What Jereme Ramsay most wants to see is industry partners continue to collaborate with the Bermuda Business Development Agency and build on the successes of the past 5½ years.He returns to the private sector next month with KPMG Bermuda, having played an important role in helping attract business and investment to the island with the BDA since 2014.Mr Ramsay, a Bermudian, is upbeat on the island’s prospects, and has asked the business community to stay involved with the BDA to ensure the jurisdiction’s continued success.“I’m optimistic about Bermuda’s growth in terms of new insurers, specifically in the long-term and annuity space,” he said.As he reflected on his time with the BDA, he said: “I’m asking the industry to really get involved and continue to work with the BDA. It is essential to the jurisdiction’s success. “Our greatest strength is collaboration, to continue to attract inward investment and new business to the island.”Mr Ramsay studied at Warwick Secondary and CedarBridge Academy, before going to Mount St Vincent University, in Canada. After working for two years with HSBC Global Asset Management as a marketing communications co-ordinator, he returned to study, gaining an MBA in Marketing Management at the University of Liverpool, England.He then worked at Rubis in a sales and marketing role, before returning to HSBC, where he was involved in the digital department, and later strategic planning and marketing governance.Then, in late 2014, he became one of the first business development managers at the BDA. His responsibilities were the risk “pillar” of insurance, reinsurance, captives and insurance-linked securities.“What we were doing was on a national scale. So seeing an idea all the way to fruition, for me that was the most gratifying — to help usher that business in to Bermuda and connect them with corporate service providers.”Initially he was involved with the captive industry, but his focus expanded and went into healthcare liability and cyber-risk. He and his colleagues worked closely with brokers and carriers to raise the profile of the jurisdiction.Mr Ramsay recalled that when Bermuda achieved Solvency II equivalence, which was championed by the Bermuda Monetary Authority, more enquiries started to come in from the long-term and annuities sector.“Working closely with the likes of Biltir [Bermuda International Long Term Insurers and Reinsurers] to really tell investors about Bermuda’s strength in this space, we started to see incorporations.”He said his time at the BDA gave him a different perspective on how businesses are set up and incorporated and how it really “takes a village” in terms of collaboration. That collaboration includes working closely with the insurance managers, lawyers, accounting and advisory teams, corporate secretarial teams, the BMA. “Our greatest strength is the collaboration and working together. It takes multiple hands to get an idea, a new risk transfer solution, off the ground,” he said.“It was great to help facilitate that and connect perspective businesses with service providers and see ideas flourish in to business opportunities, and the hiring of people. That was probably the most satisfying of all.“What I saw and experienced at the BDA was the honest collaboration, and really leveraging the expertise of our industry partners and keeping Bermuda top of mind for insurance buyers and risk managers.”With his early involvement at the BDA he saw the agency evolve. He said some lessons were learnt, and there were also big wins. Mr Ramsay said the BDA has played an important part in attracting industry conferences to the island, and with them perspective business clients.“We helped facilitate the environment of thought-leadership occurring, bringing top speakers in and leveraging a lot of expertise from our local talent to bring insurance buyers, brokers, and risk managers to the island.”The benefit of that was that they not only heard about Bermuda, but experienced it, he said. In addition, the hospitality sector benefited as the conferences tended to be scheduled during the quieter periods of the year, in terms of visitors.Mr Ramsay is now looking forward to the next chapter in his career, which will be with KPMG.“My new role will be senior manager markets. It’s great to return to the private sector and leverage some of the connections I have made over the years, but also to continue to attract investment to the island.”He’ll be working to help the firm’s growth strategy across risk and some other areas. He expects to continue to work closely with the BDA, and he wants others in the private sector to do likewise.Mr Ramsay said: “International business is everyone’s business. It may be a cliché statement, but it is something that resonates with me and across the community.”