcome back tohustle her podcast.
As always, I'm really gratefulthat you've chosen to spend some
time with me today.
I want to do a big shout out toour sponsors this year's for
(00:44):
this season.
Actually, this season isBrowning company as well as 59
front.
59 front to have some amazingproducts that we're going to be
showcasing in some laterepisodes that you can head over
there and find out some of theproducts that they have to offer
.
But make sure you head over to59 front on front street and see
some of the amazing productsthat they have for us.
Super excited about my guesttoday and I know I'm aware I say
(01:05):
that about all my guests, butgenuinely that's what makes them
so great, because I'm genuinelyexcited to interview them.
So my next guest is the nonexecutive director for financial
service companies on island,miss Caroline, how are you?
Speaker 2 (01:18):
I'm great, thank you, thank you so much for coming
Great to be here.
Yes, I'm really excited.
Speaker 1 (01:23):
We were just talking briefly pre show and I was like
wait, caroline, stop, I want youto say all of this on the
podcast.
So I'm excited to get into moreabout you, get people to know a
bit more about you and yourjourney, and we'll kick it off.
Okay, ready, all right.
So we're going to do some quick, what we like to call rapid
fires.
So, first thing that comes tomind, First thing that comes to
(01:46):
mind when I actually thequestion and then we'll go from
there.
Cool, all right.
I'm happiest when, when I'msitting in the garden looking at
the view with my cat.
Okay, and what do you do on aplane?
Speaker 2 (01:59):
On a plane.
I try to sleep if the time isright or otherwise.
I read I never watch a movie onthe plane.
That really I think the soundis terrible on a plane.
You have your own headphones,so sometimes I work, sometimes I
read for fun, sometimes I sleep.
Speaker 1 (02:12):
It's nothing like a good airplane sleep when you get
a good one right.
Exactly, I do agree the momentthe permutaflight is leaving
later it's much better, becauseI can get to sleep.
When it leaves at eight o'clockyou know you're not tired to
have a stand.
Speaker 2 (02:25):
But it's leaving at 9 , 30 and some.
Speaker 1 (02:26):
At the moment it seems to be late quite a lot too
, so you can go straight tosleep.
Yeah, that's a good one.
Yeah, it's nice, it's a perfectnap too.
Speaker 2 (02:33):
So I've got 90 minutes.
Speaker 1 (02:34):
Exactly All right, so tell me a bit about your
skincare routine.
Speaker 2 (02:39):
Well, embarrassing, because I didn't know 59 front
was your sponsor.
Now I do know I get my skincarefrom 59 front.
Speaker 1 (02:46):
Well, look at that.
Speaker 2 (02:48):
Completely coincidental.
So Clinique and Bobby Brown arethe products I like best, and I
like Joe Malone Perfume, all ofwhich I get from 59 front.
Speaker 1 (02:56):
Amazing.
Look at that, just alignmentwith the sponsor.
I don't know All right.
What did you spend your firstbig paycheck on?
Like what was something youbought yourself.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
The first thing I bought myself when I grew up,
when I was at school or just auniversity.
Speaker 1 (03:11):
But I was.
Speaker 2 (03:12):
I was doing a casual job in the holidays and I saved
up for a stereo.
Most of your listeners areprobably too young to remember
stereo.
This was like a big thing thathad a tape deck and a record
deck and a radio and speakers,and I remember it cost 200
pounds which was like 300dollars, yeah, and I think I
worked for six weeks to really,and every week I'll go and look
at it and think, as soon as Igot the money, I'm going to buy
(03:33):
this Right.
And then you finally did.
I finally did, yeah, and I tookit with me when I went to
university.
It took like half my room, yeah, but I was so proud of it, it
was really great.
How big was it?
Oh, I don't know.
Speaker 1 (03:43):
Four feet by two feet or something.
Can you imagine like that's howbig things were.
And then we carry around phonesthat have everything on it.
Speaker 2 (03:50):
now it's amazing Basically we're really old
because you would play what kidsnow call vinyl yeah, quads on
them and each other record lastslike 15 minutes and you got to
get up and turn it over andstart again, really, yes Whereas
now you can just I do this allthe time you might.
I put my when I go to bed if Iwant to sleep drifting off to
something.
I set the timer for either abook or music 45 minutes or
(04:11):
something like that and I wakeup in the morning and I've
always missed the second half ofwhat I was trying to read.
Speaker 1 (04:16):
Every time I know it ends up watching or looking at
me and whatever.
That is Exactly Okay.
What does love feel like?
Speaker 2 (04:24):
Oh, love, love feels cozy and comfortable and
protected and safe and a reallygood place to be so wrapped up,
like being wrapped up in areally nice blanket.
Speaker 1 (04:35):
Nice, okay, what are you listening to right now?
Speaker 2 (04:39):
Gosh.
In terms of music, I'mlistening to jazz.
So when I was in London,recently I went to a couple of
open air jazz concerts.
Speaker 1 (04:45):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (04:45):
There was a guy playing the music of Quintin
Collins.
I don't know if you knowQuintin Collins.
Speaker 1 (04:49):
I'd never heard him before.
Speaker 2 (04:51):
But jazz music is great, so I downloaded some of
that from Apple Music and I'vebeen listening to that quite a
bit Okay.
And I'm listening to a talkingbook as well, which I always
find.
Talking books take me foreverbecause I fall asleep or I'm not
in the car or I'm not cooking,and then I haven't listened to
it for a week or something.
I'm listening to a talking bookat the moment, which is an old
Frederick Forsythe novel.
(05:12):
Okay, I really like crimenovels.
Speaker 1 (05:14):
Ah, okay, tommy, a hidden talent Hidden talent.
Or a talent not very manypeople know about.
Speaker 2 (05:23):
That's a tricky one.
I think other people wouldprobably be able to tell you
that better than me.
I'm not good at that.
People wouldn't know.
Uh, photography maybe, okay,yeah.
Speaker 1 (05:32):
Nice, what type of?
Speaker 2 (05:32):
photography, wildlife , particularly so when I left
PwC and we'll talk a bit aboutmy PwC career they gave me as a
leaving gift, a very nice cameraand a couple of lenses and I
took it up as a hobby becauseall of my career had been
numerate writing and sort oftraditional skills and when I
was not going to be workingfull-time I wanted to do
(05:54):
something creative and I thoughtI'm never going to sing or play
the piano or paint or draw.
So I got PwC by my camera.
Nice, that's my big hobby.
Speaker 1 (06:02):
Nice, okay, I think I have some talents at it.
Yeah, there you go.
That's a hidden one.
There you go Now.
Speaker 2 (06:06):
You have an answer for that.
Exactly, yeah.
Speaker 1 (06:09):
Okay, so growing up, who was your celebrity crush?
Speaker 2 (06:14):
This will offend a lot of people, so forgive me, I
grew up in the UK and the personI most admired.
I'm not a crush, but most of mymost wanted to be like was
Margaret Thatcher, which I knowis a very diverse, divisive
person and lots of people don'tlike her.
Speaker 1 (06:29):
I really, she really resonated with me because she
was a woman succeeding in theamount of world.
Speaker 2 (06:33):
And made me realize as a young, strenuous teenager
that women could do anything andcould really be the top of
their game, whatever it was, soI found it very inspirational.
Speaker 1 (06:43):
Yeah, like a celebrity crush.
Yeah, I get it though.
Yeah, I think the MargaretThatcher, you're correct, it
depends on who you're talking toand how people feel it's a good
.
Speaker 2 (06:50):
Hate her, I know, hate her politics and so, but if
I think, if you ignore herpolitics, I think she was a
woman in a man's world.
She knew what she wanted andwent and got her, whether you
agree with it or not, and shereally made her mark.
I'm going to talk about ittoday.
Speaker 1 (07:03):
To say which.
If you have, you know you candisagree.
For politics, yes, absolutely.
Speaker 2 (07:07):
Can't take away from that right Lots of people
disagree with her politics Someof them.
I disagree with you, but Ireally admire what she achieved
in terms of the handicap she hashad against her in those days
when she was born, in the 40s or50s, when women were just
supposed to stay at home and getmarried and have kids and look
at her, and she went on andforged a career that's still
(07:27):
talked about with all around theworld.
Speaker 1 (07:28):
Okay, all right, and I know you've been in Bermuda
for quite some time and I'm notsure if you have a Bermuda team
or not, but I ask everyone thisquestion who is your cut match
team?
Speaker 2 (07:40):
Oh, that's a really tricky one.
I have been in Bermuda a longtime, but I don't really follow
cut match.
I live near Ritter St George's,so I live in Ritter St George's
, that's my team.
Okay, I've only been to the cutmatch event twice, but I do
usually watch it on TV.
Speaker 1 (07:56):
Okay, all right.
So St George's then, I guessAll right, I won't be too upset
about that, caroline, but it'sokay.
I'm going to say, did I?
Speaker 2 (08:04):
get the colors right, because I don't like red, I
like blue.
Okay, st George's a little bittoo blue.
Yes, st George's too blue.
So then there you go.
That's perfect.
That's another reason.
Exactly, all right.
Speaker 1 (08:13):
So tell me a little bit about you growing up, like
what did you like to do, whatdid you like to get involved in?
What did you think?
Did you always know you weregoing to be an accountant?
Like tell me about youngCaroline.
Speaker 2 (08:24):
Sure, young Caroline, I definitely didn't always want
to be an accountant.
I used to read a lot, I was areader and again, I grew up in
the 70s, right?
So therefore, again, probably alot before a lot of your guys
listening were around.
But I would listen to pop music, you know.
I would get a Discos and stufflike that, which were all very
(08:45):
wholesome in those days.
Young people Like teenagers,young teenagers like what are
you called tweens today?
They don't go off to Discos andwe'd have Coke and dance around
in the room and stuff.
So I did a lot of that.
I did a lot of reading when Iwas at university.
You probably wouldn't think ofthat, so I played in women's
football team Really.
Speaker 1 (09:01):
That was great.
What was your?
Speaker 2 (09:02):
position, my position oh, it was to the left of
center.
Speaker 1 (09:06):
OK Center left back right, I don't remember.
I don't remember.
Yes, Center forward.
Speaker 2 (09:11):
Not the person in the middle, not the captain On the
ones on one side.
Yes, I did that for a term whenI was at university.
That was great fun.
Speaker 1 (09:16):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (09:17):
Again, it was really groundbreaking because you can
have women's football in thosedays and now, when you see like
the.
England team do really well inwomen's football.
Speaker 1 (09:24):
It's great to see yeah, definitely OK.
And so when you were finishingschool and you were heading off
to, did you do college first inthe UK?
Speaker 2 (09:33):
I went to university from school, yeah, so I lived
obviously lived at home with myparents in the UK.
I went to university in London,which is what I really wanted
to do, and I did my three yearsthere and I again less common
this side of the world, but inthe UK it's very common that you
do a degree in something you'reinterested in.
That's not so vocational andthen you choose your career?
(09:54):
Yes, obviously, if you domedicine or law or something, or
, hopefully, engineering youknow what you're doing, but I
was a history graduate so I didhistory at university because I
liked it.
I really enjoyed it Was.
Speaker 1 (10:03):
I ever a history degree as well.
You did history as well.
Yes, I did.
I see that.
Yeah, I've got a lot in common.
Speaker 2 (10:07):
I know, and I definitely didn't always want to
be an accountant, but I wantedto work in the business
environment and I just sort ofas time goes on.
I definitely didn't want toteach all the obvious things for
history, right, you're aresearcher, you're a teacher,
you work in a library.
You don't want to do any ofthose things.
I wanted to work in businessand the one that was easiest to
(10:29):
get into when I graduated wasaccountancy.
So I became an accountant withthe.
I was I think you know I waswith PWC in Bermudon, was a
partner there.
Actually started my training inthe UK with a predecessor firm
of PWC.
Okay, so I sort of came fullcircle and then joined them
again in Bermuda and then becamea partner with them here.
Speaker 1 (10:49):
Okay, so how did you end up in Bermuda?
Speaker 2 (10:51):
I did my three years at what was called Coops and
Library and now.
