He's been at the helm of the Bermuda Stock Exchange (BSX) for the past six years, but William Woods said he has accomplished his goals for the exchange and it is now time to move on.

Mr. Woods steps down at the end of the month, but as for future plans, he said he is considering a number of options.

At the very least, Mr. Woods said that he and his family intend to stay on the Island up to next summer.

"We want to see the kids through the school year," he said, adding that during that period, he has been asked to do some consulting work. He also intends to finish writing his second book, which is to be titled 'B2B Exchanges: 2.0'. a sequel to the book he wrote with Arthur Sculley: 'B2B Exchanges'.

Of the new book, Mr. Woods said it is about e-commerce, and will include a chapter on Bermuda: "It goes in to why Bermuda is a good jurisdiction; no, a perfect jurisdiction for certain e-commerce," he said.

Greg Wojciechowski, who is now the BSX's chief operating officer, will take over from Mr. Woods as chief executive officer.

Looking back over his time with the BSX, Mr. Woods said he first became involved while living in Hong Kong. "I was working as a consultant, and advising on developing the securities market.

"Both the Bank of Bermuda and Bank of Butterfield had offices in Hong Kong, and I made contact through work I was doing using Bermuda vehicles. Through that I was asked to do a study on the (Bermuda) exchange. It had been running since 1971, as an association for trading local stock."

Mr. Woods said he did his BSX report in 1992, and as a result the banks - as the original shareholders of the exchange- decided they would seek to enlarge the exchange, and they brought on the first full-time employee, which was Greg (Wojciechowski), who came on as project manager to kick start the exchange.

"What became obvious over the course of the next year or so was that there was an awful lot that could be done with the exchange.

"So, the Banks decided to accelerate that process and they asked me to see the exchange through its development stage."

Mr. Woods said that one of the first goals was to move the exchange away from weekly trading.

"We went to daily trading. And at that point Michael Bloomberg very kindly set us up on the Bloomberg system, so the brokers were able to post their "bid and ask" to the Bloomberg, and then they would call each other.

"After, they had agreed to the price for the trade, they would enter the details on the Bloomberg. It was a nice little application, and it automated the sales process. That started us going, and that is when we started calling ourselves an electronic exchange.

"What Greg and I did next was get the banks to agree to open the exchange up so that new players - or shareholders - could join in."

Mr. Woods said over the period the exchange has grown its trading membership, including international members. He cited e-trade, g-trade (a joint effort between Bloomberg and Credit Lyonnais), Nomura Securities and Instanet.

Back in 1995, Mr. Woods said the exchange also opened listings to international members. He added that over the last six years, the BSX has added about 300 securities.

Mr. Woods said during his time with the exchange he has worked to put an electronic infrastructure in place: "that would be beyond the Bloomberg system."

To that end, the exchange, in 1998, introduced the Bermuda Electronic Trading System (BEST). And in recent weeks, the BSX opened the Bermuda Securities Depository System which enables electronic settlement of trades.

Mr. Woods said, in combination, BEST and the Bermuda Securities Depository System, mean the exchange is now a fully-electronic environment.

"This is one of the key infrastructure changes that I had to make. It did take longer than we wanted to, but we got there in the end," Mr. Woods said. He added: "The other thing that we had to do, was to go out and achieve international recognition for the exchange."

To this end, Mr. Woods said the exchange had had some notable achievements, including its recognition, in 1996, as a designated offshore securities market, by the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). And in 1999, recognised by the World Federation of Exchanges.

In the Spring, Mr. Woods said the BSX expects to receive recognition from the United Kingdom, as a dedicated investment exchange.

When asked if he was happy with the level of exchange listing through the years, Mr. Woods said: "That was an area where I would have liked to see more activity. But, that is not for lack of trying on our part. We have instituted a number of programmes to list domestically."

Mr. Woods said the exchange has encouraged local companies - even smaller enterprises - to list: "Where I would say I am disappointed in the market, is that we have pitched heavily to small entrepreneurs. And we created this category listing called the small cap stock which means with less than $10 million capitalisation, and a minimum size of $500,000.

"That kind of small company market has been very successful in other markets, like London and Europe. But, we have not seen this take off here. Although it is an ideal way, be it for a restaurant or a small retailer to expand. The exchange can be used to raise capital, which can then be ploughed in to the business to grow it," he said.

In stepping down from the BSX, Mr. Woods said: "It is now appropriate, as the platform is in place, to hand over the reins to a very strong team - which has now grown to ten staff - of Bermudian talent, who have been in the industry for some time."

He added: "The team has a sound knowledge of how the market works, and I am very confident that they will take the exchange to great heights."

Speaking of his successor's first steps, Mr. Woods said: "Greg's first priorities are to get the depository system completely up and running, which involves getting all of the local stock in to it. And he will be working to secure the UK recognition. And, of course, steady as she goes, if you like; to keep the exchange operating smoothly."