Andrew is currently a Director at Taylor Fry and has 14 years’ experience as an actuary in Australia and overseas, advising numerous injury schemes, insurers and government clients in the health and social sectors. He specialises in using advanced analytics to help his clients make better policy, pricing and operational decisions. Andrew has developed social investment simulation models to help governments understand how people interact with their services, and ultimately to help them evaluat...

Dr Jananie William (FIAA, PhD) wears many hats: she is an academic at the ANU, a Research Affiliate with the Global Institute of Women's Leadership (ANU) and Advisor to The Social Outcomes Lab. She worked as an actuary in general insurance before transitioning into her current roles. Jananie now spends her time educating new generations of actuaries while researching and consulting on matters relating to public health and public policy, with a focus on issues that adversely affect women’s hea...

Shivani Juneja is an experienced actuary who has worked in life insurance for over 10 years. She has worked across valuations, pricing, actuarial systems, pricing review, supporting appointed actuary CPS 320 advice and is currently working in a project-based role within the reinsurance and capital space. Shivani was born and raised in India, where she started her actuarial studies. She then moved to Australia where she completed her fellowship exams. Shivani is married and is a mum to tw...

Emma Vitz is a consultant working in general insurance pricing, natural perils and climate risk at Finity Consulting. Originally from New Zealand, Emma studied Psychology and Statistics before pivoting into an actuarial career. She has a strong interest in communicating complex topics in an interesting and accessible way for a broad range of audiences. Following on from the Auckland floods and Cyclone Gabrielle, Emma appeared on live TV and radio to discuss the impact that the largest non-ear...

Jon is a Data Science Actuary who has designed and delivered successful AI initiatives across all areas of insurance and banking, including pricing, customer personalisation, claims operations, web and mobile app development, and intelligent automation.   Jon believes actuaries have an integral role in managing the responsible use of AI in society. To this end, he has actively participated across all aspects of the Actuaries Institute’s data science strategy, including education, events, and...

Kelly is currently a Senior Actuarial Consultant at WorkSafe Victoria, providing internal consultancy support to the scheme. She started her career as an actuarial analyst in workers' compensation at Return to Work South Australia. She then worked as a Senior Manager at PwC, specialising in working with accident compensation schemes and government insurance authorities for 10 years.   She was born and raised in Malaysia, and currently lives in Melbourne with her family. Outside of work, she...

Charlie is a Senior Valuation Actuary from SCOR Reinsurance APAC L&H Reserving, located in Singapore. His role primarily involves reviewing and supporting APAC local valuation teams in Group reporting activities, including IFRS17 and Solvency-II reporting, experience analysis, Prophet modelling, internal retrocessions, and process enhancements. Currently he is working closely with Korea valuation team to support their Group reporting stream.  In 2022, Charlie relocated to Singapore with...

Adam Butt is the Head of Actuarial Studies at Australian National University.  Prior to commencing his career in academia in 2005, he worked as a superannuation consultant at Aon Consulting.  Adam’s research interests focus on superannuation and personal financial decision making, and actuarial education.  Adam’s research has been published in a number of top-ranked journals including Insurance: Mathematics and Economics, Annals of Actuarial Science, The Economic Record, and Journal of...

Daphna Horowitz is a qualified actuary currently based in Israel. But these days you won’t find Daphna calculating insurance premiums or reserves – she is a Master Certified Coach who helps high-performing CEOs to up their game in business and become confident, inspiring leaders. Daphna works with leaders and teams across the globe to transform leadership effectiveness and workplace culture by digging deep into leadership habits of self-awareness, leading people, purpose, strategy, leading...

Elayne Grace, CEO of the Actuaries Institute, leads the actuarial professional body known for its education program, professional standards and contribution to public policy thought leadership.   With 25 years of international experience spanning consulting firms and insurance companies, she provided strategic, economic and financial advice, Elayne played a pivotal role in nurturing early collaborations between businesses, scientists, and NGOs to address climate change and risk. She is a...

Stuart Turner is an actuary with over 25 years of experience working in life insurance and wealth management, in both corporate and consulting roles. He is currently working at Zurich Financial Services, and was previously a Partner at EY.   Stuart is the Chair of the Professionalism Committee. He has developed an interest in ethics through being a volunteer ethics teacher at his children’s primary school and presenting the Actuaries Institute Professionalism Course content on ethical...

Julia is a qualified actuary, certified coach and the Director of Guardian Actuarial. She is leading a mission to foster forward-thinking leaders in the actuarial industry and runs the Guardian Actuarial Leadership Program to help actuaries build their communication, management and leadership skills.  In this interview, Julia shares:  Why she became an actuary, How she started her actuarial career as a mum of three small children, How she navigated the leap from stable employment to starting...

