A training programme being launched at XL Capital today will bring together 27 of the global group's young professionals for the first phase of an initiative designed to eventually "inculcate" a common business culture across the group.

Kicking off the global leadership training and development initiative for XL staff - an intensive course lasting more than two weeks - is none other than CEO and president Brian O'Hara who is, at least for today, trading in his waterfront office at the top of XL House for something more akin to a classroom environment.

Speaking with The Royal Gazette yesterday, the veteran businessman and figurehead for the Bermuda-based insurance giant said he would walk the select group through the company's history, including the reasons that XL had chosen Bermuda as its headquarters. That discussion, he said, would draw a distinction between the type of company that XL is and the highly-publicised corporate inversion companies that are little more than paper Bermuda companies.

"I will go through our company history and the rationale for why we came to be headquartered here. I will also point out the differences between us and those (companies) cast in a negative light."

He added that the strongest reason behind XL's choice of Bermuda as a base was the Island's favourable regulatory environment. "In the course I will go through how XL could not have been based in the US, because of regulatory matters. That is at the heart of the matter, and they will leave here understanding that."

Mr. O'Hara said Bermuda was purposely chosen as the location for this pilot phase of the programme because of its being where the company has its global headquarters. Every member of the company's executive management board will individually lead sessions in this first phase of the new training and development initiative.

Although the staff participating in this programme was drawn from across the group, a healthy percentage - eight of the 27 - are based in the Bermuda office. The rest of the group were picked from nine of XL's offices in Europe, the US and Latin America.

The participants were said to be identified by their managers as having "high performance potential".

Mr. O'Hara added that the leadership training programme was targeted at employees who had joined the company within the last few years and that each had, on average, several years of experience in a business environment. Age wise, the group were said to be made up of "young professionals" from their mid- to late- 20s. In future the programme, designed to take place annually, may target new hires and focus on graduate students.

"In order to be a superior organisation, we have to do what we can to attract the best and motivate them," Mr. O'Hara said.

The need to formally organise this kind of programme followed the company's rapid expansion in recent years with Mr. O'Hara saying the company had seen exponential growth in the last five years years, on the back of several large acquisitions.

"As we have grown from less than 200 employees five years ago to a global organisation of approximately 3,200 employees, so have the demands on management. This measure will prepare our people to successfully meet the global demands of our company and the industry today and well into the future."

He added that the programme was designed with this now larger organisation in mind, and to bring some commonality to an organisation that now operates in 30 countries around the world.

"This to establish a common culture and common business values," he said.

The project, no small feat for a company now operating across the globe, is being delivered first to this small group but in the coming months two other programmes will be rolled out to specific groups of staff. In November a second initiative will target the executive level of XL employees, with some 100 senior managers from around the world taking part. Early next year the third element of the initiative will kick off with some 600 responsible for doing employee reviews taking part in a specially designed programme.

One challenge facing the company as it undertakes this new programme will eventually be to deliver the initiative across the group including to staff in its non-English speaking offices.

XL's head of human resources Anthony Beale, who was front and centre in the development of the initiative, underscored that the programme was intended to develop the leadership potential of XL employees.