Episode 91: Small Business Consulting

My guest for Episode 91 is Esperanza Borja Mead, FCAS, FSA, MAAA, Principal at Actuarial Factor.

The theme for the episode is 𝗦𝗺𝗮𝗹𝗹 𝗕𝘂𝘀𝗶𝗻𝗲𝘀𝘀 𝗖𝗼𝗻𝘀𝘂𝗹𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴.

Esperanza and I explore the following topics:⁣

✅ The inspiration behind starting her own business
✅ Transitioning from corporate to entrepreneurship 
✅ Bridging the entrepreneurial knowledge gap 
✅ Marketing, sales, and pricing for new business owners
✅ Boutique consulting firms and the clients they serve 
✅ Providing actuarial services for multinational clients
✅ Regional risk dynamics in the US, Latin America, and the Caribbean
✅ Delivering value for clients consistently 

If you are interested in small business consulting and working internationally, you want to listen to this.

My Website: maverickactuary.com

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Welcome to episode ninety one of Livewith the Maverick. My name is Dominic
Lee, founder of Maverick Actuary.We are a content community. Our mission
is to maximize the impact and valueof QUAN professionals on a global scale.
The goal of this series is toeducate our community on the most relevant themes

(00:22):
in actuarial science, risk management andanalytics. The theme of today's discussion is
small business consulting and we are veryexcited to have with us our guests for
today's episode. Spmead SB is principalat Actuarial Factor. They'll welcome SP.
Thank you, Dominic, thank youfor inviting me too to be part of

(00:46):
this community. And hopefully I canmaybe give two cents you know to someone
you know, my pleasure and yeah, I'm very much looking forward to it,
and we just love to give anopportunity to introduce you a thank you.
Well. I am an actor.Uh next year, actually I will

(01:10):
be be. I will have beenan actory for almost for thirty years,
so I'm quite excited about it.My first half of that journey, I
work with Assurant here in Miami forfor for for seventeen years, and and

(01:34):
then I went Basically I started asa natural intern that one summer and I
continue working with them throughout the yearsand I became a director uh and then
after but even when I work onAssurance, I primarily focused in the US
market, so ever stayed in theUnited States. But then one like the

(01:57):
last two years and Assurance, thenI started my get my feet wet with
Latin America, so I was quiteexcited about that. And then after Assurant,
I went to ACE now chub andI was their chief factory for all
of Latin America and after and that. In that role, I had teams

(02:23):
of factories throughout Latin America that reportedto me, and I was in charge
of all lines of business, propertyand casualty, personal business, insurance,
accidental health, so basically everything.And after that role, ten years ago,

(02:43):
I started Actual Factor also here inMiami. Basically I haven't moved.
I love Miami so much, butI haven't vote. So I started my
own consultings ten years ago, andI think it's definitely I'm grateful to my
two first employers because they gave methe foundations, you know, to be

(03:04):
an actory and experience, because thatwon't be where I am today. Without
their help, you know, andsupport. So definitely I'm grateful through through
that journey. Excellent. Now,one of the things I'm excited about with
this episode is you're currently the principleat Actuarial Factor, as you mentioned,

(03:24):
and that's a boutique consulting firm.And I know, certainly in the actual
community, especially when I was earlyin career, we know a lot about
the Big four, you know,the really big companies that have tens of
thousands as employees. But certainly,and again maybe I'm just speaking for myself,
but that certainly I think a lotof folks can say this is that
we don't get as much insight intothe smaller firms. So, you know,

(03:52):
just curious to know. So you'reyou kind of You got to the
chief actuary role at your last company, which I imagine must have been a
very fulfilling role, a rewarding role. You have lots of responsibility. Now,
what is what inspired you to sayI'm going to take a step back
and start my own consulting firm.That you're right, I mean, when

(04:13):
I was Chi Factory, it wasvery challenging. I worked like crazy,
it was yes, and I traveleda lot we did a few when I
was there that we did a coupleof positions, so I was part of
the due diligence teams and it wasjust very challenging. But I thought it

(04:38):
was amazing because I never had theexperience of going through the due diligence and
I just thought it was an amazingexperience. Obviously I had to work until
like ten at nine, you know, but but it was amazing. I
don't know how to explain it,right, It's like but but it was

(04:58):
definitely an experience that I I lovedit. And the team of people were
very talented of actress that I workwith, So I was I mean,
basically I was. It was thebest experience that I can that I can
say, you know, and thetop executive managers like all the on the

