Leigh-Anne Shaw of the global markets department at HSBC Bank of Bermuda is the company?s latest Bermudian rising star.

Miss Shaw, 26, is currently in the middle of a six month learning stint at the HSBC head office on Fifth Avenue in New York. She is being groomed for a position in sales and relationship management in the global markets department at HSBC Bank of Bermuda.

?Last year the bank started the Search for a Star initiative which is basically to identify Bermudians within the bank to send away and develop to bring back to work in global markets in Bermuda,? said Miss Shaw.

To become part of the programme she had to take a verbal and maths test and an online personality test.

?It was an hour-long online test where they basically asked the same question over and over again but each time slightly different,? she said. ?It was weird psychological stuff. At the beginning it said ?do not lie, this test is designed to catch you if you lie?. It was their standard personality test. They said I was one of the most consistent test takers.?

Now Miss Shaw has been working in New York since the beginning of July.

?So far I have been with the structured product wealth management group interest rate derivatives and right now I am with the hedge fund group,? she said. ?These are all products that we are either just introducing or going to be introducing to Bermuda.?

The main difference between Bermuda and New York is the scale of things. In Bermuda the Global Markets department includes a handful of people.

?The trading floor I am on now in New York has 250 people,? she said. ?It is a lot bigger than here in Bermuda. There are four different floors. You have a bond floor, an equity-trading floor, fixed income, and then there is another business one. It is four floors of 250 traders all yelling and screaming and throwing things. It is very intense, but I am enjoying it a lot.?

Her aim is to get more experience and product knowledge.

?Sometimes it is good just to see things done on a larger scale,? she said. ?It is good to see how things are done in a big place like New York, the different systems that they use and so forth.?

Being in such a large department could be intimidating to someone from Bermuda, but luckily there are already forged relationship links between the two places.

?Mark Baker who came to Bermuda four months ago to head up global markets here came from New York so he knew a lot of people there and had relationships with people,? Miss Shaw said. ?People have been really nice and have made an effort to get me involved in what they are doing here.?

This is Miss Shaw?s first time living in New York, although she has been to New York before to shop. ?It is different living there,? she said.

Luckily, HSBC already had a place for her to live with utilities such as telephone and internet already set up and ready to go.

?I got hired for this job last May, so I have been working in Bermuda getting a feel for the markets for the past year,? she said. ?Going to New York was a long time coming and then all of the sudden it went really fast which was good. Human Resources here and in New York worked really well to get everything sorted out.?

She said although New York is exciting, she still misses Bermuda.

?I got there the first week of July so I have been there three months, so this is my halfway point,? Miss Shaw said. ?I think it will be easy to move back to Bermuda but I wouldn?t mind staying in New York. It is a great experience and there is so much to learn. I am only going to learn a tiny little fraction of what there is available out there. I came back yesterday morning for a conference that my group put on, and when I came back into the room I felt like I was coming home. The people here are great.?

She said she hasn?t yet figured out what her next career goal is going to be.

?I just want to keep challenging myself continually,? she said. ?Obviously, when I get back I am going to refocus and think about what I want to do next in terms of my personal development.?