David is the Scheme Actuary for the NDIS. He has worked for nearly thirty years across social insurance, general insurance and government in both consulting and organisational roles. David was previously Chief Strategy Officer and Chief Risk Officer at the Transport Accident Commission, and held consulting roles for more than fifteen years, at PwC and most recently Quantium.  David has a Bachelor of Economics and an MBA from Melbourne Business School and is currently undertaking a Master of...

Michael is an actuary with broad pricing, reserving, and capital experience across different products and global markets. Starting his journey at IAG and RACQ, Michael loved the technical focus but sought a deeper connection to customers and make a greater impact in the insurance industry.  Following postgraduate studies abroad, Michael returned to accidentally take a temporary role in travel insurance. In it, however, discovered a captivating niche that reinvigorated his passion for the...

For as long as he can remember, James has been fascinated by human development and been on a quest to answer two key questions: “What makes for a successful life?” and “What makes people change?” He thought he had all the answers as he spent two decades of his life traveling the world and rapidly gained “success” and recognition across various business, creative and spiritual spaces. Little did he know that he was slowly breaking apart inside and losing himself to unhealthy coping...

After 20+ years working as an actuary in life insurance for insurance companies and consulting, Mark relocated to Israel 12 years ago. Mark is the Senior Pricing Actuary for Israel and Medi at Swiss Re with responsibility for costing, writing and monitoring Swiss Re's book of reinsurance life and health contracts covering life, disability, critical illness, long term care and various other life and health risks as might cross his desk.  Mark's move to Israel came mid-career and presented a...

Janice is a Non-executive director, consultant and actuary with significant experience in the financial services sector including employee benefits, investments and financial planning. After starting her career at AMP, her actuarial career spans more than 30 years and has included a wide range of activities, including providing advice to companies, trustees and government; and managing people, projects and budgets.  Janice is a Fellow of the Institute of Actuaries, a Graduate of the...

Martin Mulcare is currently enjoying a portfolio of activities where the common theme is that he loves sharing ideas. This can take the form of a facilitator, a sounding board, a mentor or a company director.  His prior experience included work as a consulting actuary, a corporate actuary and a company executive. Many of you may have met him in his role as facilitator of the Professionalism Course from 2009-2019.  Martin is involved with a number of social purpose organisations including The...

Alison Visser is an actuary specializing in defined benefit pension funds, currently working at Mercer in Washington DC.   Alison’s actuarial career started in life insurance in Sydney and included a stint as a lecturer at the Australian National University in Canberra.   A Guardian Actuarial Leadership Program graduate, Alison draws on a wide range of experience in today’s podcast.  In this interview, Alison shares her reflections about:  Working in different countries, The importance of...

Dr Genevieve Hayes is the Director of Genevieve Hayes Consulting, an AI and analytics consultancy focussed on helping organisations maximise the value of their data.  She has experience in technical, leadership and academic roles, through which she has applied cutting-edge statistical and machine learning techniques to a range of business problems, including image and text classification, social network analysis and psychometric assessment design.  Genevieve is a Fellow of the Institute of...

Stephen Huppert is a qualified and experienced actuary who is currently enjoying a “portfolio career”. He is also the Head of Engagement at Optimum Pensions. Stephen has over 30 years of experience in Superannuation, Wealth Management and Life Insurance in a range of consulting and corporate roles. He provides advice to organisations that are committed to improving the retirement outcomes of Australians. These range from some of Australia’s largest superannuation funds and their service...

Jennifer Lang is an independent director and actuary, and is currently on the Boards of Pacific Life Re, Propel Funeral Partners, Medical Insurance Australia, Auto & General Insurance and Bicycle Network. Earlier in her career she was the CFO and Chief Actuary of CommInsure, and a Partner of Deloitte and KPMG. Jennifer was the Actuary of the Year in 2020, is a regular presenter at conferences on leadership, insurance and risk management, and is often requested to commentate on all things...