Pwc qualifies as an accountantand I wanted to carry on living
in London.
But it's a little bit like it istoday it's very difficult to
get your foot on a housingladder if you're paying rent, if
you're all of your money isgoing to pay rent, so you can't
save for a deposit, so you can'tbuy in where to live in.
(11:12):
Bermuda's as bad for youngpeople, but the UK is
particularly bad now, much worsethan for me.
So I thought I don't want tospend my life renting.
Speaker 1 (11:20):
But I really want to live in London, so how am?
Speaker 2 (11:22):
I going to get a deposit together.
I know I'll go and workoverseas for a couple of years
make some money and come backand get on with my life.
And so I said where am I goingto go?
Somewhere warm and somewhere tospeak English.
Speaker 1 (11:33):
And it was almost that simple, yeah.
Speaker 2 (11:35):
So I applied for a job in Australia in the Cayman
Islands and in Bermuda, andBermuda was the first one that
came back to me Really thatsimple, and I'm so, so glad I
came here.
Speaker 1 (11:43):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (11:44):
I've been to Cayman a few times while I've been
living here, and it's just.
I don't know if I offendedanyone from Cayman listening,
but I.
Bermuda is just straight aheadof Cayman in my opinion.
Speaker 1 (11:53):
Have you been there?
Yeah, I've been to Cayman once,yes, and I wasn't.
I mean, it's difficult whenyou're from an island, right,
you always compare it to whereyou're from, and just let's just
say I prefer Bermuda as well.
Speaker 2 (12:04):
And the main reason I prefer Bermuda is because from
almost anywhere you are inBermuda, you can see the ocean,
yeah, or, and definitely, youcan see the trees, yeah, whereas
in Cayman, firstly, there aremuch less trees because it's
much drier and hotter, and it'sflat and flat.
But also the all the beaches andoceans, it feels to me anyway,
are all occupied by the privatehomes or the hotels.
Yes, so as a as a normalresident, if you're not staying
(12:27):
in a hotel, you haven't got tobe house or you don't have a
beach membership.
You can't go to the beach.
Yeah, because everywhere inBermuda every person in Bermuda
if they want to go to the beachcan go to the beach.
Speaker 1 (12:34):
Yeah, that's that's a really fair point.
I never thought of it like that.
So you said you were only goingto come here for a few years
save up and how many years laterare we now?
We are now.
Speaker 2 (12:45):
Oh gosh, 36 years, wow, isn't that scary.
So I came for two and the endof two.
I hadn't saved enough moneybecause I'd spent it all.
I thought I'll save for twomore.
Ok, and during the second two Imet who's now my husband.
Speaker 1 (12:58):
So we decided to get married and stay here.
Speaker 2 (12:59):
Ok, he had come to Bermuda for two years with his
parents when he was 10 years old.
Wow, his parents came for twoyears as well, and then and they
stayed forever, and so he grewup here.
And then I met him, obviously,and then we decided to make
Bermuda our home.
We stayed here.
Speaker 1 (13:14):
That's amazing.
So walk me through your careerat PWC.
Speaker 2 (13:18):
Sure, my career at PWC.
Well, I was very lucky with noplanning because of the timing.
It's like when I came out tojoin PWC.
It was amazing because theinsurance industry here was just
starting off, so Acer and Excelwere just being formed.
They're obviously now AXA, andgosh, what a chub.
Chub and AXA.
They were Acer and Excel.
(13:38):
Then they were brand newcompanies, and so Bermuda was
really just starting to take offin that sphere.
We'd always had captives.
Obviously, the tourism industrywas going gangbusters at that
point, but the insuranceindustry was new, and so I was
able to start working in a newindustry on a level playing
field with everyone else inBermuda, because nobody else
(13:59):
knew much about insurance either, and so therefore, the fact I'd
come from the UK and didn'tknow much about insurance was
not the handicap.
It would be if I came today,for example.
So I was able to start workingwith these great companies.
And you know as well as I, butinsurance companies in Bermuda
are always doing exciting thingsbecause they're nimble and they
come here for the regulatorypragmatism and they've generally
(14:21):
got a lot of dollars in theircapital base and so they're
always doing new stuff.
They're always startups,they're always pushing the
envelope, and so I was able tofirstly work with really
interesting companies doingreally interesting things, but
also grow with them.
So when I first started workingwith Excel, for example, as a
service rider, they probably had20 people, so I knew everyone,
(14:42):
and then you turn around andfive years later, 200 people
still know everyone.
That's a really great way tohave a career.
So I was very lucky in mytiming that I grew with the
industry.
Speaker 1 (14:54):
OK, and then you stayed in insurance and
reinsurance during your time atPWC.
Speaker 2 (14:58):
I did mostly yeah.
Speaker 1 (14:59):
So was the goal always to end in partnership
there.
Speaker 2 (15:03):
I think so.
Yes, I mean now the firms are alittle bit, not a little bit, a
lot more, but just for pyramid.
When I was coming through anyof the firms Deloitte, kpmg, pwc
they would all be the same, allof the accountants there.
It was an up or out mentality.
So either you wanted to be apartner and you were going to
become a partner on the track,or you weren't going to become a
(15:25):
partner, in which case youprobably decided you wanted to
leave and go to something else.
So, for a variety of reasons,either you didn't want the life,
or you weren't suited to it orwhatever it may be.
If you go and work in industry,you can be the chief accountant
forever.
You don't have to aspire to bethe CFO and CEO and the chairman
, whereas when you're in a PWCand when the accounting firms in
(15:47):
those days they almost had aphilosophy of up or out, so as
long as you were progressingthey wanted you to stay.
Once you started progressingyou were often seen as a blocker
for the people coming behind.
Now the firms are a lot better.
Now they have career paths forall sorts of people.
Some people want to stay atcertain levels, some people want
to go in a different direction,some people are working in
(16:09):
non-accounting parts of the firm.
They can all have reallyfulfilling careers.
But I think when I was comingthrough in those days it was
very much.
If you didn't want to be apartner or you weren't able to
be a partner or for whateverother reason, you probably would
self-select out and go and dosomething else.
So the longer I stayed, themore it became obvious it was a
track.
Speaker 1 (16:29):
And during that time, when you were coming up, when
you were matriculating throughPWC, did you find, were you?
Obviously there were more malesduring that time.
But was it just you, or werethere other women as well?
Speaker 2 (16:43):
There are other women in the firm, certainly, but I
was the first partner at PwC inBermuda and probably the second
or third partner in anyaccounting firm in Bermuda.
Speaker 1 (16:52):
Wow, that was female.
Speaker 2 (16:53):
It was female yes.
So it's quite a lonely role tobe in at the beginning, and I
have an anecdote I could sharewith you of quite significant
chauvinism, but generallyspeaking, my colleagues were
incredibly supportive of me.
They made me a partner right.
They didn't have to do that,and so they were very supportive
.
There's a couple I could callout who were particularly great
(17:15):
to me really good mentorsthrough my career.
But yes, it was difficult, andchallenging is probably a better
way of putting it.
Speaker 1 (17:25):
Yeah, what were some of the biggest challenges, would
you say.
Speaker 2 (17:28):
I think you get noticed very quickly can be a
good thing or a bad thing.
So everybody always remembersyou oh, it's that female partner
or whatever.
And that's great when you'redoing something good.
It's less great when youstumble, and so people always
remember, Because if you're oneof the guys in a gray suit,
people, particularly outside thefirm, they don't necessarily
remember which one of you it was, Whereas if you're the only
(17:50):
female, then of course theyremember immediately where you
were.
Equally well, they alwaysremember you for good stuff.
So people would then say oh,we'd like to interview a couple
of your partners, maybe a maleand a female, and so because
there's anyone female, youalways get to do that.
Speaker 1 (18:03):
Got it.
Speaker 2 (18:04):
So I got a lot of profiling.
I got a lot of opportunity todo public speaking at
conferences and things like that.
It was great.
I also got a lot of opportunityto mentor people which I really
, really loved.
And now that I don't work fulltime in a company, that's
actually the thing I miss themost is having a formal
mentoring relationship withpeople.
Speaker 1 (18:24):
Both men and women.
I really enjoy it.
So.
Speaker 2 (18:26):
I try and seek out those opportunities for people
and people seek out me as well.
And it's great to feel that youcan give back, and you can a
little bit like we're doingtoday.
You can just mention a coupleof things from your past.
That might be helpful or helpthem think through things,
Because if you're in the middleof a challenge, you can't always
see straight or you get quiteemotional about it or whatever
it may be, and maybe somebodywho's been there or somebody who
(18:47):
isn't so emotionally involvedcan actually help you think it
through a little bit more.
Have you thought about it thisway?
Have you considered thatactually this person may not
just be really horrible perhapsthey're having a bad day or
whatever and help people reframeit a little bit, which is
hopefully useful for them?
Speaker 1 (19:01):
Yeah, absolutely.
I think it's really importantto have people like that in your
life, you know what I mean, Ithink, it is Especially
professionally, becausesometimes, when things are
happening to us in ourprofessions we're so close to it
, we have these very emotionalresponses right, we tend to take
it all very personally Exactly.
Speaker 2 (19:16):
And it's almost always not personal.
You know, as I said, someone'shaving a bad day or they, I
don't know whatever.
There are all sorts of reasonswhy they might behave the way
they do.
Speaker 1 (19:25):
My mom is a business teacher and she has this like
philosophy.
She'll be so happy that I'vesaid this.
Hopefully she watches thisepisode, but with her it's
always it's not personal, it'sjust business, right?
Speaker 2 (19:33):
Absolutely.
Speaker 1 (19:34):
And so she tells her students that all the time.
It's like always a theme of herclassroom.
And so it's so interesting thatyou said that, because
literally some things are notpersonal, they're really not,
it's just business.
But when they're happening toyou.
Speaker 2 (19:44):
you take them personally and over the years I
definitely took a lot of thingspersonally which now I look back
, I shouldn't have got soexcited about it.
I really should have justrealized it.
A it was nothing personal or BI was actually women,
particularly you, would youprobably have experiences to.
You tend to have the impostersyndrome too, so you tend to
think, if I haven't beenselected for this, or I haven't
(20:04):
won at this, or somebody didn'tspeak to me about that because
I'm not very good at my job?
Of course it isn't.
They were just walking down thecorridor thinking about getting
a coffee.
They weren't ignoring you,Whereas you tend to internalize
all of that Because a little bitof imposter syndrome and all
the other things that go with it.
Speaker 1 (20:21):
And within your career.
Sometimes it wasn't as personal, but did you ever encounter
times where it was personalbecause you were a woman?
Oh, yeah, yeah, don't do it now.
Speaker 2 (20:30):
I'll tell you a story without naming anyone.
I told this story to a fewpeople.
I don't know if the personinvolved ever realized what they
actually did, but it wasn'tlong after I had become a
partner at PwC and we had avisitor I kind of remember who
it was now coming into the tothe boardroom and met with a few
of us and he sort of said sohow many partners do you have
here now?
And the guy who was with mesaid 12, but it's really just 11
(20:53):
.
Cause one of them's a woman.
No way, Absolutely In front ofyou, Absolutely In front of me,
in front of lots of other peopletoo.
Oh my goodness, I was like whatdo you say to that?
Right?
Speaker 1 (21:04):
Could you imagine if someone said that in 2023?
Yeah, he fired.
Speaker 2 (21:07):
Immediately, immediately, absolutely
immediately.
But he just sort of laughed andcarried on and to their credit,
two of my other male colleaguesjumped in and were really
forceful with him.
I said no, she has to sayanything.
Speaker 1 (21:18):
That's good.
Which is I remember?
Speaker 2 (21:20):
it what?
15 years later, 20 years later,that's crazy.
Speaker 1 (21:23):
I remember it.
Yeah, because something likethat is of course not, but it's
so impressionable on you thatpeople don't realize sometimes.
Oh yeah, you're making a joke,but in actual fact you look at
yourself.
Well, wait, was I only made apartner?
Speaker 2 (21:35):
And you do?
You start questioning yourself.
Was I only made a partnerbecause I was a woman.
Was it counting numbers?
Was it the early years of DEI?
