She is a chartered accountant and the managing director and chief financial officer of a busy investment management group. She is a member of several boards and special committees related to Bermuda's business sector.

She also participates in community service organisations at board level and is actively involved in her church. And, of course, there are also her responsibilities as a wife and mother and broad interests that range from travel and tennis to karate and Bible study.

But if you tried to label Antoinette Bolden, 40, with the ‘superwoman' tag, she would probably laugh, seeing herself as doing the regular juggling act that most women do every day.

“Basically I'm just pretty much the type A personality, we both are,” she says.

That “we” includes her husband and business partner David, with whom she founded the Emerald Financial Group in 1992. Over the past 12 years they have developed Emerald's services and profile, now operating as a full-service investment company providing investment advice and products to “mass affluent” and high net worth clients, as well as equity trading, institutional trading and pension fund management.

“When we first started we targeted the first-time investor, which was a huge market here, most of Bermuda. Now we target the mass affluent, which Bermuda has a lot of,” she says, while explaining one of the newer examples of investment industry jargon. “They can be the young graduate who is back from school, still living at home and on a good salary who has no real responsibilities and so can save or invest a good portion of their salary. Or they can be a baby boomer in his 50s, self-made, with a stock portfolio, or at least savings who may also have inherited assets from his parents, and is able to invest solidly. We work with a lot of these types of clients.”

Together with Mr. Bolden, who is CEO of the group, she works on the strategic development of the company.

“We're definitely a team,” says Mrs. Bolden. “I would say that he's macro and the visionary, he monitors trends in the market, sees the next big opportunity before it hits and then just wants to get whatever it is done. I'm a bit macro and micro, I'll break that opportunity down, identify and lay out all the steps we'll need to take to get there.”

They met 21 years ago, while both were Economics majors at York University in Toronto, and have been together ever since. She says that, among other things, they shared a common interest in investments, both having been exposed to the concept at a young age by their respective families. They married in 1988 and have two children, son Cameron,11, and eight-year-old daughter Kyla.

She had gone to York after finishing her studies here at the Berkeley Institute and Bermuda College, and in addition to her Economics degree earned an MBA (Accounting). She subsequently articled with Arthur Andersen in downtown Toronto, getting her CA qualification while she was there.

“David had all his professional investment qualifications, so we considered where the most opportunity would be for us to open a business. Bermuda really didn't have a big investment community back then, just the banks provided the service really, so we decided to come here in 1990, and I was happy to come back home.”

Initially, she worked at Oil Insurance, running the reinsurer's accounts division, while Mr. Bolden focused on launching the company. They have come a long way from their first day of business, when Emerald was literally a one man show.

“Our first office was one room in the International Centre on Bermudiana Road,” she says, laughing. “David was there full time, and I was still working at Oil Insurance, working on Emerald at nights and on weekends.

“As we added people, we added space, and eventually as we grew we ended up with 25 staff, the most we've ever had. I eventually joined full time in 1995, once we were comfortable with the revenue and income the company was generating.”

The company now occupies sprawling space on the ground floor of Wessex House on Reid Street and employs 13 staff, the reduction being a result, Mrs. Bolden says, of efficiencies brought about by technology and outsourcing some of their functions.

“We have a great team, a good mix of people with varied experience and backgrounds from here and around the world - Australia, Ireland, Canada and the US. They're keen and pay a lot of attention to detail.”

Her responsibilities also include the financial management and systems development of the company and technology is one of several areas she feels has changed the environment in which the group operates today in several ways.

“From an operational perspective early on we set up our infrastructure so that the technology could help us across the board, from automating the process for ‘Know Your Client' checks on clients to our accounting systems,” she says.

“In fact we already had that infrastructure in place when all the changes were made to the regulations, the proceeds of crime legislation and so on, so all the additional requirements in terms of compliance reporting didn't make a huge difference to us; we have just one person working on it full-time. If the new requirements were being made back in the ‘80s, it would be more of a burden.”

They also took advantage of the new business opportunities made available by the Internet and in 1999 launched Directrade. Promoted as “an offshore Internet investment company” and “Bermuda's first full-service online broker”, Directrade provides clients here and overseas with online trading of US equities and mutual funds and other related investment services.

“We started Directrade because it was a great way to gain clients internationally,” Mrs. Bolden says. “And the technology means that it's not labour intensive for us, the clients do a lot online themselves. Many of our clients are expats from all over the world - Japan, Europe, Canada, the Caribbean - living in other countries, as well as Bermudians and other residents here.” Another change which she welcomes is the fact that clients appear to be taking a more active interest in investing and learning more about the markets.

“Clients have become more educated and sophisticated since we started, which we love,” she says. “An educated client is a better client in our view, which is why we started doing the seminars and focusing on educating the market here. Because then we work with clients more effectively to put relevant information together for them so that they can make sense of it and see what really works best for their situation. We can then tailor a solution they truly understand fits their specific needs.”

Making clients understand how best to ride the cycles of the financial markets has at times been more of a challenge.

“I think that was a real test during the 2000-2001 bear market in particular, right after the bullish years in the late ‘90s, making them understand that they'd eventually come out further ahead if they just stuck to the wicket, and that it was a good time to buy because the market was basically on sale,” she says.”It was a test for the business as well, but it strengthened our characters.”

The local market is also a lot more competitive than it was when Emerald opened its doors of course. It could be argued that its recently announced incentive programme, giving new and existing clients American Airlines air miles tied to the investments they make, is another way to maintain their profile while perhaps adding some incremental sales, although, according to Mrs. Bolden: “We thought it would be a really great way to thank our clients and help them on their journeys. When you have a huge client base who've been with you for a long time you want to thank them in some way.”

She says that there the market here and internationally is “big enough for everyone; and we all seem to operate in niche markets, in fact some of our competition has referred business to us.”

She clearly enjoys her work and working with her spouse. “When you first start growing a business (together) you have to find out what each of you does best and then stay out of the way and let each other do it. But we've learned in decision making that two heads work better than one and we use each other as sounding boards.”

As a female and entrepreneur in the still male-dominated business sector here she feels that Bermuda offers women a wealth of opportunities without the pressure to compromise their femininity.

“In Bermuda you can do well as a woman, and so many women are doing well without having to adopt traditionally ‘male' behaviour or characteristics. I saw women doing that a lot in Canada, but it's not like that here. You have to work hard and that's how you succeed.”

And her recipe for success?

“Faith, vision, hard work, focus, commitment and passion,” she says. “You can't really be successful if you're not passionate about what you do - but passion without focus isn't going to work either. So it's a combination of all those things, as well as being balanced. You've got to do things outside of work that keep you balanced.”

And as she talks about continuing to grow the company and plans for a new online currency trading offering they are about to launch via Directrade, indications are that Antoinette Bolden will be keeping up her own balancing act for the foreseeable future.