Gino Smith, an underwriter at XL Capital Group subsidiary XL Re, was named as the Young (Re)insurance Person of the Year at last weekend's insurance industry awards, and deservedly so.

The first Most Outstanding Insurance Student at Bermuda College, and later the Valedictorian of his graduating class at the College of Insurance in New York, Mr. Smith clearly has a great future in the industry.

He was in distinguished company on Saturday as he joined Axis Capital founder and chief executive officer John Charman, the Reinsurance Person of the Year, and "serial entrepreneur"–Don Kramer, who received the Lifetime Achievement Award, in being honoured.

Mr. Kramer singled Mr. Smith out, saying that he hoped to see the young Bermudian standing in his place in 25 to 30 years.

At the same dinner, Bermuda Insurance Institute president Gerald Simons expressed concern about the lack of young men entering the insurance industry, where arguably the rewards, both personal and financial, are the best available.

Mr. Smith in that sense may be the exception to the rule as a young black Bermudian male.

Mr. Simons knows whereof he speaks, of course, as something of a trailblazer when he entered the insurance industry around 40 years ago as a young black Bermudian male, and one who has gone on to head up one of Bermuda's leading domestic insurers.

He noted, however, that where his executive management team was once predominantly male, the majority of his senior managers are now female.

This is not entirely a bad thing. While Bermuda tends to focus on the progress, or lack thereof, of black Bermudians to senior management roles in business, the quieter revolution that has taken place is among women, who have gone from being relegated to the roles of secretaries and later, the "softer" side of business management like human resources, to taking up real leadership roles in business.

And few would argue these days that workplaces that are diverse both in race and gender are better workplace, and generally result in healthier businesses as well.

But it begs the question, which Mr. Simons asked, of what has happened to the men, and in particular, black men?

Mr. Simons has raised this concern before, and when he was Minister of Education in the 1990s, one of his primary motivations for restructuring education was his concern that black males were lagging behind their counterparts in educational attainment.

While there is still plenty of debate about the success of those reforms, no one would debate that this was the intention, nor that it remains very much alive.

Mr. Simons noted that Shaun Morris, the managing partner of leading law firm Appleby, and another example of a successful black man, called for more mentoring in the community to ensure that Bermudians in general reap the benefits of the Island's success.

More mentoring is no doubt part of the solution, but better education is even more important.