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Choosing Your Future |
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Here are a few testimonials of certified actuaries. Hopefully this gives you some insight about your future. Enjoy reading! Andy Kenyon, FSA, FCIA, CERA - Great-West Life Assurance Company Brad Nieland , FSA - CIGNA Healthcare Brock McEwen, FSA, FCIA - Great-West Life Assurance Company Charly Pazdor, FSA, FCIA - Eckler Chris Jansen , FSA, FCIA - Great-West Life Assurance Company Gaétan Ruest, FSA, FCIA - Great-West Life Assurance Company Gerald Hoeppner, FSA, FCIA, MAAA - Manulife Financial Jeff Strong , FSA, FCIA - Canadian Wheat Board Jenna Lessak , FSA - Great-West Life Assurance Company Mark Struck , FCIA, FCAS, M.A.A.A. - Wawanesa Mutual Insurance Company Tyler Smith , FCIA, FSA - Mercer
Andy Kenyon , FSA, FCIA, CERA - Great-West Life Assurance Company My name is Andy Kenyon and I have completed my FCIA, FSA, and CERA. I followed the Finance/ERM track because of my university background in Finance and my desire to see risk management from an enterprise-wide perspective rather than focusing on a specific line of business. I started off working in Group Expense Management. I am now an Associate Manager in Group Valuation. My roles and responsibilities include calculating reserves for our financial statements, performing experience studies to ensure that our reserves are appropriate, providing liability cash flows to our Asset/Liability Management area, and dealing with internal and external audits to ensure compliance with financial reporting standards. I feel that my expertise gained through the exam process has helped me develop a high-level perspective of risk management and my experience through Great-West Life's rotation program has given me a good background in Group insurance. These will both be beneficial as I continue to progress in my career.
Brad Nieland, FSA - CIGNA Healthcare Greetings. My name is Brad Nieland, and I am an FSA for CIGNA HealthCare. I graduated from the University of Northern Iowa in 2002 with a B.S. in actuarial science and statistics, and I have been a part of CIGNA's Actuarial Executive Development Program in Connecticut for the last 8+ years.
Given the rotation program that I’m in, my responsibilities have been quite broad, as my roles have included core actuarial roles as well as other various opportunities. In fact, some of my favorite roles to date have been non-traditional actuarial roles, such as my role involving hospital negotiations, along with a role managing a team of nurses responsible for predicting health costs for high-risk individuals. In addition to that, I am currently working in a non-traditional role as the Human Resources Director for CIGNA's actuarial program. I have found my non-traditional experiences to be extremely enjoyable and very critical to my development, as they have taught me to be a well-rounded business person and leader, rather than simply relying on my actuarial abilities.
Brock McEwen , FSA, FCIA - Great-West Life Assurance Company My name is Brock McEwen, and I work at Great-West Life Assurance in Winnipeg, Manitoba. I have a B.Sc. and M.Sc. – both in actuarial mathematics - from the University of Manitoba, and am a Fellow of the Canadian Institute of Actuaries. For my FSA exams, I chose the Group track, on the theory that it would most effectively leverage my accumulated work experience.
I joined Great-West in 1996, and have worked in several areas over the years, picking up experience in pricing, product development, client reporting, expense management, planning, and asset-liability management. I am currently Director of ALM Valuation, which is responsible for the CALM-testing of the company’s liabilities. This role offers invaluable insights into investment risk management, and brings me into close contact with many of the “hot topics” of the business world.
My SOA exam experience delivers value to my work every day – on three levels. Most directly, it has provided me with a large toolbox of specific problem-solving techniques. More generally, it has helped me develop a disciplined approach to problem-solving in the real-world, where there is no answer key. Most generally – and perhaps most importantly - it has helped me appreciate the value of hard work.