Sharanjit Paddam is an actuary with nearly 30 years’ experience in actuarial consulting in the UK and Australia. He is a Fellow of both the Institute of Actuaries of Australia and the UK Institute and Faculty of Actuaries.  Sharanjit is a leading expert on climate change, receiving the prestigious award of “Insurance Leader of the Year” in 2022 by the Australian and New Zealand Institute of Insurance and Finance for his work on championing action on climate change.  Currently, Sharanjit...

Dan is an actuary with over ten years of experience in Life Insurance, including valuation and regulatory capital. Originally from China, Dan came to Australia to complete his University studies and has lived in Sydney ever since. He is currently an Actuarial Manager at Dataly Actuarial and Data Consulting. Prior to this, he was the IFRS17 and Data Science actuary at MetLife. Outside work, Dan is the cook at home and plays competitive tennis every week. In this interview I asked Dan:  About...

Desmond is an actuary with experience in the superannuation field of practice and is passionate about big data management and automation with Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning. He is currently the Head of Actuarial Analysis, Super SA at the South Australian Department of Treasury and Finance. Desmond is responsible for performing actuarial analysis to identify, review and evaluate superannuation related policy options for the State and individual agencies. In this interview I asked...

Daniel Stone is a qualified actuary and data scientist with 20 years of experience in a wide range of fields including varied-sized life offices, reinsurance, consulting and expert-level model building experience. He has worked in Australia, South Africa, United Kingdom and ASEAN.  His recent experience is in applying big data and cloud technologies, data engineering automation and the application of statistical and data science techniques in life insurance and actuarial pricing.  In his...

Kim is an Actuary with over 15 years' experience in the corporate world with varied roles across consulting, reinsurance and life insurance, focused on pricing and product development. Kim loves to build solutions that create genuine value for end customers, having been instrumental to the launch of new life insurance product offerings and supported the entry of an international reinsurer into the Australian market.  Kim has recently taken the leap to Retender, a 5 year old start up...

Amanda is an Actuarial Educator at the Actuaries Institute. She has over 20 years’ experience as an Actuary in general insurance and workers' compensation schemes. Amanda joined the Institute’s Education team in 2018 to develop and teach the Communication, Modelling and Professionalism subject.  Amanda has a special interest in data analytics and is currently the Chief Examiner of the Data Science Applications subject. Amanda is a member of the Data Science Practice Committee and the Data...

Ryan is a career associate actuary with the Institute of Actuaries in Australia. Originally from South Africa with 8 years of consulting experience there including being a manager at Deloitte, he then became the Head of Corporate Actuarial for the APAC region at Allianz Partners based in Brisbane for the next 3.5 years. He is now the Head of Product & Underwriting for the Health Line of Business at the same company.  In addition to his actuarial career he is a former TEDx speaker, United...

Stephen Huppert provides advice to organisations that are committed to improving the retirement outcomes of Australians. These range from some of Australia’s largest superannuation funds and their service providers to new entrants bringing innovative solutions to the industry. He has over 30 years of experience in Superannuation, Wealth Management and Life Insurance in a range of consulting and corporate roles. Stephen is active on social media, a frequent contributor to publications, and a...

Laura is a qualified actuary with the Institute of Actuaries in Australia. Born and bred in China, she moved to Sydney a decade ago and formed her family here. Laura is currently a senior underwriter at Freely, a travel insurance startup. Prior to Freely, Laura worked in IAG and Suncorp, predominantly in pricing and data analytics projects. In her spare time, she enjoys building Lego sets and traveling with her family.  In this interview I asked Laura:  What it was like moving from China to...

Welcome to the We Are Actuaries Podcast, where you’ll meet leaders who use their actuarial powers to solve a range of problems and make a real difference. I am your host, Julia Lessing, a qualified actuary based in Australia. I help senior leaders use data to solve complex, people oriented problems. In this series, you’ll hear from a range of experienced actuarial leaders, actuaries doing working in different fields plus emerging leaders, our next generation of actuarial leadership. So...