When Renee Bullock-Cann was first offered the opportunity to train in New York City for a top level management position at HSBC Bank of Bermuda, she was faced with having to leave her husband Paul Cann for more than 18 months.

Luckily, Mr. Cann who was working on the HSBC Information Technology Help Desk was also offered a position in New York as a systems technician, so the couple could pursue their careers together.

The Royal Gazette Lifestyle section spoke with the Canns via telephone on their first Independence Day living in New York.

?Today is nice because it is a holiday,? said Mrs. Cann. ?We are planning on going to the roof to see the fireworks.?

The couple, who have been married for six years, live downtown in the Soho area, near Chinatown and Little Italy.

?HSBC did a brilliant job in getting us both out here,? said Mr. Cann. ?Renee is the main person on secondment, but by extension, HSBC was able to accommodate our family. Being apart for two years or 18 months would be tough on any family.?

The Canns were the third and fourth Bermuda staff members to benefit from secondment opportunities offered by HSBC Bank of Bermuda.

Mrs. Cann said the opportunity for Bermudians like herself and her husband to train abroad is a tremendous benefit to the Bank of Bermuda becoming part of the HSBC group.

?I was identified along with other people as having high potential and being a top performer,? Mrs. Cann said. ?It is really exciting. HSBC does a great job sending people to different locations. There is a training centre in Bricket Wood in the United Kingdom. It is sort of HSBC University. A number of HSBC Bank of Bermuda employees go there.?

At first, living in New York City was a bit of a culture shock for the couple, especially Mr. Cann.

?It was a culture shock to see so many people that you didn?t know,? said Mr. Cann with a laugh. ?The streets are crowded. People will knock you down if you don?t get out of the way. We?ve stopped saying good morning to people. Everyone has a target and that is where they are going. They don?t want to hear a good morning.

?On the street people aren?t openly friendly, but they are more friendly in restaurants or clothing stores if they?ve seen you there before. In New York, people only beep at you to tell you to get out of the way.?

Originally, it was intended that Mrs. Cann would help to open a new HSBC branch in New York, to gain experience, but that plan has now been modified.

?Right now I am taking on a number of different roles,? said Mrs. Cann. ?Just this week I have started working at a branch and finishing up about six months in marketing. We decided that the exposure of sending me out to the busiest branch outside of head office here, would be a valuable experience. I have only just started working in Brooklyn Heights.?

One of the differences that Mrs. Cann has to contend with working in New York is the scale of business.

?The level of competition of retail banking in New York is dramatically different from Bermuda,? Mrs. Cann said. ?Just at the Brooklyn Heights branch alone you can look out the window and see three other competing banks. It is also different in how the processes goes and the systems that are used and the promotions that are run.?

She said other things like managing a small group of people and walk-in customer relations remain basically the same as they are in Bermuda.

?I am here to learn about the differences,? she said. ?In this upcoming role I am going to focus a bit more on the sales management process, and by extension performance management processes. Any exposure to dealing with customers is good. That is something you can only continue to learn at. After this I will be moving on to a working with a district sales leader. That will be a change. So I will be looking at it from the next level up. So I will be getting lots of different views while I am here for the 18 months. When I go back to Bermuda I will have been exposed to just about every area in different levels in the retail banking.?

Mr. Cann also has to cope with big differences in his new position in information technology. He is now working in project management.

?I am going to help oversee some of the information technology projects they have here,? said Mr. Cann. ?It is a different role than I had. In Bermuda, I was assistant helpdesk supervisor in IT.

A lot of the problems get sent out to India and then get filtered back to my team in New York where we have to support over 5,000 people. In Bermuda we were supporting about 1,100 people.?

He said information technology problems at HSBC New York are pretty much the same as in Bermuda, but there are other challenges.

?There are all different personalities and you really have to use your communication skills to get around some of the obstacles,? he said. ?The IT problems are pretty much the same here. In Bermuda I knew everyone and I knew where to turn. Out here it is a different navigation. I have to know all the key players. It takes time to get to know everyone, but I am enjoying it.?

Mrs. Cann has worked at HSBC Bank of Bermuda since the fall of 1999.

?I studied accounting in school and went to work for a bank as an internal auditor and then from there I went to work for Ernst & Young in Bermuda,? she said. ?

From there I switched back to banking and worked at the Bank of Bermuda as a financial controller for awhile. Then I transitioned into a unique role, I worked for Bank of Bermuda CEO Phil Butterfield as chief of staff. And now I am here.?

The intention is for the Canns to eventually return to Bermuda. With the New York experience she will be a good contender to succeed Richard Brown, head of personal finance services for the bank.

?We are coming back to Bermuda for sure,? Mrs. said. ?We are going to move back into our house which will be lovely. Not that anything is wrong with where we are living.

It sounds mundane, but it will be nice just to settle back into a normal life. This is fun and I am enjoying it and New York is a fantastic experience for work and for culture and lifestyle, but I miss Bermuda.?

Mrs. Cann said there is often a lack of women in top positions in the corporate world.

?I don?t think I could single out the bank,? she said. ?It could be that women are making career decisions based on the needs of their families, or that they prefer to start their own businesses.

I don?t know if I would say there is a lack of female role models, but I would like to see more women at the top echelons of organisations.?

She said she has found that being true to herself is the best policy.

?Being true to myself helps me to maintain integrity,? she said. ?I can sleep at night and feel good about the choices I have made. I don?t feel I need to be anything other than who I am.?

Mr. Cann is an avid soccer fan and player, having played for local team Dandy Town. He is also a former member of the Bermuda national team.

The Canns recently went to Germany to see the World Cup and one of the matches they saw was England?s group match with Trinidad and Tobago.

?I like to play golf, but you have to go quite a way before you can play on Staten Island,? Mr. Cann said.

?I am hoping to start playing soccer out here.?