(05:19):
writers, I mean, they justit's incredibly smart. So I loved it,
let's put it that way. Whatstarted, what started the idea of
of starting my own consulting practice wasactually when I interviewed them, which they
actually called me, so I didn'treally was looking for and when they interviewed

(05:40):
me, they actually asked me whatwould I do if I didn't get their
job? You know? And thenI'm like, I'm thinkinting, like you're
calling me. I'm not you know, I was not looking for for a
new job. But in any case, at that moment, I you know,
I just pause and I thought,and then I said, I will
start my own cons in practice,you know. So sure enough, after

(06:02):
I left eight, I started myown consulting practice because I felt like,
okay, I have been doing this, like I have been building teams.
I have been doing all of that. But what I didn't know is that
what is your own money. Itis so much different using somebody else's money.

(06:25):
In other words, if I didn'teven stop, I'm like, okay,
I need somebody. And of courseI just asked, hr, yes,
give me some candidates, right,and even like everything was giving to
me essentially, right and and somebodypaid for it, right, Like you
just have to convince that we neededa new resource, and that was accepted,

(06:46):
you know. And but now I'mlike, no, it's it's not
coming from somebody else, It's comingfrom me. So that is that is
definitely challenging. So I almost thinkthat it's important as you are working with
your employers to think like a businessowner, to think about is what if
it's your money, you know,would you still do that? You know?

(07:11):
Yeah? So you know you talkedabout the challenge of personnel, which
I think anyone can relate to.You know, What were some of the
other challenges that you imagine you facedseveral challenges as you're transitioning from being a
corporate employee to a business owner.What were some of those other challenges.
Well, the one thing that Ithought that was good at, very good
at, was an accurate right.So I'm like, I know my thing,

(07:34):
you know, this is what I'mgood at. This is what I'm
passionate about it. I'm like therest I don't know anything about it,
but I figure I'll figure it out. Right. It would have been nice
if I had worked for a consultingfirm right before, so I have an
idea what I'm getting myself into.But I didn't have that experience. I

(07:56):
didn't know where to get clients.So I think that was the most allenging
thing, is like how to getclients, how to market the business,
how how much guitars? Yes,it was basically big. Even more than
that, it's like, if youstep back, it's like, how do
I talk to clients? You know, and and ask them for business.

(08:20):
I'm like, I didn't think myselfas a salesperson. However, I haven't
been always been told that we dosell every day on your daily work,
when you deliver the results to yourto your boss, you're selling your output,
you know, your your service,you know so, so I think

(08:41):
we do sell even though we don'trealize that we do sell on our daily
basis the ideas right, and ouropinions. And I think I think when
I when I think back, isI think that wasn't much more challenging,
followed by or at the same time, at the same level is the financial

(09:07):
side. You know, when whenI read all a few books on the
statistics on how many small business failedthe first year, second year, third
year, It's like, what didI get yourself into it? It was
really scary because if it's over,if you don't fail and year, what

(09:31):
I'm de failing number two or three. It's like, basically the chances of
failure were so large and the numberone reason for them was money running out
of money. So I think,to me that was like kind of the
most critical thing. And and theway I think I was helped right,

(09:56):
I was glad that in my previousemployer job, even though they're huge,
they're very caust conscious, you know, budgeting making sure that everything is in
the budget. And yes, it'sextremely cast conscious. So I applied that

(10:20):
to my job, you know,and I developed a budget for both the
personal side as well has the businessside, and thinking that maybe I didn't
know how many years it will be, but based on what I had read
about it, it said that ittakes twenty four months of burden an elephant.

(10:41):
So I'm like, okay, sothat means at least two years you
know, where I will start seeingsome rewards, but at the meantime,
I need to basically do it.So it was a lot of sacrifices,
you know, to be able tomake your daily life. So basically no

(11:01):
vacations, nothing extravagant, right,and even just going out to restaurants.
I had to keep it to avery minimum because I didn't know really how
long it was going to be toget the clients. So I think,
yes, I think that many peoplewant to start their own business, uh,

(11:26):
and I think it would be importantto consider basically, if you think
you're going to need X amount ofmoney, multiply it by three or five,
you know, because it does takea lot of resources. And even
though I did end up doing alot of the work myself on simple things

(11:48):
that I didn't know, like creatinga website and things like that, but
that saved money. So anyway,and I thought it was really good with
money, with budgeting, and Istill went over budget. You know,
it's interesting what you said. Ithink there's definitely something irrational to being an

