About Us

WWWoods & Co provides specialist consulting expertise in the financial services and B2B e-commerce areas.

Current Consulting Experience

Recent clients include:

• DIFX - Listing Rules for new stock exchange
• SEC, Zambia - Updatimg the Securities Law
• Canadian Crown Corp - EIPP and Invoice Imaging, market assessment reports
• Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing Ltd - Code of best practice on corporate governance
• Recipco – a start-up B2B exchange
• Eventurecentre - a venture capital arm of Zurich Financial Services
• Invesdex.com - an online, managed futures trading platform
• Kitcomm – track and trace from space
• ISI Seminar & Publications - a leading independent financial publisher
• iSentry – project management of the design and build of a online application to store and manage KYC documents

W WILLIAM WOODS: Chairman & CEO

W. William Woods is a lawyer, admitted to practice in Bermuda, England, Wales and Hong Kong. William was a solicitor with Linklaters & Paines in Hong Kong where he specialized in corporate finance work. For three years he acted as Legal Counsel to the Stock Exchange of Hong Kong. He then co-founded the International Securities Consultancy, a consulting group based in Hong Kong and London that specializes in advising on the development of both emerging and mature securities markets. From August 1995 to December 2001 William was the CEO of the Bermuda Stock Exchange. Since January 2002, William has been a specialist financial services and e-commerce consultant. For 12 months William acted as the “Entrepreneur in Residence” at Zurich’s Bermuda based venture capital company, the Eventurecentre. William’s role at the EVC was to assist a number of e-commerce start-up companies, in which the EVC had made equity investments.

William currently serves as an independent director on the boards of a number of offshore hedge funds.

Stock Exchange Experience

From August 1995 to December 2001, He was the first Chief Executive Officer of the Bermuda Stock Exchange (BSX). William helped transform the BSX into the world's premier, fully electronic, offshore securities market. Prior to joining the BSX, he was a Director and founding partner of The International Securities Consultancy (ISC) - www.isc-global.com - a unique consulting group based in Hong Kong and London that specializes in advising on the development of both emerging and mature securities markets. William has provided consulting advice on the establishment and development of exchanges in several countries, including Australia, Hong Kong, Malaysia, India, China, the Philippines and Russia. He advised on the development of the all new, fully electronic National Stock Exchange of India. In 1993, whilst at ISC, William was retained by the BSX to assist in developing its Strategic Plan. William has also provided advice to a number of international development agencies including the World Bank, The International Finance Corporation and the Asian Development Bank.

William’s work at the Hong Kong and Bermuda stock exchanges has included extensive work in the Listings area, including intensive sales and marketing to attract new listings, preparing new listing rules, and regulating listed issuers. At the BSX, he grew the total number of listed securities from 45 to over 340 and increased the market capitalization of listed securities from US$1 billion to over US$165 billion. He also increased the trading volumes from US$75 million per annum to over US$230 billion per annum.

William’s recent work for the Hong Kong stock exchange included preparing a consultation document on the regulation of intermediaries in the IPO process and preparing an expanded Code of Conduct on Corporate Governance for listed companies.

B2B Experience

In 1999, William co-authored the international bestseller “B2B Exchanges: The Killer Application in the Business-to-Business Internet Revolution” and in 2002 he wrote and published “B2B Exchanges 2.0: Not all e-markets are dot-bombs”. He continues to write articles and give interviews and speeches on B2B exchanges.

As part of Bermuda’s Electronic Commerce initiative, William has been a member of the E-commerce Advisory Board - which advises the Bermuda Government – and he was the Chairman of BIBA’s Legal Initiatives sub-committee. In these roles he assisted the Bermuda Government to draft and implement the Electronic Transactions Act 1999 and Code of Conduct, in order to facilitate the development of e-commerce in Bermuda.

Offshore

William is a co-founder and President of Offshore, Online Limited (www.offshoreon.com), a database and online news provider for the offshore business community.

Having lived and worked in Hong Kong and Bermuda and advised on the development of a number of other offshore jurisdictions, he is also an expert on offshore financial centres.

Other Interests

William is a co-founder and director of ISI Seminars & Publications Inc. (www.isipublications.com).

SARAH BARHAM: President

Sarah Barham is a Professional Editor with over 12 years publishing experience. She is a co-founder of ISI Publications Limited and was the CEO for over 10 years. She is a direct mail marketing expert and Conference Organiser (formerly she was the head of IIR’s Hong Kong office). Her international work experience includes working in the UK, Hong Kong (11 years), Bermuda (8 years) and Canada.