All that sort of stuff?
And of course I said of courseI am sure none of that was true
Sort of all of a sudden it's thewhole imposter thing again.
But this guy, he probablydidn't remember it 10 minutes
later.
Speaker 1 (21:52):
Yeah, probably not, but what I love the most about
that story is your otherco-workers jumping in on your
behalf, which was great yeah.
Speaker 2 (21:58):
Couple of the guys.
They were younger than him andmy sort of age.
They jumped right in and calledhim out and that was the best
part of the story.
Speaker 1 (22:05):
That's amazing.
So, with having this kind ofpioneering career right and when
I say that meaning likeobviously you were the first
female partner at PWC and otherfirms in Bermuda period what
type of pressure did you feelduring that time, if any?
Speaker 2 (22:21):
I think it's the always being front and center.
If you mess something up, theysay, oh well, it's because
you've got a woman.
If you had a male partner, thatwould never have happened.
You've always got real pressurenot to do female things.
So, for example, don't getupset, don't cry, don't be
emotional.
So that was the pressure.
I always thought that had to bebetter than everybody else in
the world.
Time to prove that they wereright to have given me the
(22:44):
opportunity.
Speaker 1 (22:46):
So, that's.
Speaker 2 (22:47):
I mean, lots of people feel that today still, of
course, but it was just verynoticeable.
If I said to you now how manyfemale partners are there in the
county firms in Bermuda, youprobably don't know the answer,
and I don't either, but I tellyou it's quite a lot, whereas if
you'd asked somebody that 20years ago they'd have named two
or three people and everybodyknew who they were, and it
wasn't just the accounting firms, of course, it was the law
(23:08):
firms, as well.
All of those professionalpractices.
Speaker 1 (23:12):
So, given that we have made progress in this space
in terms of gender balance isthere anything that you are
still a little disappointed within terms of the progress that
we've made with gender parityand balance in Bermuda period
across the sectors?
I guess the thing I'd be lessabout gender and more about race
(23:33):
, I think, which I'm stilldisappointed with in.
Speaker 2 (23:35):
Bermuda, where we haven't got the racial parity we
should have.
I believe that everyone now is.
I hope everyone now is tryingto really focus on it.
Dei is a big buzzword.
Everyone talks about it, wehave the dive-in festival, all
sorts of things like that, butit is taking a very long time.
Maybe it took a very long timeto get the first few females as
(23:56):
well, but because I was one ofthem, if I was my mother's
generation, I'd probably feelvery differently.
I was very lucky I was again.
Timing is everything.
Timing of me coming to Bermudawas great Timing of me entering
the workforce and being a female.
I had opportunities forgenerations before me Couldn't
even dream of.
I think we're on that journey,but we're not quite where we
(24:17):
need to be in terms of black andwhite in Bermuda as well.
Speaker 1 (24:19):
Yeah, no, I agree with you and I think when you
look at the wider community ofBermuda outside of the insurance
and reinsurance industry, it'sso interesting because our wider
community is a completelydifferent racial balance than it
is inside of An internationalbusiness.
Speaker 2 (24:33):
I'm absolutely right.
Speaker 1 (24:34):
And it's so unique in that way because in other parts
of the world in the UK, in theUS a lot of times it's more
difficult for them to understandthat because it's very
different in the wider communityas well.
But here it's like well, no,it's the complete opposite.
So it's very interesting thatyou said that we haven't made
that much progress.
It means to me we do have somuch more to go and we have done
(24:56):
some things.
We've done a lot.
Speaker 2 (24:58):
It's also the further you come, the more you realize
you have to go.
I think one of the challengesin Bermuda's international
business sector is that we don'thave very large companies.
So if you have 200 people inBermuda, a really big company,
if you are in the UK or the US,you'd have 5,000 people and
obviously the bigger you are,the flatter is the pyramid.
So there are more entry levelopportunities and therefore
(25:20):
there are more people cominginto them and there are more
opportunities to progress up,Because Bermuda international
companies tend to be quitepointed and that they, as I
mentioned earlier, withinsurance and reinsurance.
They tend to be the more seniorpeople here, whereas the more
junior people would be back inthe UK or the US, or wherever it
is.
And so that's by definition.
(25:41):
You don't have the same numberof entry level jobs, which
creates a challenge.
Yeah definitely.
Speaker 1 (25:45):
I think we are doing better we are I definitely can
say that, but I do agree withyou that there are things that
we could do a bit moreintentional about.
Absolutely Very muchintentional and I think, coming
back to gender, I think theforward thinking companies like
the PWC in the world today theyare very much more forward
thinking in terms of gender andindeed about race.
Speaker 2 (26:06):
They've changed exponentially in 20 years.
There's also a different careerpath for genders and for
different people who want to dodifferent things.
There's much bigger internprograms, Again, if I I
shouldn't really be speaking forPWC, because I don't work there
anymore but I do follow them ontheir social media and LinkedIn
and stuff and so when I wasthere we maybe had four interns
a year out of 200.
(26:27):
And now they probably had 25interns a year out of 200.
And that's a huge difference.
And the more interns you bringin, obviously the more
opportunities you'll bring intothe local population, be they
black or white, I think that'sreally good.
Speaker 1 (26:38):
It is good, and it also, you know, it also builds a
pipeline of talent, right,exactly so, when people are
coming in as well, and there's awhole thing about if you don't
see it, you can't be it and soon, exactly.
Speaker 2 (26:49):
And so people now know people who are working in
the business sector, and so ifyou see that, you can feel you
can aspire to it, whereas if youdon't see it, it's much more
difficult to see yourself inthat role.
Speaker 1 (26:59):
Yeah, which again comes back to being one of the
first women to do things andthey are.
Speaker 2 (27:03):
And the Margaret Thatcher inspiration.
Having seen Margaret Thatcherdo stuff, and if you were, if
you were a young black Bermudianfemale here, you might see
someone like Pamela Banks orPatricia Gordon-Pamplin or Paula
Cox and see that as yourinspiration.
Speaker 1 (27:17):
Absolutely, and Jennifer and all these people.
They've been inspirational.
I hope in similar ways to thecommunity here.
Yeah, absolutely.
So you know, on the journey ofyour career at PWC and you're
sending into partnership, youobviously married during this
time.
How did you do both?
Because obviously being anaccountant is really a demanding
job, and then having a familyas well.
(27:38):
Tell me a bit about how thatwas for you.
Speaker 2 (27:40):
It was a challenge, but I was fortunate or
unfortunate, but in terms ofmanaging it didn't have young
children, so I didn't havechildren myself.
I had a stepson, but he didn'tlive with us full-time,
obviously, he had his mother andso he was 10 when I came along,
so I missed all the sleeplessnights and baby things, which
made it much easier, of course,in terms of managing a career.
But certainly I remember someof my younger colleagues saying
(28:03):
to me it's all right for youbeing a partner because you
don't have kids, you can make ithappen, you can focus on your
career, and I think that was thecase then.
Now, of course, it's verydifferent.
Men and women want to focus onfamily and career.
How do you make it work?
I think it's a phallus to sayyou can have it all.
But I think you can have it all, but not at the same time.
And one thing that people cansometimes forget is that your
(28:27):
career whether you take a breakor have kids or don't is very
long, and most people will startworking in their early 20s and
will stop working in their earlyor late 60s.
That's a 40-year career.
So if you take five years outor even 10 years out, it
actually doesn't matter.
One of the days, I hope, whereyou need to achieve this by this
age, because now it doesn'tmatter.
(28:48):
So if, for example, you want totake a career break and bring
up kids, or you want to take acareer break and help your
father because he's elderly.
You can do that and you canstill have it all.
What you maybe can't do is haveit all this year.
Speaker 1 (29:00):
Yeah, which I think is a really good point to make.
I think we are changing thenarrative a bit about having it
all, but I love how you said youmay not have it all this year,
but it may happen throughoutyour time.
It'll happen throughout yourtime.
Speaker 2 (29:13):
And at times, other things are important.
I'm going to pick an example.
If you're a young person andyou're really into sport.
Well, maybe you want a jobthat's reasonably nine to five
and reasonably consistent,because it's really important to
you to go and train a couple ofnights a week and play your
sport on the weekend and be ableto take some time off and go
and compete for Bermuda, orwhatever it might be.
(29:36):
And at this point in your life,when you're at a point where you
can be really professionallycompetitive at sport, then maybe
your career takes a little bitof a backseat and you focus on
that, and then maybe, when yoursporting days are a little bit
more behind you, then you focusa bit on your career or you
focus on your family or whatever.
But gone are the days, I think,where you had to achieve
everything by the time you were35 or 40.
(29:56):
And if you weren't keeping upyour period, you fell behind and
so on.
I mean, we haven't reallytalked about age disparities as
well, but we've talked aboutgender and race, but I think age
as well is really important.
You now have workingpopulations of people when you
get past the intern stage peoplehave all sorts of different
levels.
People are going out and comingback and creating fluid take
(30:20):
some time off and go dosomething else.
I met a month or so ago withArlene Brock who, you may know
she was a former ombudsman.
Speaker 1 (30:27):
Yes, yes, yes.
Speaker 2 (30:28):
And then she left Bermuda for a while and she went
back to the university and shedid a whole bunch of things and
then she went to work in Africaand now she's coming back to
Bermuda and now she's doingcharitable work.
So she's my sort of age.
But the point being, you can dovarious things.
Crewers used to be straightlines and now they're far more
zigzag, so you can do anythingand be anything you want, but
you maybe can't do it all atonce.
Speaker 1 (30:49):
Yeah, definitely.
So I want to shift a bit intoyour transition from PWC into
your board work, and I believewe call it non-executive
director.
So what was Non-executive?
Speaker 2 (31:01):
just means part time.
Yeah so you're part time.
I'm just joking.
Speaker 1 (31:05):
So what was the shift in that?
Were you just ready to leavePWC at the time, or did you just
see this opportunity on theboard side of things?
Speaker 2 (31:14):
A little bit of both.
So the opportunity was thereand I think, being non-executive
, you can be a non-executive.
Most people are probably notvery qualified to be
non-executives early in theircareer because you need to have
done stuff as an executivebefore you can be a credible
non-executive.
And I said jokinglynon-executive is part time.
It is, but it's also, bydefinition, not full time in the
(31:36):
business.
So an executive person is allover it running the company and
non-executive person is slightlyaway so that they can apply a
different sort of oversight.
Speaker 1 (31:48):
That's really what it means there.
Speaker 2 (31:50):
So by definition, I think you can't be a
non-executive when you're youngbecause you haven't had enough
experience in whatever it is.
So it tends to be people whoare sort of over 40, maybe even
over 50.
I think we don't have so manypeople now in their 70s and 80s
which they used to have back inthe day, so the transition was
partly opportunistic in that Iwas around about 50 and I
(32:12):
thought what do I want to do forthe next 10 to 15 years of my
life?
Do I want to carry on with withPWC or be a full-time?
executive role in the insuranceindustry, for example and I
decided I want to have adifferent life.
I felt at that point I'd spenta lot of my career advising
clients, because that's what youdo places like PWC and
attending board meetings andgoing to boardrooms.
(32:33):
You know, when you and I firstmet, I was on the board of the
BDA and you were working in theBDA and so therefore I was a
non-executive there, and thatgives you the opportunity to
have a bit more of a portfoliocareer because when you're an
executive, you work in a companyBDA, XL, PWC, whatever it is.
When you're a non-executive, youwork with several and you get a
(32:54):
little bit of diversity, whichis great diversity of experience
.
I mean, you do get, quitefrankly, a different work-life
balance.
So I sit on five boards and Iprobably work about 30% of the
year but not in a book.
So this week and last week I wasvery busy.
Next week I'm travelling forbusiness and then I have about
three weeks when I have no boardmeetings.
(33:15):
So I'll be spending that timethinking, reading, writing, but
not full-time, and so I havethat sort of ability to balance
my life.
So, depending on what's goingon with the company, it's almost
a third and a half, and whenthe company is going through
challenges good challenges orbad challenges you also need to
spend a lot more time with them.
So we were talking just beforewe started recording, about
(33:36):
COVID.
