THE Centre for Leadership was launched last week with an aim to foster better opportunities in business for women. Carolyn Myers, Kendaree Burgess Fairn, Donna Harvey Maybury, Jennifer Smatt and Rochelle Simons united in the cause and have planned as their first event, a dynamic conference featuring internationally renowned speakers and well-respected businesswomen from the local community. This week Mid-Ocean News reporter Heather Wood and photographer Tamell Simons met with the organisation's vice-president Rochelle Simons, to learn more about the group's aims.

Q: What is the Centre for Leadership (CFL)?

A: The Centre for Leadership is a not-for-profit organisation formed by five businesswomen who have mutual interests in leadership for women in Bermuda - in the corporate and outside the corporate environment. (We) were looking for an opportunity to give back to the community given our collective experiences across diverse industries and to assess where we are in Bermuda in terms of women rising in the hierarchy of organisations.

Q: How did it come about?

A: Donna Harvey Maybury actually brought the five of us together last year. She knew all of us and was aware of our mutual interest through independent conversations. And from that perspective, and conversation at lunch, we identified a need and a desire to form the centre. So that's how it got started.

Q: And how did you move forward from there?

A: Since that time, we actually questioned what's the best way to determine how we gauge the market, how we gauge how women have progressed in the market. There are the Government statistics, which state how many women are in the workforce, and yet there's still nothing that shows how far we've come and what else is available to us. Their statistics show that women hold a lot of mid-management positions and we wanted to raise the bar, to see what else is there for us.

Q: What did you find?

A: We engaged (the market research firm) Research.bm to conduct a survey for us at the beginning of July. We identified 100 senior women across industries in Bermuda and asked them to participate in the survey. Our asking them certainly opened a wonderful response base for us because they were very enthusiastic and wanted to know more about what we do and they certainly were willing to participate in the survey. So that was absolutely great. From that point we collected the data. We asked Research.bm to gauge women's experiences - their success, what success means to them, how they've been able to manage the work/life balance, what career aspirations they have, some of the frustrations they felt in working in corporate Bermuda and their abilities to rise through the ranks. We collected that data and from that data decided yes, we'll proceed with the conference and we'll release the survey results at that time.

Q: Why did you form an organisation? Had you established a need?

A: The five of us came together and thought, "Here we are, what's next for us Who are the women who have gone before us? Who are the people who have gone before us that we can look to as mentors? Who are the people that are coming behind, that we can support and mentor? Wouldn't it be great to form an organisation that brings that talent pool together?"(So our aim is) to bring the talent pool together and identify the issues which we need to consider - the challenges and the successes and everything related to that so that we can collectively consider and formulate and bring (that information) to the local forum.

Q: Do you all come from a traditional business background?

A: Yes - banking, insurance, accounting, communications and health care leadership management development. But, we have different roles in those companies. So it's diverse because no two people have the same responsibility within the corporate (arena). Donna is HR specialist at the bank, there's no one else who is an HR manager so we do bring different experiences to the group which I think helps us to think through projects with a much broader scope than if we were all from the insurance industry.

Q: At the end of all of this, other than identifying mentors and mentees, is it just about promoting women or establishing a forum for them?

A: No it's more than that. We'll continue to use research as the foundation for the programmes that we press forward and the idea is to work with companies to help them to identify and develop opportunities for women to move up through the ranks. We believe there is a lot of opportunity in Bermuda. The workforce has 50 per cent women. They're mostly occupied in mid-level, supervisory and middle management positions. What is required to support women to move from those positions to the senior ranks and have we considered that as an economy? Have we adopted some of the traditional and - maybe - corporate American ways of thinking? Is there something we can do here that's different? And we think there's an opportunity. We believe there's an opportunity to see more women (moving forward).

Q: Government statistics show females are achieving ahead of young men in schools. Is that something that we should then see played out in the workforce in years to come?

A: Not necessarily. And there are a number of factors that need to be considered in that. Do young girls understand and know what their career paths will be? They come back to (Bermuda after university to) work, but will they be focussed on a specific career path or will they get a job? That has an impact. And who is supporting our young girls? As they enter the workforce who supports our young people generally, to move through the ranks? Can we do a better job as companies and individuals to really mentor our young people through the ranks of corporate industry in Bermuda?

Q: Did you have anybody guiding you?