In this episode, Julia recaps our top episodes and themes from the 30 interviews we’ve published since the We Are Actuaries podcast was born. Episodes mentioned in order:  Data science: 6 Daniel Stone | 4 Amanda Aitken | 12 Dr Genevieve Hayes Climate Change: 9 Sharanjit Paddam | 28 Ruby Smith Actuaries making a difference: 19 David Gifford | Kirsten Armstrong 21  And in super: 11 Stephen Huppert | 29 Aidan Nguyen  Emerging leaders: 1 Laura Zhao | 7 Desmond Muzorewa | 8 Dan Wang | 13 Alison...

Vy Le is a purpose-driven, qualified actuary based in Canada. She is the host of V Life Journal - Actuary, Career & Well-being, a YouTube channel dedicated to providing exclusive insights and advice on topics related to actuarial science, career development, productivity, and well-being. Through Vy’s channel, she guides young professionals in their career planning related to maths, data, and tech, while also sharing effective productivity hacks and learning strategies.  Vy is also a...

Aidan is an actuary working in public policy. In his current role within the Actuaries Institute’s Public Policy Team, he helps to channel the voice of the actuarial profession as a trusted adviser and honest broker to get better retirement income and life insurance policy and regulation. Aidan previously worked in policy at a peak industry body and before that as an actuarial consultant both within the superannuation and the life insurance industries. Outside of work, Aidan loves to stay...

Ruby is a qualified actuary working in Finity's Climate Analytics practice, focusing on physical risk, transition risk and modelling of long term climate-related issues. Passionate about the environment, Ruby is a member of the Institute’s Climate and Sustainability Working Group, with particular interests in decarbonisation, risk quantification and the social impacts of climate change.  In this interview, Ruby shares:  Why the environment is so important to her, Her decision not to get...

John is a senior pensions professional, working primarily with companies who sponsor UK pension schemes. John is a Fellow of the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries and a Chartered Enterprise Risk Actuary. Originally hailing from Ireland, he has worked in the pensions industry for almost 10 years, having studied Actuarial and Financial Maths at Dublin City University.  John has worked on various projects for pensions schemes, including exercises to help members have more options for the form...

Alex is a senior actuary of the Wealth Protection valuation team in ResolutionLife Australasia, managing the technical and delivery aspects of management and regulatory reporting. In this role, Alex is also involved in transformation projects such as separation from AMP, US GAAP, and IFRS17.   Alex has 10+ years of experience in valuation, pricing strategy, and data analytics across life insurance, wealth management, and banking practices. He spent 3.5 years working in Hong Kong in his early...

Sheridan is an actuary with the Transport Accident Commission in Geelong. She has previously worked in a variety of roles across corporate, consultancy, a regulator and a fintech start-up. She has also spent much of the past 20 years living and training in traditional yoga ashrams in India and Australia.    A qualified yoga teacher since 2008, Sheridan has conducted yoga classes, retreats, workshops and lectures, sharing the different branches of yogic knowledge. Her focus is on cultivating...

For the past 40 years Mark has had an extensive global career as a C-Suite executive and Director in complex financial services organisations in Sydney, Hong Kong, London & Cape Town with his main specialty being strategic risk management and developing and leading large complex and diverse teams.    Being orphaned in his teenage years and from a working-class background - Mark developed a strong community focus and has supported a number of not-for-profit and arts organisations, many in...

Alan Hsu began his actuarial career at AXA Equitable, where he quickly developed a passion for pricing and product development. He has experience pricing life insurance products in the US and Australia, and he is currently working at New York Life pricing institutional life insurance products.   A graduate of the Guardian Actuarial Leadership Program, Alan is a strong believer in more personal and professional development opportunities in the workplace. In his spare time, he enjoys playing...

Chris Dolman is an actuary working at IAG. His current role of Executive Manager, Data and Algorithmic Ethics helps to ensure that modern decision-making algorithms and other advanced uses of data are designed and implemented in an ethical, responsible and thoughtful way.   Prior to this, Chris held a variety of senior management positions in the insurance industry and consulting, in Australia and the UK. Chris is an award-winning volunteer, researcher and Fellow of the Actuaries Institute,...

Kirsten is an experienced non-executive director and strategic adviser with a 25-year career in health, disability, social insurance and international development.  She currently leads Social Ventures Australia’s social impact bond work, supporting governments, social-purpose organisations and impact investors to create high impact projects that generate evidence and change the lives of Australia’s most vulnerable.   In previous roles, Kirsten has helped governments introduce and reform their...

Cameron is an actuary with four years’ experience working for a life reinsurer in Sydney. His experience has mostly involved valuation and regulatory capital work, and in addition he has recently become a manager for the first time.   He is currently a Valuation Actuary at RGA and prior to this worked as an analyst in the valuation and pricing teams at the company. In his spare time he enjoys going for hikes with his wife and cuddling up with his two cats.  In this interview, Cameron shares...