So during my COVID time I wason five boards.
It's for different five boardsthat are now but each of them
was having challenges duringCOVID, so it was basically a
very full-time job.
So one of them was an insurancecompany having challenges with
the insurance policies writtenin COVID, whether they covered
losses or whether they didn't.
Another one was an investmentcompany which some of its
(33:58):
investments value just fell offa cliff.
And then a third one the topthree people in the company will
hospitalise with COVID.
So you think you've got asuccession plan.
If the CEO goes under a bus,then the CFO could step in, but
if they're all on ventilatorsand hospital, then all of a
sudden so we had the chairman ofthe company having to step in
(34:18):
and then I stepped up to takethe chairman's job and you do a
little bit of musical jazz.
So for that 12, 18 month periodI was really really busy so with
lots of other people, Whereasnow the companies I'm on the
board of are all in a steadystate and so I'm not working
crazily busy.
I think I mentioned to you thisweek, so I'm attending board
(34:41):
meetings tomorrow and Tuesday inBermuda.
Got some people flying in fromLondon, some people are in
Bermuda joining me at themeeting.
This morning I met with theLondon guys to chat about the
next couple of days.
Tonight we have a kickoffdinner, monday and Tuesday we
have two more dinners.
So it's actually a very sort ofbusy three or four days, if you
(35:01):
will, and then, as I said, nextweek I'm travelling and last
week I was busy as well.
So it's not just.
If you think about most nonexecutive roles, I've got board
meetings four to six times ayear, usually two days, and you
add that up, you think how manydays is that?
Well, I work on the principleif it's a one day meeting, I'll
spend two days preparing for itand probably half a day
(35:23):
debriefing from it.
So it actually takes about aweek or a week, and I think
that's what you need to do Again.
Gone are the days, I hope,where you read the papers on the
plane, you turn up the meeting,you say a few things, you have
lunch and you leave again.
Those sort of directors, thosesort of boards are not very
effective.
They're not the ones I do siton, or that I want to sit on?
Speaker 1 (35:44):
Yeah, so how often do you change over in boards, like
you mentioned you on differentboards on COVID and then now and
then once in answering thatquestion as well, like, can you
be effective on a board if youstay on too long?
Speaker 2 (35:59):
I don't believe so.
The UK has a rule which is amaximum of nine years.
The US, and by extensionBermuda, doesn't have that same
rule.
They just have a generalindication which is the US way.
Is we want on the board as awhole?
We want some people who arequite new and some people have
been there a while.
So we've got a mixed experiencethe UK has a view of once you've
(36:20):
been there for certainly nine,but maybe even six you're
starting to become a little bittoo familiar with everything and
so you're stopping to be socritical of stuff.
I mean, Chris, can the positive?
way then we want to change youout.
So I would say, generallyspeaking, everybody can always
persuade themselves that they'reexceptional and they need to
stay, and every company canpersuade themselves that this
(36:44):
person is really good and wewant them to stay.
But I think it's actually quitegood to have a fixed tenure,
whatever that is could be nineyears or 12 years or 15 years.
Whatever it is, it should be afixed tenure and only an
exceptional circumstances wouldyou extend it, because people
are not as good as they used tobe.
There's a little bit of alearning curve.
You're on a board and two yearsin you're oh wow.
(37:07):
I didn't realize that when Ifirst joined.
You actually learn a lot, yes,and then you contribute
massively, I hope, for the nextfive or six or seven years, and
then it starts tailing off atthe other end as well, because
then you become a bit stale.
Speaker 1 (37:17):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (37:18):
So unless the company's doing lots of massive
new things, then you sort of canbecome a little bit stale
because you've been there awhile, and so I think a
refreshment in a tenure is goodand a mixture of 10 years on the
board is good.
So if you have a couple ofpeople who've been there a
couple of years, a couple ofbeing there being maybe about 10
, and a couple in the middle, Ithink that's a healthy balance
and it tends to, by definition,be age as well.
(37:40):
So, people who have been therelonger tend to be older, and
people who have been there less,tend to be younger, and then
you have the skills mix and thegender mix and the race mix and
all of those things.
So the best functioning boardsare very diverse in the
boarder's sense.
Speaker 1 (37:55):
So what's the sweet spot of 10 year on a board,
would you say For?
Speaker 2 (37:58):
me Depends on companies, depends on the person
.
If I joined a board when I was65, I think I would do an
absolute max of 10 years,probably more like seven.
If I joined a board when I was50, I think then 10 to 15 would
be fine.
I think it depends on you andit depends what the company's
doing.
If you have a company that'sgoing through a lot of change
and a lot of acquisition, a lotof growth, I think there's a lot
(38:19):
of benefit in having peoplehave been on that journey with
you.
Yeah, because if you've got acompany in a steady state, I
think it makes more sense tochange up so that you have
different perspectives aroundthe table all the time.
Speaker 1 (38:29):
Yeah, so I'm given all this wealth of knowledge
that you have an experience fromyour career and now you're non
executive director career thatyou have Cause I feel like
that's a second career.
Speaker 2 (38:41):
It definitely has, that's right.
Speaker 1 (38:42):
Like what would be some advice you would give to
someone who maybe on a similarpath, not necessarily via
accounting, but in their career,like that, um, to a young woman
who's looking at or listeningto this and saying you know, hmm
, maybe that's something I coulddo.
What's something that you wouldgive to her in this moment?
Speaker 2 (38:58):
You mean to become a non executive?
Yeah, um, I think focus firston doing a really good job at
your executive career Cause, tobe credible, I mean, there's
always people who need nonexecutives and third sex
charities are always needingpeople.
But I think, to be credible,you've got to have some
executive experience behind you.
If you haven't, then youhaven't experienced things that
helpful around the board.
So when you're sitting aroundthe board table and there's a
(39:19):
problem I don't know could beany sort of a problem right, Um,
um, you know, a staffing issueor a branding issue or a
financial issue I think ifyou've experienced, either
through your work directly orthrough your consulting work
you've experienced somethingthere.
It won't be exactly the same,but directionally the same, Then
you can have a really goodperspective to add, Whereas I
(39:39):
think if you're quite young inyour career, all you really have
to bring to a non executiverole is the ability to work hard
, which is very valuable, butit's not the only thing.
So I would say don't beimpatient to give yourself a
little bit of time.
I had lunch with a young man atone of my companies.
I sit on the board with a coupleof months ago and he was
interested in a noise secretaryand he was only 32.
(40:00):
I think this is a wrongconversation to be having.
By all means think about it asan aspiration in 10, 15 years
time, but right now you shouldbe focusing on building your
executive career.
Don't think about it as being agood gig because it's only
relatively part time and so on.
Speaker 1 (40:16):
It's, it's it's hard work and you have to bring more
to the table, you know what Imean.
Like you're.
Like you said, your experienceis actually what is the most
valuable during your executivetime.
Speaker 2 (40:25):
Absolutely, it's your experience and your ability,
and it's also your, yourpersonal skills, it's your
ability and willingness to.
I have two jobs really as anon-executive you have two jobs.
One is to support themanagement team and one is to
challenge the management team,and by doing both of those
things, what you're doing isyou're representing the
investors and the shareholderswho are not in the room.
(40:46):
So if they were all in the room,that's what they would be doing
.
They're all in the room.
The management team would getnothing done.
So the shareholders elect asmall group of people five,
eight, whatever to do their jobfor them, delegate it
effectively.
And I said when every time I goto a board meeting, I have two
jobs to support the managementteam when they deserve it.
So you probe them and you makesure that their career sorry
(41:07):
their strategy is on track andhave they thought about this,
have they thought about that?
Or if they're going through acultural challenge, or if
they're having problems, yousupport them and you sort of put
your arm around them as a hugand and so saying this will pass
.
Speaker 1 (41:21):
Yeah, you know whatever.
Speaker 2 (41:21):
And then it's also challenging.
Really, are you sure we want toexpand in there Because, based
on everything I read, thereseems to be quite a crowd of
field.
Are you sure it makes sense?
Have we done the research?
Have we got the right people,all that sort of stuff?
So those are the two things youshould remember walking into
the room Constructive challengeand support.
Definitely Know when to dowhich one.
Speaker 1 (41:43):
Yeah, definitely You've got to be, you know,
heavy handed sometimes.
And then there's all the otherthings like being prepared to
commit the time being passionateabout the business.
Speaker 2 (41:50):
I would not want to sit on a board that I didn't
believe in the business forexample so that's almost the
first thing.
Do I believe in the business?
Do I think it's going to besuccessful?
That may not be financialsuccess, maybe a successful in
another way, but do I believeit's been successful?
And the other key thing about anon executive, which is a bit
like working in a company, buteven more important.
I think as a non exec is do youlike and trust the people and
(42:12):
can you have influence?
Because if you don't like andtrust them when things go wrong
which they will nobody's gotyour back Right, whereas if you,
that's why we do these thingslike dinners and travel together
and spend a lot of time,because when things are
difficult, you've built arelationship.
So one of the reasons I'm heretoday is because we met years
(42:32):
ago and we built a relationshipand we haven't been very active
in keeping in touch.
But when you reach out, I knowyou're immediately and you know
me and we have some idea aboutwhat we can talk about.
That takes time to build thatrelationship.
So to just not have thatrelationship with your fellow
board members is a missedopportunity really Also enables
you to be more successful.
(42:54):
And then the final one is can Imake a difference?
Two things have I got theskills to make a difference?
If they need someone who's verygood at engineering, I'm not
going to be able to make adifference right, but other
things I'm good at.
Can I make a difference?
Do I have skills and can I do?
I think they'll listen to me.
Is it a culture where the openminded is it?
Speaker 1 (43:17):
Is it one where they are?
Speaker 2 (43:18):
Interested in hearing different perspectives around
the table.
Is it a?
Collegial and supportive,non-totsick environment.
And in all of those issues.
If the answer is that tick,tick, tick, then yes, you think
about whether it's something youwant to do.
Speaker 1 (43:31):
That's so interesting I'm actually very intrigued,
because you hear about thisnon-executive director role and
so many people aspire to it andyou don't really realize what it
takes to do it.
And I think the key of what I'mgetting from you here is the
skill the skill side of it,right, like a lot of people are
doing it Absolutely.
No disrespect to the IOD course, but a lot of people are just
(43:51):
doing it, thinking that that isthe key to get into the door,
not realizing that thatexecutive work that you do is
actually the major key to helpyou with that.
Speaker 2 (44:00):
You're quite right.
The IOD courses are great, butthey're primarily great for
people who haven't had seniorexecutive careers.
I think I've done a couple ofthem.
I've not done the certification.
I thought I've had enough exams.
Speaker 1 (44:11):
I think you're going to do another one.
Speaker 2 (44:14):
But I enjoyed the courses, I learned from them.
But there are people doing itas a way to get a non-executive
role, whereas I think the way Iwould view it as a way to be
better at doing yournon-executive role, rather than
ticking a box and getting a bitlike you know, I've got my A
level, I've got my degree orwhatever it is tick now
(44:34):
qualified.
You don't really want to belooking at that way.
It's more.
There's some basics like whatare my legal obligations and
those sorts of things, but it'sa whole range of stuff.
So I wouldn't decry the IODcourse, but it's only one tool.
Speaker 1 (44:46):
Yeah, absolutely Okay .
I mean I can't believe what,almost.
I mean we've done about 45minutes here, so we're going to
just wrap up quickly.
But essentially I always askthis when I leave, you know,
when people leave the couch here, and it's essentially what I
want to know from you is whenyou're no longer with us and
you've had some time, you know,and people say you know,
(45:06):
caroline Folger, and they,they're talking about you.
What is
It's time for hustle her podcast.
I'm your host, deshae Keynes.
Hustle her is all aboutinspiring women through real
life experiences that havehelped to mold and develop not
only me but my guests into theentrepreneurs and leaders we are
today.
If you're an enterprising womandetermined to succeed and
(00:22):
looking for a bit of motivation,a bit of tough love and some
actionable takeaways to be thebest you girl, you are in the
right place.
Hey guys, and welcome back tohustle her podcast.
