Women should plan their career and family carefully because it is hard to juggle a young career and a young family, according to Nancy Gosling, president of Gosling Brothers.

Ms Gosling was talking to a group of women at a meeting of Women in International Trade in Bermuda last week.

She was asked, along with Jeanne Atherden, a vice president at the Bank of Bermuda, to talk about careers in accounting on the Island.

Ms Gosling said: "This is the first time I have sat in a room full of women since boarding school. Most of the functions I attend are mainly all male -- the Rotary or Chamber of Commerce for example -- but it is nice.'' Both Mrs. Atherden and Ms Gosling told the audience how they had each started on a different career path, only to end up as accountants.

Mrs. Atherden started studying medicine before she realised her heart was not in it. She swapped to mathematics and then decided she wanted to become a chartered accountant.

"Once I had decided what I wanted to do, I thought I should find the shortest and quickest way of getting there and that is what I did,'' said Mrs.

Atherden.

But she said she made sure she signed up for many extra courses since it was important to deal with people as well as numbers.

"Your job may be numbers, but it is people who make the numbers and you have to understand them,'' she said.

Since an early age, her father was her role model. Three things he held dear to his heart included: "Become a leader in anything you do, only take on projects if you have time to succeed at them and above all be honest and fair to yourself.'' At the end of her speech Ms Gosling said: "I would like to thank Jeanne for giving my speech.'' Ms Gosling said she did not at first study accounting, but special education.

When she approached her father about joining the family business -- a male-dominated world of wine -- he suggested accounting.

"He said, `we will always need a good accountant'.'' But she felt had she been a boy, she would have been sent to the stock room or warehouse to learn the business.

"But because I was a girl, I automatically went to the office.'' And it was'nt long before she was working her way up the corporate ladder.

"Somebody has to take control. If you go and do it, no body will stop you. I didn't sit there and wait to be told what to do. I never really became the accountant. In a few years I was the managing director and then the vice president. In 1991 I became the president.'' She said being female has posed problems in Europe where men are not used to doing business with a women.

"If this happens, I just pass them over to one of the males and eventually they come around. But really there have not been many blocks in terms of sex.'' A head for figures: Leading business women Nancy Gosling (left), president of Gosling Brothers and Jeanne Atherden, a vice-president at the Bank of Bermuda, before they addressed a meeting of Women in International Trade, Bermuda.