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Having built a four-wheeled road rocket car from scratch, Eugene McCormack, head of sales and marketing for B&CE, did not shy away from the challenge to rebuild its brand and business.

Like his beloved Caterham Super 7 mean-machine he constructed in 1991, B&CE has been refreshed and reinvented with the help of Mr McCormack, as a restructured firm with a successful refocus on sales.

Since he started about a year ago, it is currently running at more than the double enrolment into its schemes based on 2007 full year business.

Its importance to the UK construction industry has been through the availability of a national insurance tax concession available to construction companies who set aside monies for holiday pay for construction operatives, where this tax benefit is converted into a package of employee benefits for construction workers by B&CE.

The package includes a stakeholder pension plan which has now grown to be the UK’s largest and most popular stakeholder fund, with almost 250,000 construction workers pensions secured within it.

So who is the self-confessed ‘petrol-head’ and music-mad fan, who enjoys the sweet sound of success?

The married father-of-three had originally stepped into the sales and marketing sphere through the pharmaceutical industry in a graduate trainee programme.

But as that market dwindled overnight, many members moved over to the financial services and Mr McCormack followed suit.

He then joined Manufacturers Life as an underwriter in 1972, before he joined City of Westminster Insurance as an inspector, then progressing to branch manager and agency manager between 1975 and 1980.

With other City of Westminster members, he founded Premium Life, leading the sales and marketing team for two years from 1984.

Mr McCormack then joined Irish Life in 1986, where he set up a retail financial business to create a new brand, with high street presence of banking, life and pension products, as a "one stop financial services."

Two years later, he joined Cannon Lincoln as marketing director until 1993.

Other project based roles included managing director at Excel Financial, general manager for sales and marketing for Europ Assistance, head of product marketing and development for Barclays Life, before joining Unum Provident as its director of marketing in 1999 for six years.

With a number of consultancy and interim assignments until 2005, he joined Lincoln Financial as its head of product and marketing.

In July 2007, he stepped into his current role as head of sales and marketing for B&CE.

He said: "B&CE is an interesting unique organisation. It is the major provider of employee benefits to the blue-collar part of the UK's construction industry.

"It was formed by the construction industry in 1942 to enable the provision of holiday pay to lowly paid construction industry operatives.

"It is a not-for-profit organisation and is energetically committed to improving the personal and financial wellbeing of everyone who works in construction."

With a love of flying, Mr McCormack also believes there should be a flight to quality for the blue-collar industry.

He said: "These individuals are poorly served by the financial services industry and they are not easily accessible. They are not an obvious target by players in the industry.

"Because we do not have shareholders to account for and are owned by the construction industry, our reason for existence is to serve the construction operatives, and this where we can take a totally different view.

"The tax concession which has facilitated the creation of B&CE's past success will be withdrawn in 2012. As a result B&CE has had to re invent itself if B&CE is to continue a buoyant future it will have to expand its product range, its offering and its relevance.

"Right now, we are investigating other product structures to see the relevance of those to the construction industry and how they might offer a whole range of products to the construction industry.

"One of the products we are about to launch is an employee benefits healthcare product. We will not be manufacturing that ourselves, we have looked at that market place and selected a provider to work with them to make that product relevant to industry needs."

But with the pending removal of the National Insurance concession in 2012, Mr McCormack believes the time is now to act.

He said: "It has enabled us to build a foundation of product offerings that we currently have, the stakeholder pension, life cover, accident cover, so that will be gone after 2012. So we need to expand our product offering to replace the demise of NI concession.

"Our objective is to recruit as many operatives in the construction industry, between now and 2012. Also in 2012, by coincidence, we will have the introduction of personal accounts, so it is our intention to convert all of those individuals we have recruited into the NI concession, who are that time benefiting from stakeholder pensions and life cover, it will be our intention to convert them into personal accounts by then."

He stressed that B&CE wanted to be the employee benefit provider to the construction industry and continued: "We actually want to build a platform of employee benefits of the blue-collar sector and the white collar section in the construction industry.

"Also health and wellbeing is at the forefront in my mind. The construction industry is a tough industry and some of the conditions some people work on take a heavy physical toll. If we can provide a health-related product that encourage operatives at the sharp end to be more aware looking after themselves to do that and to provide them with risk based products that relate to the injuries and risks that are dealt with on construction sites."

Mr McCormack does not believe that being in such a niche market is a restriction. In fact, it is a blessing.

He said: "B&CE has a great opportunity in a very large segment. At a time when perhaps the mainstream financial services brands for one reason or another are viewed with suspicion, but protection is one of the fundamental needs of our market.

"It is pretty tough on a construction site, and operatives are exposed to real risks and hazards, and the mainstream financial services industry does not really like that risk. But the needs are very real.

"Take income protection for example, most providers are reluctant to underwrite blue-collar clients, the rates would be substantially higher."

Mr McCormack – who openly admits he tackles challenges in an unconventional but lateral way – continued: "The current range on offer are prohibitively expensive, so if I can find a way of simplifying that product and providing a provider will take a realistic view of that segment, I will be serving our customers very well.

"One of things I am looking at is that the provision is sensibly, competitively priced, easy to understand income protection for construction operatives because there is a very real need."

He added: "It is a big challenge but different from anything else I have done and utilises all my experience of change, product innovation and marketing as well as channelling a passion for delivering a relevant proposition to the customer."

Girlie Garduce is senior features writer of Financial Adviser

Eugene McCormack CV

1972: Underwriter, Manufacturers Life

1975-80: Agency manager, City of Westminster Insurance

1980-86: Sales and marketing manager, Premium Life

1986-88: General manager and director, Irish Life

1988-93: Marketing director, Cannon Lincoln

1993-95: Managing director, Excel Financial

1995-98: General manager sales and marketing, Europ Assistance

1998-99: Head of product marketing and development, Barclays Life

1999-2005: Director of marketing, Unum Provident

2007-present: Head of sales and marketing, B&CE