Newly promoted vice president, in the general liability department of X.L.

Insurance Company, Mrs. Cathy Duffy, is the example of what young Bermudians have to look forward to in the international insurance industry.

She, and two of her colleagues (also both women), were promoted vice president as of December 1.

She said of her new position: "I'm going to have more accountability for meeting goals. I'm charged with new business coming through the company. I have to set the targets for how much business I think we will do in those areas.

"Now that I'm a VP, if we don't make it I will be held accountable.'' At 31, she remembers thinking of the industry from her high school days, as a top student who had the world of opportunities at her feet.

She does not seem unnerved by the march up the corporate ladder. Her mentor has been J&H Intermediaries vice president, Cathy Lord (see since Business, The Royal Gazette December 12).

"I met her when I was 16-years-old at Berkeley, through the guidance teacher.

She was at that time probably the most senior, black Bermudian woman in the industry. She was working at a company called Wilcox Barringer.

"I didn't know what I wanted to do, but it was suggested that I meet Cathy, and I did. And she got me a job in the summer at Wilcox Barringer.

"Paul Branscome, who was her boss, thought that I had potential and pushed me to get into insurance. I think I graduated from Berkeley the next summer and Paul pulled strings and got me into Howard University, where I majored in insurance.

"I was supposed to come back, but I ended up falling in love with the US and I did all my underwriting training and spent another five years out there. I came home for a summer holiday in 1988 and I went to see Cathy.

"She said that there was a company called X.L. that was starting and they were looking for Bermudians, people who could just come in and work right off the bat. I just happened to have my resume -- don't ask me how on vacation -- and I brought it into the office here thinking that I would just drop it off.

But instead I met (executive vice president) Bob Cooney.

"He wanted to interview me right there and then (I had shorts and a T-shirt on and I was so embarrassed). He interviewed me and liked me.

"I returned to Baltimore the next day and three weeks later they called me and offered me a job. A couple weeks later I was in Bermuda. I have been here ever since. It is now six and a half years, in which the company has grown from 14 to 80 staff in Bermuda.'' She is happy about her progress since then. She started as an assistant underwriter and credits the company's rapid growth with helping her become a vice president so quickly.

Mrs. Duffy said that Bermuda has uniquely helped the insurance industry outside of the Island.

She said,"X.L. and ACE introduced a new concept of client meetings. That (meetings with clients) was always discouraged before because brokers liked to control the accounts. But X.L. decided that because of how much money we were putting up ($100 million net) that we should develop the relationship with the client so that they would feel comfortable with us.

"As a result of that, you have clients who now like their underwriters and they can switch brokers if they like. The rest of the world, after seeing how well it worked, decided to introduce client meetings into their programmes.

"So Bermuda has become very important as far as the insurance industry is concerned, not just in terms of its market, but also because of its trend-setting.'' Mrs. Duffy said that young Bermudians must see the opportunities that exist in the industry.

She did her underwriting training with The Hartford Insurance Group and worked for AIG and USF&G in Baltimore. Her exposure to huge insurance concerns was not insignificant.

"I'm a people person. I love people. I love meeting clients everyday. I love finding out what everybody does. Wherever I travel, I see names of my clients.

"And the pressure for me is the building of the relationship with the client.

Once the relationship is in place, you get the information you really need to underwrite the business properly.'' She is convinced that many Bermudians don't always see the `big picture'. "A lot of that is because we have always been given everything. I hope this is not quoted out of context and people think "who does she think she is?'' But for most of our lives we've never gone without. We have been very fortunate.

And as a result, a lot of us do not have that competitive edge.

"I got that edge from working abroad, because there, I had to fight for everything. You learn to fight with smarts. You know the saying, `Always remember the people on your way up, because you see the same people on the way down.' "My philosophy has always been to treat people in such a way that if you have to come back to them, they will love you, no better what position you find yourself in. I know how to fight for what I'm after, cleanly. I'll be effective, but clean.'' She is critical of herself, saying she doesn't feel that she is "good enough to raise children''.

She lost her mother at aged 13 and was almost a mother to her brother, who was six years her junior.

"I got to see him going through adolescence. I put him through college and saw the ungrateful side of an adolescent adult. I'm really proud of the way he turned out.

"But raising a family is not something that I'm rushing out to do. I feel like I've done it already. A family is not something that I'm focusing on, right now.'' Time might be the problem.

She owns a delicatessen with Nick, her husband, Duffy's Deli on Wesley Street.

He runs the deli. She is in the gym weekdays at 6 a.m. and in her office at 7.30, retreating from Cumberland House about 6 p.m.

The couple tries to spend time working on restoring an old Bermuda house they bought in St. George's.

She also finds time to get involved in community-minded programmes like Project 100.