Pete Cangany started in his new role as Ernst & Young’s senior partner in Bermuda this week with a mission to grow the firm’s business and to make it a stronghold of personal development for its staff.

Mr Cangany is optimistic about the prospects for growth in the financial services sector on the Island in the coming months and he will be looking to hire, with an aim of increasing EY Bermuda’s 140-strong staff by ten percent over the next 18 months.

He sees the asset management and insurance sectors as having strong growth potential and believes his firm is well positioned, as a business adviser, to benefit as clients seek help in navigating the rising tide of regulation around the world.

Mr Cangany, who will continue to serve as insurance leader for the EY Bahamas, Bermuda, British Virgin Islands and Cayman Islands region, a role he has filled since January 2013, took over as senior partner in Bermuda on Tuesday. He replaces Gil Tucker, who has moved into the role of chairman.

Mr Cangany’s experience includes coordinating audit services for companies with a wide range of size and complexity, including Fortune 100 financial services organisations with global operations, US domestic insurance enterprises and a number of Bermuda-based global reinsurance companies.

Asked during an interview with The Royal Gazette how he would like to make his mark as senior partner, Mr Cangany said: “To enhance the learning culture we have here, so people can come here and grow and enjoy coming to work in the morning.

“You can look at people as a resource or as part of the future. We like to view them in the latter respect.

“One of the greatest achievements you can have as a partner is to see one of your senior managers get partner.”

This week, Bill Bailey was promoted to partner and will lead EY Bermuda’s tax practice. He was one of 675 new partners announced by the firm worldwide — a record number of partner promotions for EY and an increase of 33 percent from last year.

EY is a firm where people at all levels are encouraged to offer their views on how things could be done better, Mr Cangany said. This culture promoted personal development, as did the opportunities for staff to work in different practices and different locations for the global firm.

As for key growth potential areas, he said the reinsurance sector was going through a period of transition, with innovation coming to the fore. He gave the examples of hedge-fund backed Third Point Re and Arch Capital’s Watford Re vehicle as examples of different approaches and said with more data available, data analysis would play an ever-growing role in the industry.

He added that Bermuda-based carriers would also likely expand their global reach into developing countries where insurance demand was increasing.

While one speaker at an insurance conference in Hamilton last week suggested that the “traditional reinsurance model is dying”, Mr Cangany preferred to look at the situation differently.

“The reinsurance industry is adapting to the changing world,” Mr Cangany said. “Whatever business you’re in, if you don’t adapt, you die. The needs and demands of shareholders, regulators and clients are changing. If you don’t pay attention to these things, that will cause a quick death.

“But the industry is adapting and that is a positive sign that the industry will continue to be robust.”

Asset management is another promising area for growth. Mr Cangany is encouraged by the unified effort of many parties to attract asset managers.

“Many asset managers left Bermuda in the past and there is a real effort going on to attract them back — that is the challenge,” Mr Cangany said.

“Government has a role to play in making the jurisdiction attractive, as do the accounting firms and the law firms.

“We want to rebuild and grow the asset management business on the Island, and when you get so many people engaged in trying to do this, then good things will happen.”

He did not expect a rapid glut of new business, but said the increase would come steadily and in five years’ time it would be very clear that the efforts had borne fruit.

EY’s restructuring and advisory practices have prospered in Bermuda since the global financial crisis. Mr Cangany said it was not only new rules like Fatca (the US Foreign Account Compliance Act), but also older red tape like Sarbanes-Oxley (2002) that continued to create challenges for business. New regulation and complexity translates into more work for companies like EY.

For Mr Cangany, who marks 34 years with Ernst & Young next Monday, it’s all still fun. “This is the type of work I really enjoy,” he said. “Because I’m working with a lot of energised people, it keeps me young.”