3 July 2013Analysis

Lund appointed to lead BBDC in Bermuda


The Bermuda Business Development Corporation, formed through a merger of Business Bermuda and the Insurance Development Council, has named Stephen Lund as its new CEO.

The BBDC is a public-private partnership tasked with promoting Bermuda’s international business and encouraging the creation of jobs on Island.

Lund’s credentials for the role are strong having formerly worked as the CEO of Nova Scotia Business Inc. (NSBI), a Canadian business development agency established back in 2001. Under his leadership the NSBI attracted leading names to Canada’s shores including IBM, BlackBerry, CITCO, Marsh and Lockheed Martin.

Commenting on Lund’s appointment to Captive International, Caroline Foulger, chair of the BBDC said:

“Stephen is, in our view, a perfect fit for the role. He established Novia Scotia Business from scratch which is what we are asking him to do with BBDC. He has a track record of attracting business and creating jobs in Nova Scotia and equally importantly, he is known and respected by senior people in Bermuda already and knows Bermuda having lived and worked here for 5 years.

“We believe that the public-private partnership element of BBDC will be key to its success. There are certain things that must always be the remit of government—such as legislative change, policy amendments and relationships with other jurisdictions at the country level. Conversely  there are many things that the business sector is better equipped to do, such as identifying a new commercial need or opportunity, speaking to the actual "buyer" of the product (such as an underwriter speaking to a risk manager) and being able to respond rapidly and nimbly to a change in circumstance. We view it as key to the BBDC success to have both parties pulling in the same direction to fulfil a common agenda.

“The mission and mandate of the BBDC is to assist in growing GDP and creating new jobs in Bermuda. This will be done by both supporting and sustaining our current international business community and by identifying areas for growth. The focus for the next few months is to identify both quick wins—for example those policy or legislative changes needed to make Bermuda more attractive and competitive—and mid-term areas of focus. The BBDC needs to demonstrate it can deliver on its mission, so determining the areas of focus most likely to result in new on-Island job opportunities is important. Looking inwardly, another key focus is building the right team, developing a broad messaging strategy and building trusted relationships with stakeholders.

“The BBDC success will ultimately be measured by delivery against its key objectives - growth in GDP and jobs. However, once Stephen has joined us we will be working with him and leveraging from his Nova Scotia experience to develop the right measurement metrics so that we can be confident we are either on the right track or informed enough to make adjustments to our execution along the way.”