(12:11):
entrepreneur because when I think of therisk of version within the actuarial profession,
I think most actuaries would have readwhat you read and have come to a
different conclusion. And I said,Okay, well, I'm definitely keeping my
job, but I'm glad that youknow, you were able to see the
glass whether it's half full or yourquarter full or whatever it was. I
know, anyway, I was crazybecause it is You're correct. I am

(12:37):
definitely risk covers. I'm definitely likeI'm like, I'm very safe. I
like to play a save. Idon't like to like overdo anything, and
I still consider myself risk covers.But I think I just felt like,
you know, he's like, thisis what I want to do. You
know, I think it was moremy drive to what I wanted more so

(13:01):
than then. I think my riskoversus is still there. I cannot deny
it. I always think about RESK. Yeah. One thing I can certainly
relate to with some of the stuffI've been doing recently is figuring out how
much to charge. And I knowthat's something that lots of people is a
challenge. Like did you ever thinkwhen you were just starting, like,
no, you know, I can'tcharge this much and then it ends up

(13:24):
being maybe less than you should havecharged or anything like that. Do you
have any aha moments there? Likeit was interesting my first client, Like
I just thought, I'm like,okay, I thought what the amount that
I wanted and then I just gavelike a fifteen percent discount, right,
and and we did a lot ofwork. I had to travel and present

(13:48):
to upper management a few times.And when we were done, he wanted
to pay me more, and Iwas like, like I knew that.
I was like, oh my god, this is it. This is what
I want to do for the restof my life. My client wants to
pay anymore, I'm for it.You know. He was really happy with

(14:11):
the work that we did, andalso I had to go and travel and
communicate it. So they did didpay for all my travel expenses, so
that was very I was very happywith that. I think I didn't quite
know how much the charge, butI had an idea because we did in
my previous companies we did hire consultingactories, but mainly for some for reserving,

(14:35):
so I wasn't quite one hundred percentsure how much the charge. And
another client, early client, theytold me this is how much these other
two consulting companies that are large arecharging me or for deserves. And I'm
like, he's like, can youmatch it? I'm like, fine,
we'll match it up. Because Ihave no active, no idea, right,

(15:00):
But I think as I figure itout, like then I figure out
how much I will want to charge. I think, in my case an
arcade like for a company like Idon't. I do value our work,
so I don't want to be likethe cheapest one. I think our quality
of the work it speaks for itself. So I do think that we need

(15:24):
to charge what is reasonable. Mmhmm. Makes sense. Now, you
talked about reading. When we talkabout filling those entrepreneurial knowledge gaps, you
talked about reading, and I thinkin the previous conversation you mentioned doing courses,
is there anything else that are forall? I guess I should curious,
like what books did you read thatwhich any book in particular, any

(15:45):
courses in particular, or anything elsethat you need to help you close that
knowledge gap and help to, youknow, move you from kind of corporate
entrepreneur. I read almost every groupthat you can think of. But before
reading a book, I actually gotmy second designation. I became a Fellow

(16:06):
of the Society of Actors right before. And that was the because I was
responsible in my previous employer with lifeand health as well besides property and casualty.
So I felt the need to doit to be able to market myself
better. But in addition to that, like I read every book you can

(16:26):
think of, I read it.I tried to make sure that I got
myself knowledgeable about where I was gettingmyself into. So I read. I
bought a several books, and oneof them was Burning an Elephant, and
it basically says, like the differentsections of building your business, how the

(16:51):
importance of it, like for example, marketing, the budgeting, the you
know each of the aspects of it, and that's where it said basically,
when you first open a business,you don't you should not expect that if
you have a store, even ifit's physical, that customers will run in
to come and trying to buy yourproducts. That it takes time for the

(17:15):
people to get to know you andall of that. And it's the same
thing in the service world. Ittakes time for people to believe on your
service. And I do recall atthe very beginning when I started meeting people,
they will say some of the peoplewill not give you new business because

(17:37):
in the first two years, becausethey want to see whether you succeed or
not. So I was very gratefulthat we did have a few clients sign
up in the first two years.So not everybody had that mentality, but
in reality it does because not manypeople. Not everybody know you. You

(18:00):
know. And but besides reading thebooks, I also attended several courses in
Score and also I got a mentorfor marketing from them, and I also
joined those masters and for three years, and I attended basically a couple of