As always, I'm really gratefulthat you've chosen to spend some
time with me today.
I want to do a big shout out toour sponsors this year's for
(00:44):
this season.
Actually, this season isBrowning company as well as 59
front.
59 front to have some amazingproducts that we're going to be
showcasing in some laterepisodes that you can head over
there and find out some of theproducts that they have to offer
.
But make sure you head over to59 front on front street and see
some of the amazing productsthat they have for us.
Super excited about my guesttoday and I know I'm aware I say
(01:05):
that about all my guests, butgenuinely that's what makes them
so great, because I'm genuinelyexcited to interview them.
So my next guest is the nonexecutive director for financial
service companies on island,miss Caroline, how are you?
Speaker 2 (01:18):
I'm great, thank you, thank you so much for coming
Great to be here.
Yes, I'm really excited.
Speaker 1 (01:23):
We were just talking briefly pre show and I was like
wait, caroline, stop, I want youto say all of this on the
podcast.
So I'm excited to get into moreabout you, get people to know a
bit more about you and yourjourney, and we'll kick it off.
Okay, ready, all right.
So we're going to do some quick, what we like to call rapid
fires.
So, first thing that comes tomind, First thing that comes to
(01:46):
mind when I actually thequestion and then we'll go from
there.
Cool, all right.
I'm happiest when, when I'msitting in the garden looking at
the view with my cat.
Okay, and what do you do on aplane?
Speaker 2 (01:59):
On a plane.
I try to sleep if the time isright or otherwise.
I read I never watch a movie onthe plane.
That really I think the soundis terrible on a plane.
You have your own headphones,so sometimes I work, sometimes I
read for fun, sometimes I sleep.
Speaker 1 (02:12):
It's nothing like a good airplane sleep when you get
a good one right.
Exactly, I do agree the momentthe permutaflight is leaving
later it's much better, becauseI can get to sleep.
When it leaves at eight o'clockyou know you're not tired to
have a stand.
Speaker 2 (02:25):
But it's leaving at 9 , 30 and some.
Speaker 1 (02:26):
At the moment it seems to be late quite a lot too
, so you can go straight tosleep.
Yeah, that's a good one.
Yeah, it's nice, it's a perfectnap too.
Speaker 2 (02:33):
So I've got 90 minutes.
Speaker 1 (02:34):
Exactly All right, so tell me a bit about your
skincare routine.
Speaker 2 (02:39):
Well, embarrassing, because I didn't know 59 front
was your sponsor.
Now I do know I get my skincarefrom 59 front.
Speaker 1 (02:46):
Well, look at that.
Speaker 2 (02:48):
Completely coincidental.
So Clinique and Bobby Brown arethe products I like best, and I
like Joe Malone Perfume, all ofwhich I get from 59 front.
Speaker 1 (02:56):
Amazing.
Look at that, just alignmentwith the sponsor.
I don't know All right.
What did you spend your firstbig paycheck on?
Like what was something youbought yourself.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
The first thing I bought myself when I grew up,
when I was at school or just auniversity.
Speaker 1 (03:11):
But I was.
Speaker 2 (03:12):
I was doing a casual job in the holidays and I saved
up for a stereo.
Most of your listeners areprobably too young to remember
stereo.
This was like a big thing thathad a tape deck and a record
deck and a radio and speakers,and I remember it cost 200
pounds which was like 300dollars, yeah, and I think I
worked for six weeks to really,and every week I'll go and look
at it and think, as soon as Igot the money, I'm going to buy
(03:33):
this Right.
And then you finally did.
I finally did, yeah, and I tookit with me when I went to
university.
It took like half my room, yeah, but I was so proud of it, it
was really great.
How big was it?
Oh, I don't know.
Speaker 1 (03:43):
Four feet by two feet or something.
Can you imagine like that's howbig things were.
And then we carry around phonesthat have everything on it.
Speaker 2 (03:50):
now it's amazing Basically we're really old
because you would play what kidsnow call vinyl yeah, quads on
them and each other record lastslike 15 minutes and you got to
get up and turn it over andstart again, really, yes Whereas
now you can just I do this allthe time you might.
I put my when I go to bed if Iwant to sleep drifting off to
something.
I set the timer for either abook or music 45 minutes or
(04:11):
something like that and I wakeup in the morning and I've
always missed the second half ofwhat I was trying to read.
Speaker 1 (04:16):
Every time I know it ends up watching or looking at
me and whatever.
That is Exactly Okay.
What does love feel like?
Speaker 2 (04:24):
Oh, love, love feels cozy and comfortable and
protected and safe and a reallygood place to be so wrapped up,
like being wrapped up in areally nice blanket.
Speaker 1 (04:35):
Nice, okay, what are you listening to right now?
Speaker 2 (04:39):
Gosh.
In terms of music, I'mlistening to jazz.
So when I was in London,recently I went to a couple of
open air jazz concerts.
Speaker 1 (04:45):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (04:45):
There was a guy playing the music of Quintin
Collins.
I don't know if you knowQuintin Collins.
Speaker 1 (04:49):
I'd never heard him before.
Speaker 2 (04:51):
But jazz music is great, so I downloaded some of
that from Apple Music and I'vebeen listening to that quite a
bit Okay.
And I'm listening to a talkingbook as well, which I always
find.
Talking books take me foreverbecause I fall asleep or I'm not
in the car or I'm not cooking,and then I haven't listened to
it for a week or something.
I'm listening to a talking bookat the moment, which is an old
Frederick Forsythe novel.
(05:12):
Okay, I really like crimenovels.
Speaker 1 (05:14):
Ah, okay, tommy, a hidden talent Hidden talent.
Or a talent not very manypeople know about.
Speaker 2 (05:23):
That's a tricky one.
I think other people wouldprobably be able to tell you
that better than me.
I'm not good at that.
People wouldn't know.
Uh, photography maybe, okay,yeah.
Speaker 1 (05:32):
Nice, what type of?
Speaker 2 (05:32):
photography, wildlife , particularly so when I left
PwC and we'll talk a bit aboutmy PwC career they gave me as a
leaving gift, a very nice cameraand a couple of lenses and I
took it up as a hobby becauseall of my career had been
numerate writing and sort oftraditional skills and when I
was not going to be workingfull-time I wanted to do
(05:54):
something creative and I thoughtI'm never going to sing or play
the piano or paint or draw.
So I got PwC by my camera.
Nice, that's my big hobby.
Speaker 1 (06:02):
Nice, okay, I think I have some talents at it.
Yeah, there you go.
That's a hidden one.
There you go Now.
Speaker 2 (06:06):
You have an answer for that.
Exactly, yeah.
Speaker 1 (06:09):
Okay, so growing up, who was your celebrity crush?
Speaker 2 (06:14):
This will offend a lot of people, so forgive me, I
grew up in the UK and the personI most admired.
I'm not a crush, but most of mymost wanted to be like was
Margaret Thatcher, which I knowis a very diverse, divisive
person and lots of people don'tlike her.
Speaker 1 (06:29):
I really, she really resonated with me because she
was a woman succeeding in theamount of world.
Speaker 2 (06:33):
And made me realize as a young, strenuous teenager
that women could do anything andcould really be the top of
their game, whatever it was, soI found it very inspirational.
Speaker 1 (06:43):
Yeah, like a celebrity crush.
Yeah, I get it though.
Yeah, I think the MargaretThatcher, you're correct, it
depends on who you're talking toand how people feel it's a good
.
Speaker 2 (06:50):
Hate her, I know, hate her politics and so, but if
I think, if you ignore herpolitics, I think she was a
woman in a man's world.
She knew what she wanted andwent and got her, whether you
agree with it or not, and shereally made her mark.
I'm going to talk about ittoday.
Speaker 1 (07:03):
To say which.
If you have, you know you candisagree.
For politics, yes, absolutely.
Speaker 2 (07:07):
Can't take away from that right Lots of people
disagree with her politics Someof them.
I disagree with you, but Ireally admire what she achieved
in terms of the handicap she hashad against her in those days
when she was born, in the 40s or50s, when women were just
supposed to stay at home and getmarried and have kids and look
at her, and she went on andforged a career that's still
(07:27):
talked about with all around theworld.
Speaker 1 (07:28):
Okay, all right, and I know you've been in Bermuda
for quite some time and I'm notsure if you have a Bermuda team
or not, but I ask everyone thisquestion who is your cut match
team?
Speaker 2 (07:40):
Oh, that's a really tricky one.
I have been in Bermuda a longtime, but I don't really follow
cut match.
I live near Ritter St George's,so I live in Ritter St George's
, that's my team.
Okay, I've only been to the cutmatch event twice, but I do
usually watch it on TV.
Speaker 1 (07:56):
Okay, all right.
So St George's then, I guessAll right, I won't be too upset
about that, caroline, but it'sokay.
I'm going to say, did I?
Speaker 2 (08:04):
get the colors right, because I don't like red, I
like blue.
Okay, st George's a little bittoo blue.
Yes, st George's too blue.
So then there you go.
That's perfect.
That's another reason.
Exactly, all right.
Speaker 1 (08:13):
So tell me a little bit about you growing up, like
what did you like to do, whatdid you like to get involved in?
What did you think?
Did you always know you weregoing to be an accountant?
Like tell me about youngCaroline.
Speaker 2 (08:24):
Sure, young Caroline, I definitely didn't always want
to be an accountant.
I used to read a lot, I was areader and again, I grew up in
the 70s, right?
So therefore, again, probably alot before a lot of your guys
listening were around.
But I would listen to pop music, you know.
I would get a Discos and stufflike that, which were all very
(08:45):
wholesome in those days.
Young people Like teenagers,young teenagers like what are
you called tweens today?
They don't go off to Discos andwe'd have Coke and dance around
in the room and stuff.
So I did a lot of that.
I did a lot of reading when Iwas at university.
You probably wouldn't think ofthat, so I played in women's
football team Really.
Speaker 1 (09:01):
That was great.
What was your?
Speaker 2 (09:02):
position, my position oh, it was to the left of
center.
Speaker 1 (09:06):
OK Center left back right, I don't remember.
I don't remember.
Yes, Center forward.
Speaker 2 (09:11):
Not the person in the middle, not the captain On the
ones on one side.
Yes, I did that for a term whenI was at university.
That was great fun.
Speaker 1 (09:16):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (09:17):
Again, it was really groundbreaking because you can
have women's football in thosedays and now, when you see like
the.
England team do really well inwomen's football.
Speaker 1 (09:24):
It's great to see yeah, definitely OK.
And so when you were finishingschool and you were heading off
to, did you do college first inthe UK?
Speaker 2 (09:33):
I went to university from school, yeah, so I lived
obviously lived at home with myparents in the UK.
I went to university in London,which is what I really wanted
to do, and I did my three yearsthere and I again less common
this side of the world, but inthe UK it's very common that you
do a degree in something you'reinterested in.
That's not so vocational andthen you choose your career?
(09:54):
Yes, obviously, if you domedicine or law or something, or
, hopefully, engineering youknow what you're doing, but I
was a history graduate so I didhistory at university because I
liked it.
I really enjoyed it Was.
Speaker 1 (10:03):
I ever a history degree as well.
You did history as well.
Yes, I did.
I see that.
Yeah, I've got a lot in common.
Speaker 2 (10:07):
I know, and I definitely didn't always want to
be an accountant, but I wantedto work in the business
environment and I just sort ofas time goes on.
I definitely didn't want toteach all the obvious things for
history, right, you're aresearcher, you're a teacher,
you work in a library.
You don't want to do any ofthose things.
I wanted to work in businessand the one that was easiest to
(10:29):
get into when I graduated wasaccountancy.
So I became an accountant withthe.
I was I think you know I waswith PWC in Bermudon, was a
partner there.
Actually started my training inthe UK with a predecessor firm
of PWC.
Okay, so I sort of came fullcircle and then joined them
again in Bermuda and then becamea partner with them here.
Speaker 1 (10:49):
Okay, so how did you end up in Bermuda?
Speaker 2 (10:51):
I did my three years at what was called Coops and
Library and now.
Pwc qualifies as an accountantand I wanted to carry on living
in London.