A: I had a few good people who watched out for me. At the time I wouldn't have thought they were mentors - that wasn't a (term) a long time ago that I was familiar with (laughs). But I certainly had supportive people around me and people I could go to when I had questions, when I felt frustrated, when I didn't understand why life wasn't progressing how I thought it should progress. To understand how business works, I think that's very important. Our young people - young men and women - are coming back to Bermuda very well qualified and that's great but I often call that the theory. The practice is once you get into a work environment. There are certain things that, maybe you weren't taught from the textbook, that are important.

Q: You mentioned the Government statistics on women in the workforce. How do they play out - approximately?

A: Forty nine per cent of the workforce is (comprised of) women, 51 per cent men - we call that 50-50. I believe there's something like 80 per cent of the women in the workforce who hold mostly middle level management and positions below. It's that next level up that's our focus.

Q: And you believe the young women today are capable of filling those positions?

A: Absolutely. Just as I believe not-so-young ladies are. There's still scope. There's still opportunity and room for growth and for us it's been to understand what needs to be done and to make a plan with support.

Q: Your first event is a conference. When is that?

A: The conference is on December 5 at the Fairmont Southampton. The opening presenter is Mr. Benjamin Zander. (He) is a teacher/conductor and internationally known speaker. Our president of the CFL Carolyn Myers has heard him speak and was just enthralled by his presentation. Ben is the conductor of the Boston Philharmonic and the New England Conservatory Youth Philharmonic Orchestra. He's also the artistic director of a project (involving) the New England Conservatory at Walnut Hill. He believes in opening the minds of young people. Mr. Zander (and his) partner, Rosamund Stone Zander, wrote a book called The Art of Possibility. And in this book (they) open our minds, encourage us to think of life (in a) much broader (way) than in the concrete terms that we're used to. There's so much that's possible for us. And if we shift our thinking just a bit and allow that possibility that's within us - what we're thinking - to rise to the surface and then take action towards that, we can accomplish lots of great things. So it's with that in mind and Mr. Zander's unique approach to presentation - he will not just be standing at the lectern talking to us - that we chose him. His presentation will be different and we will be inspired.

Q: It's a women's conference. Why a man?

A: It was primarily because Carolyn has seen him perform and so we trust her experience of that experience, that Ben will bring something very special to the community because while the conference is focused on women and leadership, it's open to men as well.

Q: Who can benefit from this?

A: We talked to those women who were surveyed. They're saying, 'Yes, we'd love to come'. We're encouraging them to come and to bring an understudy or someone new to their organisation, maybe even a mid-level manager - bring those people who can benefit from the inspiration. We also would like to see some men there.

Q: Who else is involved?

A: The keynote speaker at the end of the day will be Carolyn Buck Luce. She is a global pharmaceutical sector leader at Ernst & Young in the US. She is responsible for coordinating E&Y's relationships with pharmaceutical companies. In addition to her day job though, she is a leader in the Centre for Work-Life Policy. It's a tri-state arrangement in the US. And she has been chairman of that organisation and believes in exploring how women are rising through the ranks and the challenges that they face. She also has co-authored a number of articles with (the) Harvard Business Review and one is called Off-Ramps and On-Ramps: Keeping Talented Women on the Road to Success - and this is what we're all about. She is a dynamic woman and again, someone who Carolyn is aware of.

And we are excited that she will bring an experience from the US perspective to Bermuda and give us food for thought.

In addition to these wonderful international speakers we will also feature two panel discussions - one of Bermuda CEOs and a separate panel discussion which will be led by senior women in our community. Again, they will review the survey results and give their perspectives on what their companies may or may not be doing and how they see women's roles expanding in their organisations. And so that's an important feature of the conference because we need to have that local input. That's what's important to us, that this be locally driven with exposure to international experience.

Q: One-day conference?

A: Yes. December 5. We're starting with a continental breakfast at 8 o'clock. The conference proper starts at 9 and we will finish the conference at 4.30 and that will be followed by a cocktail party. Tickets are available now, through www.boxoffice.bm. The early-bird special is $400 until November 16. After November 16, tickets are $500. Interested persons can also call us on 535-6903.

Q: And moving forward?

A: We certainly plan to hold events throughout 2008. We plan to announce the first 2008 event at the end of the conference. We will certainly be creating forums for women to come together. We will use the results of an exit survey taken at the end of the conference to help chart the path forward because our aim is to serve the community and so we will be requesting additional input from participants.