(18:27):
times a week too, so thatI could improve my speaking, my public
speaking abilities. Yes, because Ithink that I thought that was really important
when I have to speak to twoprospective clients. Yeah, those masters is
great that I used to do thatas well. So now you know,

(18:48):
now that we have a good understandingof your trajectory and motivations, let's dig
deeper on your company and let's talkabout you know, clients and the markets
that you serve. So why doclients come to you? And how do
you describe the clients you serve.Our clients are insurance companies, reinsurance companies,

(19:11):
captive insurance companies, self insured entities, so we do have a variety
of them. And why do theycome to us? That's a great question.
I think most of our clients comewith people that I know from my
previous my previous employers. They theythey're working in different companies and because they

(19:38):
have known the work that I havedone in the past, they come to
us because of that knowledge. Andif it's not through personal knowledge, is
somebody from there referring us to somebodyto somebody else. So referrals, I
think, is what we most ofthe business, and then obviously we get

(20:02):
the remaining as well. But Ithink I don't I know, there is
a lot of Big four and theyhave a lot of knowledge, but I
think most besides the Big Four,most consulting companies are focused in a specific
country, you know, So ifyou're in the United States, you work

(20:26):
in the US. I think what'sunique with US is that we are international
and we have the experience for todo an international business but also domestic m
I know you mentioned you talked aboutthe benefits, of course of being multi
lingual. Yes, that definitely helped, although I would say I'm like,

(20:52):
I don't speak English, I don'tspeak Spanish, or like I don't know
when I speak because it is someof the terms that we use. The
terminology is very specific, right,so if I say ab in R,
I say agin r. You know, even if it's in Spanish, you
know, so I have to stopand think how to say it in Spanish,

(21:15):
you know. So it doesn't goteasy. Yeah. Yeah, So
I think it's a great opportunity hereto dig a bit deeper on the type
of clients you serve. I think, you know, to be able to
kind of compare and contrast that withwith some of the like the Bigger four,
the Big four companies. So Iknow when we spoke the first time
you mentioned that, I think youmentioned that, like three key situations in

(21:37):
terms of the clients that you serve. Hatchbar has what type of work or
or meaning yeah, meaning meaning Ithink you said that for instance, the
first situation would be when the whenthey don't have an internal the company doesn't
have an interactuary. Yeah, yes, I think we have different types of

(21:59):
clients. Some of our clients theyhave their own internal actories and they handle
in some cases they just handle thepricing, but they always want to get
a thur party, an independent partyto perform the reserving opinions, so they
hire us to do that. Andin other cases is those actors may not

(22:22):
have the internal acturers, may nothave experience or credentials for the jurisdiction where
they need to be, and inthose cases, again they come to us
just so because we have that knowledge. Like I mentioned, it is most
actories are do provide services in specificcountries. So once should we go outside

(22:45):
that country, they cannot sign.Yeah. And you gave a really good
example. You talked about, forinstance, a company from Latin America that
wants to write business in Florida,and you mentioned that of course the actuaries
in Latin America would not be ableto be qualified to sign correct. Correct.
Yes, we have instances like wehave actors in Argentina that they have

(23:10):
their internal actor is there and thecompany may be in Puerto Rico and they
cannot sign, so then they hireus to provide the services, say in
Porto Rico. And we have anotherone that is in Argentina the main company
and they're looking to do business inTexas, so they will hire us to

(23:32):
do business. Right that the internalactorers maybe can do some of the day
to day work right, but asfar as working with the Department of Insurance,
it would be a company like US. And then you provide another example
which I thought was interesting too.You mentioned a US like, for instance,
a US company who wants to writebusiness in Mexico. For instance,

(23:56):
they mean and they meaning to developa product without the same time, the
US actually may not be able tosubmit that product within Mexico. I thought
that was an interesting example as well. That is true because as you know
from our standards is we do needto comply with the insurance laws of the

(24:17):
state of domosile. So if thecompany is domosile in Mexico, we have
to comply with the requirements there.Yeah, and a few others that you
mentioned which I thought we were interesting. You talked about, you know,
low capacity, no expertise in aparticular line of business as well. So
I think those We have some clientswho have excellent actories and it's just mainly

(24:41):
that they don't have enough resources.So they do come to us to help
them with specific price specific projects thatthey may have that come up from time
to time. And in some casesthe companies may just high here different consulting

(25:02):
firms. So we have we signa large company this week, and they
hire large companies for reserving and theyhire us for some of it that don't
work as well. So I feellike because we have the experience more international

