Influential Women in Hamilton: Jacqueline King
The scales have tipped for women in law, according to director of Conyers’s Bermuda corporate practice.
Jacqueline King is a director of Conyers’s Bermuda corporate practice. She joined in 2012 and her practice includes all aspects of corporate law, with a particular focus on insurance law and regulation. She also chairs BILTIR’s regulatory/legal committee.
Give us a snapshot of your career to date.
I joined Conyers as a legal trainee and focused on corporate insurance law and regulation right from the beginning.
Over the past 12+ years, I have advised Bermuda re/insurance companies and Bermuda-based re/insurance groups on numerous licensing, transactional and other regulatory matters. This has allowed me to develop an in-depth understanding of the Bermuda regulatory framework and general industry practice, positioning me well to act as a trusted adviser to both new and existing clients in a highly regulated and ever-evolving sector.
What attracted you to this industry
I was born and raised in Bermuda, but I’m not quite old enough to remember the good old days of tourism. So, for me, I grew up seeing first-hand the impact our reinsurance industry had on the local economy and the opportunities it provided.
While the generation before me might have fallen into their insurance careers, as the story goes, the availability of options to work in the industry was very apparent to me growing up. I’m not sure how many other places in the world exist where you might hear a 12-year-old say they want to be an underwriter or a broker when they grow up, but for me and some of my friends, that was a practical plan.
“In the past five years, I’ve been very pleasantly surprised looking around board rooms at the diversity which exists and the number of women C-suite executives I have met along the way.”
Ultimately, I went into law so that plan transitioned from becoming an underwriter or broker to providing legal and regulatory advice to the underwriters and brokers. Interestingly enough, I had also assumed all Bermudians who went into law would do the same, but as I came to find out later, our Insurance Act and related regulations weren’t half as exciting or interesting to all of my contemporaries as they were to me.
Who inspired you or acted as a mentor in your career?
The senior insurance partners at Conyers were certainly my mentors in this career. Not only did they teach me the legal and regulatory ropes, but they reminded me that, given the history Bermuda has played as a reinsurance hub, some of the best clients, M&A and public company deals (really exciting stuff for us corporate lawyers…) would come out of our insurance practice.
They brought me along to board meetings and had me sit in on meetings with the GCs and C-suite at some of the world’s largest companies to show me exactly the people I would meet and the opportunities that existed in this practice area.
While I’ll acknowledge this might not excite the masses, that kind of visibility as a junior associate practising offshore was all I needed to see to know this was it.
What are your ambitions?
While I wouldn’t say it has always been my ambition, it has turned out that whenever a new summer student, associate or career shifter tells me they are thinking about corporate law but not insurance, I’m pretty driven to convince them otherwise! This really is an industry, whether on the legal or market side, which has so many different areas of interest to pursue that I’m certainly focused on making sure others see all that potential before deciding whether it’s for them.
Do you feel that the industry has made progress in terms of diversity and inclusion since you entered it?
Yes, I have seen compounding progress in terms of both diversity and inclusion in this industry, both in and outside Conyers. It is rare these days that there aren’t women, people of colour and women of colour sitting around the table or on the call.
It’s also no longer the case that there might be one or two; quite often, women are actually representing a majority of those in attendance. While there is always room for improvement, in the past five years, I’ve been very pleasantly surprised looking around board rooms at the diversity which exists and the number of women C-suite executives I have met along the way; so much so that I’m starting to hear conversations are shifting again to ensure that representation remains diverse, especially as there are so many more women in law today.
Is there anything you would like to improve or change?
There is always room for improvement and progression in any industry, but one area I think might need to be improved sooner rather than later is ensuring the industry continues to attract the next generation of talent.
While the insurance industry seemed like a logical career to me, I’m not sure it continues to have that appeal for the next generation. Given this, I think many industries need to ensure there is a continued focus on culture, inclusive work environments, embracing more technology and continuing to allow for innovation not solely as a means to make the business more efficient but to ensure industry keeps attracting talent that may be pulled to other sectors that have already prioritised these things.
What challenges have you encountered in your career, and how did you overcome them?
While I think everyone agrees we cannot live without all the modern technological conveniences that we enjoy today, whether that be mobile email, instant messaging, and satellite internet access, one particular challenge I am still working on overcoming is how to successfully disconnect from those things without the fear of missing out or getting behind. This challenge continues to be a work in progress!
What do you feel is your greatest accomplishment so far?
I’m still working on these so it’s too soon to tell!
Would you encourage other women to consider this sector?
Without a doubt! Women, men, Bermudians and non-Bermudians. I’m pretty passionate about this sector and what it does for Bermuda as a whole, so I encourage everyone to learn more and see how they may be able to be part of the same.
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