International experience can help prepare Bermudians to be more productive on the Island says Butterfield Bank newly appointed Senior Vice President of Corporate Management Curtis Dickinson.

Mr. Dickinson, a graduate of the Berkeley Institute, returned to Bermuda on August 11, after gaining 14 years of experience in the financial services industry in the US and the UK, most recently as a member of the Leverage Finance Investment Banking team at Wachovia Securities in Charlotte, North Carolina.

?An overseas stint can?t hurt. Bermuda is a very small yet sophisticated place. When you think of the financial services industry in this country and given the population, it stands out among the best,? Mr. Dickinson said. ?Bermuda is one spot in the world and what I have gained from my stints overseas is an ability to see the big picture a whole lot clearer and understand the relevance of what we do in Bermuda.?

?Life is a series of lessons and you learn something from every experience, for me being overseas was fantastic. It may not work for everyone but if nothing else the experience overseas helps to prepare you to be a more productive person here.?

?My job is to help work on corporate development and strategic initiatives and we are going to utilise my training on prior training on Wall Street to help the Bank to grow revenues and earnings,? Mr. Dickinson said.

?I will be working with the senior management team on initiatives relating to buying and selling businesses we can add to the Bank?s portfolio and everything else whether working on special projects or helping to develop new products for our various lines of business.?

Prior to joining Wachovia, Mr. Dickinson worked as a Director in the Media and Communications Investment Banking Groups at Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette Securities Corporation (and Credit Suisse First Boston Corporation) in New York and London.

?I?ve have had a somewhat of a non conventional experience by Bermudian standards in terms of the work I have done overseas and I think joining this Bank I bring a different perspective and I think I approach problem solving a little bit differently. ?Diversity of ideas is a good thing for an organisation because you want to have as many inputs as possible when solving complex problems.

?My experiences have been largely outside of Bermuda, working in two of the world?s financial capitals and I think I bring a fresh perspective.

?Wall Street, where I spent eight years was a very competitive, fast paced environment and you either sink or swim by your ability to do good work, to learn on the fly and be creative.?

?I have very good analytical skills and you need possess those skills in order to be successful in the investment banking industry but analytical skills in of itself aren?t going to guarantee success, that?s only one component.?

?You need to be able to communicate sometimes complex things to people in ways that can be easily understood by clients that may not be as sophisticated as you are in the financial markets but are very smart people when it comes to running their own businesses.?

Mr. Dickinson said while he certainly didn?t lack confidence in his own abilities, gaining access to Wall Street and being able to thrive there, reinforced a sense of his own ability to perform well.

?The ability to work on a team is critical and I have come to the Bank and rolled up my sleeves to be a part of the team and help accomplish the goals Alan Thompson (CEO) and the Board of the Bank have set out to achieve.?

?I came here with no romantic notion of what this job is or isn?t going to be. It was an opportunity I thought very exciting, one I thought long and hard about and where I could see challenges and made sense professionally.?

He said returning to Bermuda was a combination of personal and professional reasons.

Married to his wife Lisa Lee Dickinson, Mr. Dickinson had delayed starting a family until his career was established and now they have two young boys, Samuel and John.

Mr. Dickinson received a Masters of Business Administration degree from Columbia University?s Graduate School of Business in 1993.

He also received a Bachelor of Arts in Finance with departmental honours from Morehouse College, in Atlanta, Georgia in 1987.

?My parents were huge advocates of education. In this day and age, without you are at a significant competitive disadvantage and not just in Bermuda context but globally.?

?Education doesn?t guarantee success but is the first step along the road. Had it not been for me going to an Ivy League business school I don?t believe I would have access to the opportunities I had access to.?

?There are those who can get in the door without credentials but that represents a small minority of people. In this service driven economy, customers don?t want the people serving them or working for them not to be qualified.?

?As the world gets increasingly smaller and much more competitive, you need the skills to compete effectively.?