Charly Pazdor, FSA, FCIA - Eckler My name is Charly Pazdor and I am an FSA and an FCIA. I have been a consulting actuary for 20 years. My experience on consulting and professional areas has spanned a broad spectrum over the years, including: For the first 14 years of my working career, before becoming a consulting actuary, I worked for a major life insurance company serving in a number of departments and in a number of roles as I advanced in my career. I chose to move to a consulting firm 20 years ago because I thought that the work was simply more interesting – and if I was going to be working at something for decades, I wanted it to be interesting. There is a better mix of doing technical work and helping people deal with their problems. Within an insurance company, the goal would be to move up the management ranks and play a key role in helping the organization achieve its objectives – and that can be a challenging career. By contrast, in a consulting firm, the main goal is to work with clients to help them so that they will want to pay for our services – so that I can be well compensated. At Eckler, I am one of the owners of an independent Canadian consulting firm. Being independent provides us with a great deal of flexibility in managing our workload as we see fit – provided it meets our clients needs. Success in that situation means a great deal of job satisfaction and, if the financial conditions are right and we deliver for our clients, it can mean also very good financial rewards. The challenge for the future will be to ensure that we deliver value-added services to our clients in a changing economic environment. That may mean expanding our service offering into related areas – consulting to Defined Contribution plans – i.e. more of a focus on the assets / investments. One final note: volunteering for industry committees and/or task forces as well as making dozens of presentations over the years has been a significant part of the satisfaction I have derived from this career. I believe that it is important to get involved beyond the work we get paid to do.
Chris Jansen , FSA, FCIA - Great-West Life Assurance Company My name is Chris Jansen, and I am an FSA/FCIA. I followed the Group Life and Health track. At the time I had limited expertise in Group, but I chose this track to hopefully steer my career into the Group Division in the future. Today, my role is Manager, Group Marketing Planning and Field Support, and my responsibilities include client reporting, production of Marketing materials and publications, and planning of Marketing resources. I have now been in the Group Division for over 8 years. I started working in Group Pricing and Group Valuation, and today I now have a non-traditional role in Group Marketing. I hope to continue to further my career in the Group Division, as opportunity and experience allows. I feel my expertise gained through the Group Life and Health track provided insight towards an understanding of the make-up and pricing of Group benefit plans. Country-specific content provided in the PEC was also valuable.
Gaétan Ruest, FSA, FCIA - Great-West Life Assurance Company I am Gaétan Ruest and I have been a Fellow of the SoA and of the CIA for 8 years. I started working for Great-West Life 13 years ago in Group Insurance. While at Great-West, I had roles in Valuation, Marketing, and Financial Management. When I was going through my exam process, I chose to write the Investments tracks to supplement my Group Insurance experience and have a more well-rounded knowledge base. The investment skills acquired through the actuarial exams were very valuable when I transferred to our sister company, Investors Group. I brought a unique combination of analytical actuarial skills and investment expertise to my new role as the leader of Strategic Investment Planning. I believe that the knowledge I acquired through the exam process and the business skills I have developed through the variety of roles I have held have been and will continue to be invaluable to my progress within our organization.
Gerald Hoeppner, FSA, FCIA, MAAA - Manulife Financial My name is Gerald Hoeppner and I am an FSA, FCIA, and MAAA. I have worked as a life insurance actuary for 13 years, all at Manulife Financial. My experience in the life insurance industry has spanned a broad spectrum over the years, including:
The most beneficial aspect of working as an actuary for a large multinational insurance company is the wide variety of opportunities that are available. I am a person who is motivated by learning new things, and this has never been a problem at Manulife Financial. Each internal rotation can feel as if you are starting an entirely different job, but without having to leave the company and the relationships that you have built. There are a lot of challenges facing the life insurance industry today. Mitigating investment risks such as exposure to equity and interest rate movements, the growth of Asia as a prosperous market for insurance, and of course the looming spectre of globalized standards for financial reporting (IFRS). All of these present an exciting picture of the future for an actuary at Manulife. Of course there are many other benefits to working for a large organization, and not all of them are career-related. I have also had the opportunity to manage the actuarial softball team in Manulife’s intra-company league for the past 11 years, which is just one of the many ways in which the actuarial community gets together socially throughout the year. We haven’t won the league championship just yet, but we’re getting closer every year! Of course there are many other benefits to working for a large organization, and not all of them are career-related. I have also had the opportunity to manage the actuarial softball team in Manulife’s intra-company league for the past 11 years, which is just one of the many ways in which the actuarial community gets together socially throughout the year. We haven’t won the league championship just yet, but we’re getting closer every year!
