Firmly at the helm of the family business since 1991, Gosling Brothers Ltd.'s vice-chairman and president Ms Nancy Gosling, 41, will play a significant role in the company's plans to go global this year.

The near 190-year-old wine and spirits firm's seventh generation leader is the first woman ever in senior management. If it came after a long time, it had to happen sooner or later. The Goslings, at least lately, have tended to be born female in disproportionate numbers.

She said women have more and more opportunities available to them. She recalls going to business school in the mid-1970s when enrolment was almost exclusively male. When she entered the accounting profession, again all men.

"Now, you see it is a lot different. There were very few women in my class.

There were three from Bermuda (Bermuda's Accountant General, Heather Jacobs-Matthews and Ms Lyn Ball at Walton Insurance).

"You have to have self-confidence to go for what you want. A lot of that comes from how you are brought up. I was raised to have self-confidence.'' She is under no illusions however that even as the head of a relatively large Bermuda firm, she has been picked in the past for some duties, because she was a woman.

She said that even if one has been picked to serve on a board, for example, to be the token woman, it doesn't mean that one cannot make a meaningful contribution.

In looking at her family business, she said future growth will almost completely be in terms of exports. In fact, Ms Gosling very quietly notes that the day when overseas sales eclipses that of local sales is not that far away.

An accountant under the CGA programme, acquired while working at American International Company Ltd. (AICO), Ms Gosling also worked at Gray & Kempe.

Before she was a teenager, she wanted to be a physiotherapist, working with children with cerebral palsy or special education. She studied at Beaver College in Pennsylvannia, before switching to Dalhousie in Canada where she obtained her Bachelor's degree in Commerce.

"The whole idea of switching from education to business at that time was to eventually come to work here (at Gosling's). But I didn't want to go to business school and walk into the family business because it was important to me to make sure that I could really do it.

"I wanted to see if I could make it on my own, because I didn't want people saying to me that I was here because of my family and that I wouldn't have been able to do anything, if not for that.'' Any thoughts of joining Gosling's were put on hold when her insurance career began to take off. She became supervisor of captive insurance at AICO, on the accounting side of the business.

"I really found that job exciting. But then they offered me the job of manager around 1981 and when I told my father (Malcolm Gosling) he said the time was right for me to get into the family business.'' "I had been at Gray & Kempe for three years and AICO for 18 months,''' she said. "I told them that I was eventually coming here. But I would have been happy to stay at AICO, but they wanted to promote me and that meant a commitment. I wouldn't have been able to say that I would do it for a year. It wouldn't have been fair.

"But it would have been a great career track. I really would have liked that.

I had really nice clients and it meant travel and working in different countries. But I wanted to come here, too.'' She presides over 100 employees at the Dundonald Street plant and four branch stores. Married to Mr. Guido Esposito, the co-owner of Tuscany Restaurant, she has two children Emily, 6, and Victoria, 3.

She restructured the company when she first took over, widening the decision-making in some areas, especially for the domestic market. But it is the export market that holds such promise.

Black Seal rum is trademarked already in some 25 countries and that number is increasing rapidly. The product is already found in most states of the US and it is sold in duty free stores in Canada. The Canadian, UK and US markets will hear a lot more from the product and its companion, canned "Dark `n' Stormy'', this year.

The product has proven popular in overseas markets. In Canada, the company has to deliver a product for their internal market that must be dually-labelled in French and English. The company has also been updating labelling, bottling and other forms of packaging for other markets.

Bermuda's Dark `n' Stormy appears to be locked out of the Australian market because someone took the idea there previously, without Gosling's permission.

As much as a corporate grievance it might be, it may not matter in the grand scheme of things. The company trademarked the product in New Zealand and will soon be distributing it there, to cut off any chance of advancement for the competing product.

She is also looking at Europe and Asia as future markets. Without batting an eyelid, she outlines a wide scope for the expansion of the business, while cautioning that the company must exercise control in growth and not over-extend itself.

Exporting the canned mix drinks has been on hold, because there was no in-bond provision under the tariff act. She is expecting problems to be resolved this year for entry into the US market. It could eventually be a significant foreign exchange earner.

She said that the Black Seal product has ended up, in some retail stores in New York, a dollar cheaper than it is sold here and the retailer, she said, is sometimes even making a better margin. She sees the overseas sales as a promotion for Bermuda in general.

"Our target market initially, were the sailing communities, places like Newport. You walk into Newport and it is everywhere. I was there once and the drink special of the night was a Dark `n' Stormy.

"My brother (Malcolm) is doing a promotion in Colorado this Spring. It's already out there in the ski resorts.'' She said that the company still has much unused capacity for production, because it is using only one shift. When export numbers grow, they will have to employ another shift. It differs from most bottlers, she said, who operate around the clock.

The company was founded in 1806 and has survived two world wars, the Depression, more than one recession and there have been times over the years when its future was borderline.

The domestic threat recently has been the declining market share for local distributors as hotels began importing containers of stocks by themselves, by-passing the local distributor. Even so, Ms Gosling said tourism is still a key for retailers in wines and spirits. When tourism figures go down, so do local sales.

She also said large duty increases a few years ago put pressure on the price of the product. The firm had to sell some property at one point to accumulate operating capital.

A director of the Bank of Bermuda and Bermuda Container Line, she also puts a lot of energy into the Chamber of Commerce where she is on the executive council and is chairman of the Sales Division.

"The retail business in Bermuda, outside of liquor, is in a bit of trouble right now. And our big fight is to promote local shopping and try to bring the costs down to local consumers. It is very difficult to compete with overseas businesses.'' Ms Nancy Gosling