But it's a little bit like it istoday it's very difficult to
get your foot on a housingladder if you're paying rent, if
you're all of your money isgoing to pay rent, so you can't
save for a deposit, so you can'tbuy in where to live in.
(11:12):
Bermuda's as bad for youngpeople, but the UK is
particularly bad now, much worsethan for me.
So I thought I don't want tospend my life renting.
Speaker 1 (11:20):
But I really want to live in London, so how am?
Speaker 2 (11:22):
I going to get a deposit together.
I know I'll go and workoverseas for a couple of years
make some money and come backand get on with my life.
And so I said where am I goingto go?
Somewhere warm and somewhere tospeak English.
Speaker 1 (11:33):
And it was almost that simple, yeah.
Speaker 2 (11:35):
So I applied for a job in Australia in the Cayman
Islands and in Bermuda, andBermuda was the first one that
came back to me Really thatsimple, and I'm so, so glad I
came here.
Speaker 1 (11:43):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (11:44):
I've been to Cayman a few times while I've been
living here, and it's just.
I don't know if I offendedanyone from Cayman listening,
but I.
Bermuda is just straight aheadof Cayman in my opinion.
Speaker 1 (11:53):
Have you been there?
Yeah, I've been to Cayman once,yes, and I wasn't.
I mean, it's difficult whenyou're from an island, right,
you always compare it to whereyou're from, and just let's just
say I prefer Bermuda as well.
Speaker 2 (12:04):
And the main reason I prefer Bermuda is because from
almost anywhere you are inBermuda, you can see the ocean,
yeah, or, and definitely, youcan see the trees, yeah, whereas
in Cayman, firstly, there aremuch less trees because it's
much drier and hotter, and it'sflat and flat.
But also the all the beaches andoceans, it feels to me anyway,
are all occupied by the privatehomes or the hotels.
Yes, so as a as a normalresident, if you're not staying
(12:27):
in a hotel, you haven't got tobe house or you don't have a
beach membership.
You can't go to the beach.
Yeah, because everywhere inBermuda every person in Bermuda
if they want to go to the beachcan go to the beach.
Speaker 1 (12:34):
Yeah, that's that's a really fair point.
I never thought of it like that.
So you said you were only goingto come here for a few years
save up and how many years laterare we now?
We are now.
Speaker 2 (12:45):
Oh gosh, 36 years, wow, isn't that scary.
So I came for two and the endof two.
I hadn't saved enough moneybecause I'd spent it all.
I thought I'll save for twomore.
Ok, and during the second two Imet who's now my husband.
Speaker 1 (12:58):
So we decided to get married and stay here.
Speaker 2 (12:59):
Ok, he had come to Bermuda for two years with his
parents when he was 10 years old.
Wow, his parents came for twoyears as well, and then and they
stayed forever, and so he grewup here.
And then I met him, obviously,and then we decided to make
Bermuda our home.
We stayed here.
Speaker 1 (13:14):
That's amazing.
So walk me through your careerat PWC.
Speaker 2 (13:18):
Sure, my career at PWC.
Well, I was very lucky with noplanning because of the timing.
It's like when I came out tojoin PWC.
It was amazing because theinsurance industry here was just
starting off, so Acer and Excelwere just being formed.
They're obviously now AXA, andgosh, what a chub.
Chub and AXA.
They were Acer and Excel.
(13:38):
Then they were brand newcompanies, and so Bermuda was
really just starting to take offin that sphere.
We'd always had captives.
Obviously, the tourism industrywas going gangbusters at that
point, but the insuranceindustry was new, and so I was
able to start working in a newindustry on a level playing
field with everyone else inBermuda, because nobody else
(13:59):
knew much about insurance either, and so therefore, the fact I'd
come from the UK and didn'tknow much about insurance was
not the handicap.
It would be if I came today,for example.
So I was able to start workingwith these great companies.
And you know as well as I, butinsurance companies in Bermuda
are always doing exciting thingsbecause they're nimble and they
come here for the regulatorypragmatism and they've generally
(14:21):
got a lot of dollars in theircapital base and so they're
always doing new stuff.
They're always startups,they're always pushing the
envelope, and so I was able tofirstly work with really
interesting companies doingreally interesting things, but
also grow with them.
So when I first started workingwith Excel, for example, as a
service rider, they probably had20 people, so I knew everyone,
(14:42):
and then you turn around andfive years later, 200 people
still know everyone.
That's a really great way tohave a career.
So I was very lucky in mytiming that I grew with the
industry.
Speaker 1 (14:54):
OK, and then you stayed in insurance and
reinsurance during your time atPWC.
Speaker 2 (14:58):
I did mostly yeah.
Speaker 1 (14:59):
So was the goal always to end in partnership
there.
Speaker 2 (15:03):
I think so.
Yes, I mean now the firms are alittle bit, not a little bit, a
lot more, but just for pyramid.
When I was coming through anyof the firms Deloitte, kpmg, pwc
they would all be the same, allof the accountants there.
It was an up or out mentality.
So either you wanted to be apartner and you were going to
become a partner on the track,or you weren't going to become a
(15:25):
partner, in which case youprobably decided you wanted to
leave and go to something else.
So, for a variety of reasons,either you didn't want the life,
or you weren't suited to it orwhatever it may be.
If you go and work in industry,you can be the chief accountant
forever.
You don't have to aspire to bethe CFO and CEO and the chairman
, whereas when you're in a PWCand when the accounting firms in
(15:47):
those days they almost had aphilosophy of up or out, so as
long as you were progressingthey wanted you to stay.
Once you started progressingyou were often seen as a blocker
for the people coming behind.
Now the firms are a lot better.
Now they have career paths forall sorts of people.
Some people want to stay atcertain levels, some people want
to go in a different direction,some people are working in
(16:09):
non-accounting parts of the firm.
They can all have reallyfulfilling careers.
But I think when I was comingthrough in those days it was
very much.
If you didn't want to be apartner or you weren't able to
be a partner or for whateverother reason, you probably would
self-select out and go and dosomething else.
So the longer I stayed, themore it became obvious it was a
track.
Speaker 1 (16:29):
And during that time, when you were coming up, when
you were matriculating throughPWC, did you find, were you?
Obviously there were more malesduring that time.
But was it just you, or werethere other women as well?
Speaker 2 (16:43):
There are other women in the firm, certainly, but I
was the first partner at PwC inBermuda and probably the second
or third partner in anyaccounting firm in Bermuda.
Speaker 1 (16:52):
Wow, that was female.
Speaker 2 (16:53):
It was female yes.
So it's quite a lonely role tobe in at the beginning, and I
have an anecdote I could sharewith you of quite significant
chauvinism, but generallyspeaking, my colleagues were
incredibly supportive of me.
They made me a partner right.
They didn't have to do that,and so they were very supportive
.
There's a couple I could callout who were particularly great
(17:15):
to me really good mentorsthrough my career.
But yes, it was difficult, andchallenging is probably a better
way of putting it.
Speaker 1 (17:25):
Yeah, what were some of the biggest challenges, would
you say.
Speaker 2 (17:28):
I think you get noticed very quickly can be a
good thing or a bad thing.
So everybody always remembersyou oh, it's that female partner
or whatever.
And that's great when you'redoing something good.
It's less great when youstumble, and so people always
remember, Because if you're oneof the guys in a gray suit,
people, particularly outside thefirm, they don't necessarily
remember which one of you it was, Whereas if you're the only
(17:50):
female, then of course theyremember immediately where you
were.
Equally well, they alwaysremember you for good stuff.
So people would then say oh,we'd like to interview a couple
of your partners, maybe a maleand a female, and so because
there's anyone female, youalways get to do that.
Speaker 1 (18:03):
Got it.
Speaker 2 (18:04):
So I got a lot of profiling.
I got a lot of opportunity todo public speaking at
conferences and things like that.
It was great.
I also got a lot of opportunityto mentor people which I really
, really loved.
And now that I don't work fulltime in a company, that's
actually the thing I miss themost is having a formal
mentoring relationship withpeople.
Speaker 1 (18:24):
Both men and women.
I really enjoy it.
So.
Speaker 2 (18:26):
I try and seek out those opportunities for people
and people seek out me as well.
And it's great to feel that youcan give back, and you can a
little bit like we're doingtoday.
You can just mention a coupleof things from your past.
That might be helpful or helpthem think through things,
Because if you're in the middleof a challenge, you can't always
see straight or you get quiteemotional about it or whatever
it may be, and maybe somebodywho's been there or somebody who
(18:47):
isn't so emotionally involvedcan actually help you think it
through a little bit more.
Have you thought about it thisway?
Have you considered thatactually this person may not
just be really horrible perhapsthey're having a bad day or
whatever and help people reframeit a little bit, which is
hopefully useful for them?
Speaker 1 (19:01):
Yeah, absolutely.
I think it's really importantto have people like that in your
life, you know what I mean, Ithink, it is Especially
professionally, becausesometimes, when things are
happening to us in ourprofessions we're so close to it
, we have these very emotionalresponses right, we tend to take
it all very personally Exactly.
Speaker 2 (19:16):
And it's almost always not personal.
You know, as I said, someone'shaving a bad day or they, I
don't know whatever.
There are all sorts of reasonswhy they might behave the way
they do.
Speaker 1 (19:25):
My mom is a business teacher and she has this like
philosophy.
She'll be so happy that I'vesaid this.
Hopefully she watches thisepisode, but with her it's
always it's not personal, it'sjust business, right?
Speaker 2 (19:33):
Absolutely.
Speaker 1 (19:34):
And so she tells her students that all the time.
It's like always a theme of herclassroom.
And so it's so interesting thatyou said that, because
literally some things are notpersonal, they're really not,
it's just business.
But when they're happening toyou.
Speaker 2 (19:44):
you take them personally and over the years I
definitely took a lot of thingspersonally which now I look back
, I shouldn't have got soexcited about it.
I really should have justrealized it.
A it was nothing personal or BI was actually women,
particularly you, would youprobably have experiences to.
You tend to have the impostersyndrome too, so you tend to
think, if I haven't beenselected for this, or I haven't
(20:04):
won at this, or somebody didn'tspeak to me about that because
I'm not very good at my job?
Of course it isn't.
They were just walking down thecorridor thinking about getting
a coffee.
They weren't ignoring you,Whereas you tend to internalize
all of that Because a little bitof imposter syndrome and all
the other things that go with it.
Speaker 1 (20:21):
And within your career.
Sometimes it wasn't as personal, but did you ever encounter
times where it was personalbecause you were a woman?
Oh, yeah, yeah, don't do it now.
Speaker 2 (20:30):
I'll tell you a story without naming anyone.
I told this story to a fewpeople.
I don't know if the personinvolved ever realized what they
actually did, but it wasn'tlong after I had become a
partner at PwC and we had avisitor I kind of remember who
it was now coming into the tothe boardroom and met with a few
of us and he sort of said sohow many partners do you have
here now?
And the guy who was with mesaid 12, but it's really just 11
(20:53):
.
Cause one of them's a woman.
No way, Absolutely In front ofyou, Absolutely In front of me,
in front of lots of other peopletoo.
Oh my goodness, I was like whatdo you say to that?
Right?
Speaker 1 (21:04):
Could you imagine if someone said that in 2023?
Yeah, he fired.
Speaker 2 (21:07):
Immediately, immediately, absolutely
immediately.
But he just sort of laughed andcarried on and to their credit,
two of my other male colleaguesjumped in and were really
forceful with him.
I said no, she has to sayanything.
Speaker 1 (21:18):
That's good.
Which is I remember?
Speaker 2 (21:20):
it what?
15 years later, 20 years later,that's crazy.
Speaker 1 (21:23):
I remember it.
Yeah, because something likethat is of course not, but it's
so impressionable on you thatpeople don't realize sometimes.
Oh yeah, you're making a joke,but in actual fact you look at
yourself.
Well, wait, was I only made apartner?
Speaker 2 (21:35):
And you do?
You start questioning yourself.
Was I only made a partnerbecause I was a woman.
Was it counting numbers?
Was it the early years of DEI?
All that sort of stuff?
