A new course to be offered by the Bermuda Insurance Institute (BII) in conjunction with the prestigious Wharton School of Business will seek to groom future leaders of Bermuda business.BII president John Wight told The Royal Gazette yesterday that the organisation’s research had shown that the course was in demand and not only from the insurance sector.The BII is close to finalising a contract with Wharton, which is part of the University of Pennsylvania, and the course is expected to launch early next year.The structure is expected to be a week’s training, followed by an eight- to ten-week reflection period, and then another week’s training. Content areas will include, strategy, communication and team-building skills.Mr Wight said the idea for the leadership programme had come out of the BII’s survey of its membership to see what it could do to advance its educational and training role.“We found that members were very pleased with the technical expertise of their employees, but what they were looking for, in addition, was a leadership development programme,” Mr Wight said.“They said they had many high-potential managers they wanted to advance through the organisation, but they needed to send them overseas for leadership training to develop some of the soft skills of leadership.”The BII then spent time drilling down to identify the specific needs of their members. Mr Wight, along with BII Education Committee members Andrew Soares and Michelle St Jane, met with many employers over the past nine months.“We’ve received great support for this, not just from the insurance and reinsurance sector, but also from others, including banks, hedge funds, Government, auditing and law firms,” Mr Wight said.He added that the programme would be offered first to BII members, but that it would be open to everyone.“It’s long overdue and the timing is right,” Mr Wight said. “Bermuda companies are saying to us, ‘This is a point in time when we need leadership more than ever, so why send people overseas, why don’t we set up a world-class leadership programme here in Bermuda’?”Updates will be published in the media and on the BII website (www.bii.org), when the contract with Wharton has been finalised and course details can be released.