From serving as a Gurkha to trading as an investment manager in Hong Kong during the 1987 stock market crash and even working on mergers and acquisitions at insurance giant Ace, Greg Lunn has been there and seen it all.

But the hard-working Bermudian, who is general counsel, head of internal audit and company secretary at Lancashire Insurance Group, is modest about his achievements and is a shining example for his compatriots to follow.

"My message to Bermudians is that you can go far if you are willing to work hard," he said.

"What I have done has been based on a willingness to persevere and be bold. Despite a seemingly unconnected range of jobs, I never felt I was going backwards in my career path - everything felt like it was a stepping stone to do the next thing and it all gave me the confidence to move to the next level."

Mr. Lunn went to school in England and came back to Bermuda to work as a beach waiter at the Whaler Inn at the age of 18 and then as a clerk at Butterfield Bank.

He won a place to study management at the University of Loughborough and determined to fund his studies, applied for financial assistance from the UK Ministry of Defence via the Bermuda Regiment and the officer selection board at Westbury in Wiltshire before being given a bursary in 1982.

During his time at university he enjoyed playing rugby with the likes of former England coach Andy Robinson and represented both the freshers team and the Second XV with whom he won a University Athletic Union gold medal after beating the University of Exeter in the final.

But he disliked the degree and left after the rugby season to join the army and enlisted at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst and subsequently passed the selection board to get into the Seventh Duke of Edinburgh's Own Gurkha Rifles as second lieutenant and was afterwards posted to Hong Kong for three-and-a-half years doing everything from intense jungle training to border duty.

"As a Bermudian the opportunities are terrific, arguably greater than any town on earth of 60,000 people," said Mr. Lunn.

"I know of a number of Bermudians that have gone into the armed forces, some in the US and the UK, and it proves that it is possible to do it."

Having completed his stint with the Gurkhas, Mr. Lunn was discharged from the army and decided to put his banking experience to good use first as a stockbroker and then as a private client fund manager for Wardley Investment Services between 1987 and 1990, witnessing one of the world's biggest stock market crashes, an experience which strikes home with him in the current global financial crisis.

"I took my clients through the stock market crash of 1987 and I learnt a great deal about how flaky the financial world can be and how global it had become," he said.

"Having seen a lot of people lose their jobs in 1987 and 1988 as a result of the stock market crash, I resolved to do something less volatile, so I decided to go back to university."

Mr. Lunn used all of his savings and a sponsorship from Conyers Dill & Pearman (CDP) and even borrowed money to fund a law degree at the University of Buckingham in England before training and qualifying as a lawyer at a firm called DJ Freeman in London.

He returned to Bermuda in 1995, where he linked up with CDP as an associate lawyer and was later offered a job as counsel of special projects at Ace, going on to take part in every acquisition the company made from 1997 until March 2006, when Lancashire Insurance Group came calling for his services.

His last role at Ace was that of compliance counsel in which he was involved in working on compliance with the recently-introduced Sarbanes-Oxley Act, which he believes stood him in good stead for his new post at Lancashire.

"My stint at Ace gave me trmendous opportunties and exposure to the world of insurance, including working for Ace's European insurance operations, based in London," he said.

Lancashire Holdings Ltd., whose shares are listed publicly on the Alternative Investment Market of the London Stock Exchange, is where his focus lies now.

"As general counsel and head of internal audit, I have a busy role at a very dynamic insurance group," he said.

"When I joined Lancashire, the original business plan was for 20 people in two offices, with an insurance company in Bermuda and a marketing office in London and today, three years later, we are more than 80 people, including a fully authorised insurance underwriting office in London and a marketing office in Dubai.

"In my role, being general is quite literally the key - we are a small organisation, so I am involved in everything from reviewing insurance policies to corporate contracts and overseeing the board meetings from the technical and corporate secretarial perspective.

"I am involved in the human resources side from a legal perspective and I oversee our internal audit function which includes two internal audit employees who report to me. My time working as Ace's compliance counsel gave me an exposure to financial controls that few lawyers will ever experience.

"I cover everything that has a law angle and I love it and I guess having this diverse background has enabled me to cope with the diversity of everything which is thrown at me.

"I feel lucky to have a job like this as a Bermudian, but equally I believe you also make your own luck."

Among the highlights of his career, being selected and serving with the Gurkhas, qualifying as a lawyer, helping and seeing Ace grow from a small company to a major global player, and his current role as general counsel at Lancashire, all stand out for Mr. Lunn.

"I think one of the biggest challenges will be helping Lancashire manage through the next few years," he said.

"I see it as both a period of tremendous challenge and opportunity.

"Bermuda is now too big as an insurance market on the world stage to ignore. The efforts of certain factions in the US to impose new tax laws which would impact the Island show, in a perverse way, how successful Bermuda has become.

"What I learned from 1987 and all the stepping stones in my career to date is that one has just got to be calm in a crisis, work hard, remain focused on the job in hand and do the job well. Many thing in the current credit crisis will be out of our control, but opportunities will appear for teh brave and quality will eventually shine through."

During what spare time he does have when not juggling all three job titles at work, Mr. Lunn, who is married with three children, is also secretary of the Bermuda Council of the Ageing in what he believes is, faced with the issue of a rapidly ageing population, one of the biggest challenges that needs to be addressed both in bermuda and many other countries in the West especially in light of today's economic meltdown.

For now though he is just using the life skills he has learnt throughout his long and varied career to stay one step ahead of the game.