And of course I said of courseI am sure none of that was true
Sort of all of a sudden it's thewhole imposter thing again.
But this guy, he probablydidn't remember it 10 minutes
later.
Speaker 1 (21:52):
Yeah, probably not, but what I love the most about
that story is your otherco-workers jumping in on your
behalf, which was great yeah.
Speaker 2 (21:58):
Couple of the guys.
They were younger than him andmy sort of age.
They jumped right in and calledhim out and that was the best
part of the story.
Speaker 1 (22:05):
That's amazing.
So, with having this kind ofpioneering career right and when
I say that meaning likeobviously you were the first
female partner at PWC and otherfirms in Bermuda period what
type of pressure did you feelduring that time, if any?
Speaker 2 (22:21):
I think it's the always being front and center.
If you mess something up, theysay, oh well, it's because
you've got a woman.
If you had a male partner, thatwould never have happened.
You've always got real pressurenot to do female things.
So, for example, don't getupset, don't cry, don't be
emotional.
So that was the pressure.
I always thought that had to bebetter than everybody else in
the world.
Time to prove that they wereright to have given me the
(22:44):
opportunity.
Speaker 1 (22:46):
So, that's.
Speaker 2 (22:47):
I mean, lots of people feel that today still, of
course, but it was just verynoticeable.
If I said to you now how manyfemale partners are there in the
county firms in Bermuda, youprobably don't know the answer,
and I don't either, but I tellyou it's quite a lot, whereas if
you'd asked somebody that 20years ago they'd have named two
or three people and everybodyknew who they were, and it
wasn't just the accounting firms, of course, it was the law
(23:08):
firms, as well.
All of those professionalpractices.
Speaker 1 (23:12):
So, given that we have made progress in this space
in terms of gender balance isthere anything that you are
still a little disappointed within terms of the progress that
we've made with gender parityand balance in Bermuda period
across the sectors?
I guess the thing I'd be lessabout gender and more about race
(23:33):
, I think, which I'm stilldisappointed with in.
Speaker 2 (23:35):
Bermuda, where we haven't got the racial parity we
should have.
I believe that everyone now is.
I hope everyone now is tryingto really focus on it.
Dei is a big buzzword.
Everyone talks about it, wehave the dive-in festival, all
sorts of things like that, butit is taking a very long time.
Maybe it took a very long timeto get the first few females as
(23:56):
well, but because I was one ofthem, if I was my mother's
generation, I'd probably feelvery differently.
I was very lucky I was again.
Timing is everything.
Timing of me coming to Bermudawas great Timing of me entering
the workforce and being a female.
I had opportunities forgenerations before me Couldn't
even dream of.
I think we're on that journey,but we're not quite where we
(24:17):
need to be in terms of black andwhite in Bermuda as well.
Speaker 1 (24:19):
Yeah, no, I agree with you and I think when you
look at the wider community ofBermuda outside of the insurance
and reinsurance industry, it'sso interesting because our wider
community is a completelydifferent racial balance than it
is inside of An internationalbusiness.
Speaker 2 (24:33):
I'm absolutely right.
Speaker 1 (24:34):
And it's so unique in that way because in other parts
of the world in the UK, in theUS a lot of times it's more
difficult for them to understandthat because it's very
different in the wider communityas well.
But here it's like well, no,it's the complete opposite.
So it's very interesting thatyou said that we haven't made
that much progress.
It means to me we do have somuch more to go and we have done
(24:56):
some things.
We've done a lot.
Speaker 2 (24:58):
It's also the further you come, the more you realize
you have to go.
I think one of the challengesin Bermuda's international
business sector is that we don'thave very large companies.
So if you have 200 people inBermuda, a really big company,
if you are in the UK or the US,you'd have 5,000 people and
obviously the bigger you are,the flatter is the pyramid.
So there are more entry levelopportunities and therefore
(25:20):
there are more people cominginto them and there are more
opportunities to progress up,Because Bermuda international
companies tend to be quitepointed and that they, as I
mentioned earlier, withinsurance and reinsurance.
They tend to be the more seniorpeople here, whereas the more
junior people would be back inthe UK or the US, or wherever it
is.
And so that's by definition.
(25:41):
You don't have the same numberof entry level jobs, which
creates a challenge.
Yeah definitely.
Speaker 1 (25:45):
I think we are doing better we are I definitely can
say that, but I do agree withyou that there are things that
we could do a bit moreintentional about.
Absolutely Very muchintentional and I think, coming
back to gender, I think theforward thinking companies like
the PWC in the world today theyare very much more forward
thinking in terms of gender andindeed about race.
Speaker 2 (26:06):
They've changed exponentially in 20 years.
There's also a different careerpath for genders and for
different people who want to dodifferent things.
There's much bigger internprograms, Again, if I I
shouldn't really be speaking forPWC, because I don't work there
anymore but I do follow them ontheir social media and LinkedIn
and stuff and so when I wasthere we maybe had four interns
a year out of 200.
(26:27):
And now they probably had 25interns a year out of 200.
And that's a huge difference.
And the more interns you bringin, obviously the more
opportunities you'll bring intothe local population, be they
black or white, I think that'sreally good.
Speaker 1 (26:38):
It is good, and it also, you know, it also builds a
pipeline of talent, right,exactly so, when people are
coming in as well, and there's awhole thing about if you don't
see it, you can't be it and soon, exactly.
Speaker 2 (26:49):
And so people now know people who are working in
the business sector, and so ifyou see that, you can feel you
can aspire to it, whereas if youdon't see it, it's much more
difficult to see yourself inthat role.
Speaker 1 (26:59):
Yeah, which again comes back to being one of the
first women to do things andthey are.
Speaker 2 (27:03):
And the Margaret Thatcher inspiration.
Having seen Margaret Thatcherdo stuff, and if you were, if
you were a young black Bermudianfemale here, you might see
someone like Pamela Banks orPatricia Gordon-Pamplin or Paula
Cox and see that as yourinspiration.
Speaker 1 (27:17):
Absolutely, and Jennifer and all these people.
They've been inspirational.
I hope in similar ways to thecommunity here.
Yeah, absolutely.
So you know, on the journey ofyour career at PWC and you're
sending into partnership, youobviously married during this
time.
How did you do both?
Because obviously being anaccountant is really a demanding
job, and then having a familyas well.
(27:38):
Tell me a bit about how thatwas for you.
Speaker 2 (27:40):
It was a challenge, but I was fortunate or
unfortunate, but in terms ofmanaging it didn't have young
children, so I didn't havechildren myself.
I had a stepson, but he didn'tlive with us full-time,
obviously, he had his mother andso he was 10 when I came along,
so I missed all the sleeplessnights and baby things, which
made it much easier, of course,in terms of managing a career.
But certainly I remember someof my younger colleagues saying
(28:03):
to me it's all right for youbeing a partner because you
don't have kids, you can make ithappen, you can focus on your
career, and I think that was thecase then.
Now, of course, it's verydifferent.
Men and women want to focus onfamily and career.
How do you make it work?
I think it's a phallus to sayyou can have it all.
But I think you can have it all, but not at the same time.
And one thing that people cansometimes forget is that your
(28:27):
career whether you take a breakor have kids or don't is very
long, and most people will startworking in their early 20s and
will stop working in their earlyor late 60s.
That's a 40-year career.
So if you take five years outor even 10 years out, it
actually doesn't matter.
One of the days, I hope, whereyou need to achieve this by this
age, because now it doesn'tmatter.
(28:48):
So if, for example, you want totake a career break and bring
up kids, or you want to take acareer break and help your
father because he's elderly.
You can do that and you canstill have it all.
What you maybe can't do is haveit all this year.
Speaker 1 (29:00):
Yeah, which I think is a really good point to make.
I think we are changing thenarrative a bit about having it
all, but I love how you said youmay not have it all this year,
but it may happen throughoutyour time.
It'll happen throughout yourtime.
Speaker 2 (29:13):
And at times, other things are important.
I'm going to pick an example.
If you're a young person andyou're really into sport.
Well, maybe you want a jobthat's reasonably nine to five
and reasonably consistent,because it's really important to
you to go and train a couple ofnights a week and play your
sport on the weekend and be ableto take some time off and go
and compete for Bermuda, orwhatever it might be.
(29:36):
And at this point in your life,when you're at a point where you
can be really professionallycompetitive at sport, then maybe
your career takes a little bitof a backseat and you focus on
that, and then maybe, when yoursporting days are a little bit
more behind you, then you focusa bit on your career or you
focus on your family or whatever.
But gone are the days, I think,where you had to achieve
everything by the time you were35 or 40.
(29:56):
And if you weren't keeping upyour period, you fell behind and
so on.
I mean, we haven't reallytalked about age disparities as
well, but we've talked aboutgender and race, but I think age
as well is really important.
You now have workingpopulations of people when you
get past the intern stage peoplehave all sorts of different
levels.
People are going out and comingback and creating fluid take
(30:20):
some time off and go dosomething else.
I met a month or so ago withArlene Brock who, you may know
she was a former ombudsman.
Speaker 1 (30:27):
Yes, yes, yes.
Speaker 2 (30:28):
And then she left Bermuda for a while and she went
back to the university and shedid a whole bunch of things and
then she went to work in Africaand now she's coming back to
Bermuda and now she's doingcharitable work.
So she's my sort of age.
But the point being, you can dovarious things.
Crewers used to be straightlines and now they're far more
zigzag, so you can do anythingand be anything you want, but
you maybe can't do it all atonce.
Speaker 1 (30:49):
Yeah, definitely.
So I want to shift a bit intoyour transition from PWC into
your board work, and I believewe call it non-executive
director.
So what was Non-executive?
Speaker 2 (31:01):
just means part time.
Yeah so you're part time.
I'm just joking.
Speaker 1 (31:05):
So what was the shift in that?
Were you just ready to leavePWC at the time, or did you just
see this opportunity on theboard side of things?
Speaker 2 (31:14):
A little bit of both.
So the opportunity was thereand I think, being non-executive
, you can be a non-executive.
Most people are probably notvery qualified to be
non-executives early in theircareer because you need to have
done stuff as an executivebefore you can be a credible
non-executive.
And I said jokinglynon-executive is part time.
It is, but it's also, bydefinition, not full time in the
(31:36):
business.
So an executive person is allover it running the company and
non-executive person is slightlyaway so that they can apply a
different sort of oversight.
Speaker 1 (31:48):
That's really what it means there.
Speaker 2 (31:50):
So by definition, I think you can't be a
non-executive when you're youngbecause you haven't had enough
experience in whatever it is.
So it tends to be people whoare sort of over 40, maybe even
over 50.
I think we don't have so manypeople now in their 70s and 80s
which they used to have back inthe day, so the transition was
partly opportunistic in that Iwas around about 50 and I
(32:12):
thought what do I want to do forthe next 10 to 15 years of my
life?
Do I want to carry on with withPWC or be a full-time?
executive role in the insuranceindustry, for example and I
decided I want to have adifferent life.
I felt at that point I'd spenta lot of my career advising
clients, because that's what youdo places like PWC and
attending board meetings andgoing to boardrooms.
(32:33):
You know, when you and I firstmet, I was on the board of the
BDA and you were working in theBDA and so therefore I was a
non-executive there, and thatgives you the opportunity to
have a bit more of a portfoliocareer because when you're an
executive, you work in a companyBDA, XL, PWC, whatever it is.
When you're a non-executive, youwork with several and you get a
(32:54):
little bit of diversity, whichis great diversity of experience
.
I mean, you do get, quitefrankly, a different work-life
balance.
So I sit on five boards and Iprobably work about 30% of the
year but not in a book.
So this week and last week I wasvery busy.
Next week I'm travelling forbusiness and then I have about
three weeks when I have no boardmeetings.
(33:15):
So I'll be spending that timethinking, reading, writing, but
not full-time, and so I havethat sort of ability to balance
my life.
So, depending on what's goingon with the company, it's almost
a third and a half, and whenthe company is going through
challenges good challenges orbad challenges you also need to
spend a lot more time with them.
So we were talking just beforewe started recording, about
(33:36):
COVID.
So during my COVID time I wason five boards.
