Alison Hill set her sights on overseeing the Argus Group's expansion overseas on being unveiled as the company's first chief operating officer yesterday.

Ms Hill was brought in to strengthen the insurer and pension provider's senior management team and to help manage the company's increased levels of complexity and scale.

After a lengthy selection process, Ms Hill, who has 15 years of senior management experience in the financial services sector, emerged as the successful candidate.

The Briton has been with Argus for four months, familiarising herself with her new responsibilities, which include management of the health insurance, property and casualty insurance and international life businesses, as well as the Argus operations in Gibraltar and Malta.

She sees expanding Argus's business overseas as one of her key challenges."

Argus is a very well established business in Bermuda, a fantastic brand, financially strong and with a very successful business model," Ms Hill said.

"I believe we can export that model into other suitable marketplaces and be highly competitive against the local providers."

Argus was already looking for suitable countries to move into, Ms Hill said, but she said it would be inappropriate to reveal which ones at this stage.

"We're looking at countries that have some of the same sort of attributes as Bermuda, in terms of regulation, government and market size," she said.

Ms Hill has already accumulated plenty of international experience. Before joining Argus, she worked as operations director for HBOS European Financial Services in Luxembourg, overseeing the company's pensions, insurance and investment businesses in five European countries, and heading up a team of more than 400 people.

She started her career as an accountant and became head of administration and finance for Clerical Medical International in Argentina, before moving on to other senior management posts in the company's UK operations. In 2001, she moved to Luxembourg to take the post of chief operating officer for Clerical Medical Europe. Argus announced an annual loss of $115.7 million last month the first loss in the company's 60-year history. Most of the losses were down to a fall in the value of its investments. Ms Hill said she had not been put off by the numbers from joining the company.

"You have to look at it from a global perspective," she said. "Argus was extremely well capitalised coming into the difficult times and it continues to be. It has more than four times in excess of minimum capital requirements and it continues to be financially strong.

"The underlying businesses are all performing very well. Plus people will always need health care, so we are in the right type of market segment."

Ms Hill said the fact that Argus offers a multi-product line, which allows customers to meet several financial needs in one place in a cost-effective way, strengthens its competitiveness.

Argus chief executive officer Gerald Simons said: "As our business grows and becomes more complex and sophisticated, it is vital that we remain competitive in the global economy.

"Alison's management experience in running financial services companies in multiple jurisdictions will be of great value to us in running our Gibraltar and Malta offices and exploring further opportunities in Europe."

On a personal level, Ms Hill is relishing one particular aspect of life in Bermuda.

"We lived in Luxembourg for eight years, which is a land-locked country, so my husband (Simon Moore) and I are enjoying being near the ocean," Ms Hill said. She has joined the Bermuda Rowing Club, sometimes getting up at 6 a.m. to hit the water.