About us

KnowledgeSuites is run by W William Woods and Sarah Barham.

W WILLIAM WOODS

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 a 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 and is the President & CEO of Independent Review Inc. a corporate governance advisory firm.

William is a serial entrepreneur. Most recently, he has launched WWWoods & Co. Limited and co-founded Independent Review Inc. In the 1990s, he co-founded The International Securities Consultancy Limited and ISI Publications.

Stock Exchange Experience

From August 1995 to December 2001, William 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 stock exchange work has 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, for the Hong Kong stock exchange;
• drafting the listing rules for the all new Dubai International Financial Exchange;
• advising a start-up stock exchange in the EU on business model, rules and regulations, IT systems and CEO selection; and
• preparing a report on cross border listing for the South Asian Federation of Exchanges.

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”. B2B Exchanges sold more than 50,000 copies and was translated into four foreign languages. He continues to write articles and give interviews and speeches on B2B exchanges.

As part of Bermuda’s Electronic Commerce initiative, William was, for three years, a member of the government’s E-commerce Advisory Board which advised 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.

William provides B2B consulting advice on Ecommerce subjects ranging from the establishment of on-line markets to electronic invoice presentment and payment. His clients include:

• Cable & Wireless - a leading global telecommunications company
• A Crown Corporation based in Ottawa
• A consortium of Canadian Government Departments
• Recipco, a start-up B2B exchange

Offshore Experience

William is the author of a specialist Blog (www.bizoffshore.com), a database and on-line 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 Business Interests

William is a co-founder of ISIP.

During his career, William has presented at numerous conferences/events, made public speeches, published two books and many articles and been quoted or interviewed as a thought leader by leading publications such as the Financial Times, The Economist and the BBC. 

SARAH BARHAM

Sarah has more that 15 years’ publishing experience.

Sarah Barham is the CEO and Publisher of ISI Publications, which she co-founded. Sarah has driven the growth of ISIP which has multiple offices and a global distribution network. ISIP has published more than 100 titles in the financial services and ecommerce fields. Sarah’s main role is to conceptualize new titles, bring together author groups, commission the editorial and sign sponsor syndicates. She also oversees the marketing function of the company which encompasses direct mail and on-line promotion.

In 2000, Sarah designed and launched an on-line store to sell ISIP’s titles and other specialist materials at www.booksonbiz.com.

Sarah formerly worked with an international conference organizing company and was the Managing Director in Hong Kong, with responsibility for the Hong Kong and Taiwan offices.

Her international work experience includes working in the UK, Hong Kong (11 years), Bermuda (8 years) and Canada (2 years).