Jeff Strong , FSA, FCIA - Canadian Wheat Board Hello, my name is Jeff Strong and I am Fellow of the SOA and CIA. Upon graduation I chose to work in Insurance. I had three different position rotations over five years. Since then I have moved on into a career in Risk Management where I get to work closer to Finance and Derivatives. The actuarial career path was beneficial in securing a high paying job right out of University. The exam system gave me an opportunity to explore the many different career paths available to actuaries and I have been successful in finding the right job for me. My interests were Finance, Derivatives and Stochastic Modeling which are all covered through the SOA exams. Best of luck in your future actuarial careers!
Jenna Lessak, FSA - Great-West Life Assurance Company My name is Jenna Lessak and I work at Great-West Life Assurance in Winnipeg, Manitoba. I graduated from the University of Manitoba in 2004 and I obtained my FSA in 2007, FCIA in 2008.
I have gone through several rotations in interesting areas of the company before being promoted to Manager in Living Benefits Pricing. I have had previous experience in Group Pricing and Asset Liability Management. In my current role, I am involved in product development and a lot of project work. I am responsible for coordinating the needs and issues of all areas required to develop a new product - new business, client service, underwriting, marketing, and claims. Communication and teamwork skills are very important in my role. In addition, a clear understanding of the Living Benefits organization as a whole is key to being able to understand and coordinate each area's particular requirements.
My expertise gained through writing SOA exams has helped me to understand the big picture of how insurance works. The exams introduced me to fundamental actuarial and business concepts, as well as covered many aspects of insurance such as pricing, valuation, and managing capital. My studies have given me the understanding of how all of this fits together.
Mark Struck , FCIA, FCAS, M.A.A.A. - Wawanesa Mutual Insurance Company My name is Mark Struck and I am a Fellow of the Canadian Institute of Actuaries, a Fellow of the Casualty Actuarial Society, and a Member of the American Academy of Actuaries. I also hold a Bachelor of Commerce from my time at the University of Manitoba. As a casualty actuary, my efforts are focused within the Property and Casualty side of the insurance sector, where I have specialized in reserving and pricing matters over the past 12 years. Currently, I find myself in a relatively new role dealing with topics related to Enterprise Risk Management. This is a broad area of work, taking a holistic view of an organization’s exposure to all sources of risk. It entails stepping outside of the traditional actuarial roles of reserving and pricing, to encompass financial, operational, and strategic issues. At the same time, understanding these issues relies heavily on the expertise developed during my time in the traditional areas. My career actually started in New York, working for a major Life Insurer. I developed some hard skills, such as programming skills; and soft skills, such as understanding the importance of clear communication in the face of complex industry jargon. After a short while, I returned to Winnipeg and joined The Wawanesa Mutual Insurance Company, where I began working on a mixture of responsibilities relating to reserving and ratemaking. As my exams progressed, I spent more time leading the analysis and less time learning about the analysis from those around me (that said, learning never stops, so don’t take that to mean that I think I know everything – I don’t). Eventually, my work started to focus on the pricing side of the equation, where I learned the importance of the regulatory process, and more specifically, the value in establishing an open line of dialogue with a variety of regulatory bodies. A common theme connecting all of the analysis I’ve been a part of, would be the value of well defined data underlying that analysis. To this end, I have been fortunate to be a part of my organization’s leadership attempting to create a more meaningful arrangement of data, intended to foster better analysis, and better business decisions. Regardless of the task at hand, I can typically expect that what I’m asked to do tomorrow, will likely build on the knowledge and skills I acquire today. The ability to parlay the experiences gained early in my career has made all the difference in terms of the opportunities before me today.
Tyler Smith , FCIA, FSA - Mercer My name is Tyler Smith and I am a Fellow of the Canadian Institute of Actuaries and Fellow of the Society of Actuaries. I have been working in the actuarial profession for over 10 years. I followed the pension track and now work for a pension consulting firm. I specialize in helping my clients work through the financial and legal risks of being a pension plan sponsor. I currently work in Winnipeg but have previously worked in Toronto and Calgary. The actuarial profession has provided me with numerous opportunities to grow my career. My role has evolved over the years from being an actuarial analyst to a consultant to managing the business. The knowledge I gained through the pension track has assisted me in being able to consult to my clients and assist my colleagues on finding solutions to a variety of issues. |
