Empowering Bermuda's women in business is the focus for a new leadership group.

The Centre for Leadership, which was formed by Carolyn Myers, Rochelle Simons, Jennifer Smatt, Kendaree Burgess Fairn and Donna Harvey Maybury, aims to increase opportunities for women in the workplace and kicks-off with the Woman in Leadership Conference at the Fairmont Southampton Hotel on December 5.

The conference, which is the first of its kind on the Island and expected to attract 300 delegates, will centre on what helps women to succeed in today's business environment, inspiring ideas for new opportunities and making changes that matter, best practices for organisations to develop female leaders and talent and how to create an effective network to help women succeed in their work.

It will feature an insight into leadership by Benjamin Zander, conductor of the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra, author of 'The Art of Possibility' and internationally acclaimed speaker, and a key note speech on how to survive and succeed in today's marketplace by Carolyn Buck-Luce, a partner at Ernst & Young, US and co-chair of the international 'The Hidden Brain Drain' task force. Ms. Buck-Lee has also written 'Off Ramps, On Ramps - Keeping Women on the Road to Success'.

Ms. Myers, who is president of the group, said the conference was unique in that the content would be based on a national survey of 100 women on key issues including women's views on leadership, the secret to their success, their biggest challenges, work-life balance and how it is achieved, what organisations are doing to promote women and feedback on areas to provide conferences and training.

A panel of top CEOs will also be on hand to discuss issues such as how to attract and retain talented people and develop talented leaders within business as well as talking about some of the themes from the survey and what organisations are doing for women in the workplace and what they need to do, in addition to speaking from their own personal experiences.

"We are doing the conference because we think it simply makes good sense," said Ms. Myers.

"Women contribute to at least 50 percent of the workforce and companies need to tap into that talent and companies that support it will be able to take away best practices in that area.

"We visited 20 of Bermuda's top women about this and we have had an overwhelming reaction to this conference and, not only that, we want women executives and leaders to bring mentees or management trainees along with them to it.

"We want to bring women together to help them develop and to help them grow and to earn their goals and to be where they want to be.

"Statistically there is still room for women to grow and advance in their careers and there is still opportunities for women that want to climb the corporate ladder and we want to help those women to do that or just to allow them to be better at what they are doing."

Vice-president Ms. Simons said the group was all about the power of networking and the experiences women can get out of that.

"We discovered that there was a deep-rooted communality among women to contribute to society," she said.

"And we need to make that contribution, not just for today, but for young people to take forward in the future."

She said the organisation had four goals, including working with businesses to develop women as leaders, using research as the key database, creating opportunities for women to network and foster relationships and to recognise and reward their achievements.

"We really want to gauge the pulse of what women are thinking and what their desires are and how collectively we can move that forward," she said.

"It is the time to take a good hard look at the contributions that we have made to date and discover what more there is us for us to give.

"Our goal is to open our eyes to what is next and how we can support it to make that next level and reach the top."

To book your ticket for the conference contact 535-6903 or visit www.boxoffice.bm.