It's for different five boardsthat are now but each of them
was having challenges duringCOVID, so it was basically a
very full-time job.
So one of them was an insurancecompany having challenges with
the insurance policies writtenin COVID, whether they covered
losses or whether they didn't.
Another one was an investmentcompany which some of its
(33:58):
investments value just fell offa cliff.
And then a third one the topthree people in the company will
hospitalise with COVID.
So you think you've got asuccession plan.
If the CEO goes under a bus,then the CFO could step in, but
if they're all on ventilatorsand hospital, then all of a
sudden so we had the chairman ofthe company having to step in
(34:18):
and then I stepped up to takethe chairman's job and you do a
little bit of musical jazz.
So for that 12, 18 month periodI was really really busy so with
lots of other people, Whereasnow the companies I'm on the
board of are all in a steadystate and so I'm not working
crazily busy.
I think I mentioned to you thisweek, so I'm attending board
(34:41):
meetings tomorrow and Tuesday inBermuda.
Got some people flying in fromLondon, some people are in
Bermuda joining me at themeeting.
This morning I met with theLondon guys to chat about the
next couple of days.
Tonight we have a kickoffdinner, monday and Tuesday we
have two more dinners.
So it's actually a very sort ofbusy three or four days, if you
(35:01):
will, and then, as I said, nextweek I'm travelling and last
week I was busy as well.
So it's not just.
If you think about most nonexecutive roles, I've got board
meetings four to six times ayear, usually two days, and you
add that up, you think how manydays is that?
Well, I work on the principleif it's a one day meeting, I'll
spend two days preparing for itand probably half a day
(35:23):
debriefing from it.
So it actually takes about aweek or a week, and I think
that's what you need to do Again.
Gone are the days, I hope,where you read the papers on the
plane, you turn up the meeting,you say a few things, you have
lunch and you leave again.
Those sort of directors, thosesort of boards are not very
effective.
They're not the ones I do siton, or that I want to sit on?
Speaker 1 (35:44):
Yeah, so how often do you change over in boards, like
you mentioned you on differentboards on COVID and then now and
then once in answering thatquestion as well, like, can you
be effective on a board if youstay on too long?
Speaker 2 (35:59):
I don't believe so.
The UK has a rule which is amaximum of nine years.
The US, and by extensionBermuda, doesn't have that same
rule.
They just have a generalindication which is the US way.
Is we want on the board as awhole?
We want some people who arequite new and some people have
been there a while.
So we've got a mixed experiencethe UK has a view of once you've
(36:20):
been there for certainly nine,but maybe even six you're
starting to become a little bittoo familiar with everything and
so you're stopping to be socritical of stuff.
I mean, Chris, can the positive?
way then we want to change youout.
So I would say, generallyspeaking, everybody can always
persuade themselves that they'reexceptional and they need to
stay, and every company canpersuade themselves that this
(36:44):
person is really good and wewant them to stay.
But I think it's actually quitegood to have a fixed tenure,
whatever that is could be nineyears or 12 years or 15 years.
Whatever it is, it should be afixed tenure and only an
exceptional circumstances wouldyou extend it, because people
are not as good as they used tobe.
There's a little bit of alearning curve.
You're on a board and two yearsin you're oh wow.
(37:07):
I didn't realize that when Ifirst joined.
You actually learn a lot, yes,and then you contribute
massively, I hope, for the nextfive or six or seven years, and
then it starts tailing off atthe other end as well, because
then you become a bit stale.
Speaker 1 (37:17):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (37:18):
So unless the company's doing lots of massive
new things, then you sort of canbecome a little bit stale
because you've been there awhile, and so I think a
refreshment in a tenure is goodand a mixture of 10 years on the
board is good.
So if you have a couple ofpeople who've been there a
couple of years, a couple ofbeing there being maybe about 10
, and a couple in the middle, Ithink that's a healthy balance
and it tends to, by definition,be age as well.
(37:40):
So, people who have been therelonger tend to be older, and
people who have been there less,tend to be younger, and then
you have the skills mix and thegender mix and the race mix and
all of those things.
So the best functioning boardsare very diverse in the
boarder's sense.
Speaker 1 (37:55):
So what's the sweet spot of 10 year on a board,
would you say For?
Speaker 2 (37:58):
me Depends on companies, depends on the person
.
If I joined a board when I was65, I think I would do an
absolute max of 10 years,probably more like seven.
If I joined a board when I was50, I think then 10 to 15 would
be fine.
I think it depends on you andit depends what the company's
doing.
If you have a company that'sgoing through a lot of change
and a lot of acquisition, a lotof growth, I think there's a lot
(38:19):
of benefit in having peoplehave been on that journey with
you.
Yeah, because if you've got acompany in a steady state, I
think it makes more sense tochange up so that you have
different perspectives aroundthe table all the time.
Speaker 1 (38:29):
Yeah, so I'm given all this wealth of knowledge
that you have an experience fromyour career and now you're non
executive director career thatyou have Cause I feel like
that's a second career.
Speaker 2 (38:41):
It definitely has, that's right.
Speaker 1 (38:42):
Like what would be some advice you would give to
someone who maybe on a similarpath, not necessarily via
accounting, but in their career,like that, um, to a young woman
who's looking at or listeningto this and saying you know, hmm
, maybe that's something I coulddo.
What's something that you wouldgive to her in this moment?
Speaker 2 (38:58):
You mean to become a non executive?
Yeah, um, I think focus firston doing a really good job at
your executive career Cause, tobe credible, I mean, there's
always people who need nonexecutives and third sex
charities are always needingpeople.
But I think, to be credible,you've got to have some
executive experience behind you.
If you haven't, then youhaven't experienced things that
helpful around the board.
So when you're sitting aroundthe board table and there's a
(39:19):
problem I don't know could beany sort of a problem right, Um,
um, you know, a staffing issueor a branding issue or a
financial issue I think ifyou've experienced, either
through your work directly orthrough your consulting work
you've experienced somethingthere.
It won't be exactly the same,but directionally the same, Then
you can have a really goodperspective to add, Whereas I
(39:39):
think if you're quite young inyour career, all you really have
to bring to a non executiverole is the ability to work hard
, which is very valuable, butit's not the only thing.
So I would say don't beimpatient to give yourself a
little bit of time.
I had lunch with a young man atone of my companies.
I sit on the board with a coupleof months ago and he was
interested in a noise secretaryand he was only 32.
(40:00):
I think this is a wrongconversation to be having.
By all means think about it asan aspiration in 10, 15 years
time, but right now you shouldbe focusing on building your
executive career.
Don't think about it as being agood gig because it's only
relatively part time and so on.
Speaker 1 (40:16):
It's, it's it's hard work and you have to bring more
to the table, you know what Imean.
Like you're.
Like you said, your experienceis actually what is the most
valuable during your executivetime.
Speaker 2 (40:25):
Absolutely, it's your experience and your ability,
and it's also your, yourpersonal skills, it's your
ability and willingness to.
I have two jobs really as anon-executive you have two jobs.
One is to support themanagement team and one is to
challenge the management team,and by doing both of those
things, what you're doing isyou're representing the
investors and the shareholderswho are not in the room.
(40:46):
So if they were all in the room,that's what they would be doing
.
They're all in the room.
The management team would getnothing done.
So the shareholders elect asmall group of people five,
eight, whatever to do their jobfor them, delegate it
effectively.
And I said when every time I goto a board meeting, I have two
jobs to support the managementteam when they deserve it.
So you probe them and you makesure that their career sorry
(41:07):
their strategy is on track andhave they thought about this,
have they thought about that?
Or if they're going through acultural challenge, or if
they're having problems, yousupport them and you sort of put
your arm around them as a hugand and so saying this will pass
.
Speaker 1 (41:21):
Yeah, you know whatever.
Speaker 2 (41:21):
And then it's also challenging.
Really, are you sure we want toexpand in there Because, based
on everything I read, thereseems to be quite a crowd of
field.
Are you sure it makes sense?
Have we done the research?
Have we got the right people,all that sort of stuff?
So those are the two things youshould remember walking into
the room Constructive challengeand support.
Definitely Know when to dowhich one.
Speaker 1 (41:43):
Yeah, definitely You've got to be, you know,
heavy handed sometimes.
And then there's all the otherthings like being prepared to
commit the time being passionateabout the business.
Speaker 2 (41:50):
I would not want to sit on a board that I didn't
believe in the business forexample so that's almost the
first thing.
Do I believe in the business?
Do I think it's going to besuccessful?
That may not be financialsuccess, maybe a successful in
another way, but do I believeit's been successful?
And the other key thing about anon executive, which is a bit
like working in a company, buteven more important.
I think as a non exec is do youlike and trust the people and
(42:12):
can you have influence?
Because if you don't like andtrust them when things go wrong
which they will nobody's gotyour back Right, whereas if you,
that's why we do these thingslike dinners and travel together
and spend a lot of time,because when things are
difficult, you've built arelationship.
So one of the reasons I'm heretoday is because we met years
(42:32):
ago and we built a relationshipand we haven't been very active
in keeping in touch.
But when you reach out, I knowyou're immediately and you know
me and we have some idea aboutwhat we can talk about.
That takes time to build thatrelationship.
So to just not have thatrelationship with your fellow
board members is a missedopportunity really Also enables
you to be more successful.
(42:54):
And then the final one is can Imake a difference?
Two things have I got theskills to make a difference?
If they need someone who's verygood at engineering, I'm not
going to be able to make adifference right, but other
things I'm good at.
Can I make a difference?
Do I have skills and can I do?
I think they'll listen to me.
Is it a culture where the openminded is it?
Speaker 1 (43:17):
Is it one where they are?
Speaker 2 (43:18):
Interested in hearing different perspectives around
the table.
Is it a?
Collegial and supportive,non-totsick environment.
And in all of those issues.
If the answer is that tick,tick, tick, then yes, you think
about whether it's something youwant to do.
Speaker 1 (43:31):
That's so interesting I'm actually very intrigued,
because you hear about thisnon-executive director role and
so many people aspire to it andyou don't really realize what it
takes to do it.
And I think the key of what I'mgetting from you here is the
skill the skill side of it,right, like a lot of people are
doing it Absolutely.
No disrespect to the IOD course, but a lot of people are just
(43:51):
doing it, thinking that that isthe key to get into the door,
not realizing that thatexecutive work that you do is
actually the major key to helpyou with that.
Speaker 2 (44:00):
You're quite right.
The IOD courses are great, butthey're primarily great for
people who haven't had seniorexecutive careers.
I think I've done a couple ofthem.
I've not done the certification.
I thought I've had enough exams.
Speaker 1 (44:11):
I think you're going to do another one.
Speaker 2 (44:14):
But I enjoyed the courses, I learned from them.
But there are people doing itas a way to get a non-executive
role, whereas I think the way Iwould view it as a way to be
better at doing yournon-executive role, rather than
ticking a box and getting a bitlike you know, I've got my A
level, I've got my degree orwhatever it is tick now
(44:34):
qualified.
You don't really want to belooking at that way.
It's more.
There's some basics like whatare my legal obligations and
those sorts of things, but it'sa whole range of stuff.
So I wouldn't decry the IODcourse, but it's only one tool.
Speaker 1 (44:46):
Yeah, absolutely Okay .
I mean I can't believe what,almost.
I mean we've done about 45minutes here, so we're going to
just wrap up quickly.
But essentially I always askthis when I leave, you know,
when people leave the couch here, and it's essentially what I
want to know from you is whenyou're no longer with us and
you've had some time, you know,and people say you know,
(45:06):
caroline Folger, and they,they're talking about you.
What is
Popular Podcasts
Bookmarked by Reese's Book Club
Welcome to Bookmarked by Reese’s Book Club — the podcast where great stories, bold women, and irresistible conversations collide! Hosted by award-winning journalist Danielle Robay, each week new episodes balance thoughtful literary insight with the fervor of buzzy book trends, pop culture and more. Bookmarked brings together celebrities, tastemakers, influencers and authors from Reese's Book Club and beyond to share stories that transcend the page. Pull up a chair. You’re not just listening — you’re part of the conversation.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com