(25:26):
that I cannot say that we cancompete with it before because we don't.
Right, But I don't consider myselfany less, you know, our quality
of the work. Sure. Andthen there's it sounds like there's a situation
where the company may justus not havean actuary at all. Is that does
that common? Yes? Yes,A lot of the gay companies that are

(25:49):
medium medium size they don't have theirown internal actuaries because of different reasons,
and we basically do all the workfor them. M is it mainly because
of size and resource or focused Sometimesthey don't have them available, they don't
have actions the LA basically they don'thave just don't have it available in the

(26:11):
market. Okay, that makes alot of sense. Yeah, so well,
actually I had a follow up.This is interesting. We talked about
the stock companies who want that secondopinion, Do you do you run into
situations where the internal and external viewsare divergent? And if so, like
how do you kind of reconcile that, you know, because they when they

(26:33):
want someone to validate the reserves forinstance, that's a great question. We
haven't quite come across that issue,but I guess it could happen, right,
But if it is were to happen, I think it's more of a
matter of talking with the with theactors that are developing the the reserves and

(26:57):
see where their activists and make surethat we find out exactly what they were
thinking, because there may be somethingthat we could be overlooking too, you
know. So so I think it'smore the dialogue just to make sure that
we have full understanding and based onthat then we can see, Okay,
maybe they move a little bit,or maybe we move a little bit,

(27:18):
but we do need to understand.Great, great, so thanks for that
articulation. There's another we have abetter understanding of the clients and the markets
you serve. Let's they got intoa little bit deeper on the services themselves.
So you know, what services doyou provide an actuarial effector we provide

(27:41):
basically all of the services from anactual perspective. We provide pricing, we
provide reserving, we provide peer reviews. We also provide emergency and positions when
they need it or expert testimonies andso on and so forth. So so
I think our our goal is tobe able to provide all services from that

(28:07):
we that we know right. Andwe also do capital calculations capital requirement calculations
for futurisdictions as well. And thethe lines of businesses are all of them.
We cover all the property and casualtyjust because that's where I grew up,
right, uh, And we coverevery state in the United States.

(28:32):
We cover also Latin America. Wewe know business. We do business in
all of the countries and with thereception of Venezuela, and we also do
business in the Caribbean and some ofour I was gonna say the h we

(28:53):
do in Latin America and Puerto Rico, we do all to besides property and
actualty, we also cover life andhealth because of my background on that.
One thing that you mentioned which Ithought was interesting was you said, as
most people who practice in the USwould know, is that the annual statements

(29:17):
are line of business specific, soyou'd be you know, you do a
different one for the various lines ofbusiness. But you mentioned that, I
think in Latin America, and I'mnot quite sure if they call it the
annual statement, but whatever the equivalentwould be, I think you mentioned that
the lines of business are combined wouldbe yeses is like in most of the
Latin Americas, like Mexico, forexample, they have all lines together,

(29:41):
and also Panama, like it's avery every country in the Latin America,
and so when they hire us,they just don't tell us, Oh,
you just handle the P and C. You know, although some of our
clients where like they used to haveone actually for property and casualty, another
actually for life and help, andthen when we came in, they gave

(30:02):
both to us. So to themit was easier, you know, to
deal with it. But yes,It is very unusual because in that a
state that they do separate it completely. And in the United States we don't
do life and Help because just becauseI I think there is a lot of
business for POC that we don't havethe need for expanding it. I don't

(30:25):
know if in the future we willdo it. Potentially we will because I
would like to be able to offerall all lines. Well that sounds interesting,
though, I must keep you busyand keep you, you know,
intrigue with all these different lines ofbusiness and the geography. So that sounds
that sounds really interesting. So youknow, you mentioned specifically, you mentioned

(30:45):
that your company does business in theUS, Latin America, and the Caribbean.
So let's talk a bit about regionaldynamics. You know, what,
what specific regional dynamics have you observedin practice when we talk about you know,
in the environment, the nature ofrisk products, et cetera. You
know, is there anything you canspeak to within those three key areas.

(31:06):
Oh my god, well it isdifferent, you know each Like I said,
I always think of risk, right, so when I'm whenever, for
example, if I am in Mexico, I think are going you know,
and in the coastal the the hurricanesas well, so there's definitely regionally there's
risk. And if I'm in Florida, hurricanes right and flooding, so so

(31:29):
there is the risk continues to bedifferent based on the region, right and
and it is different. But asfar as I feel like lines of business
right, like for example, onfacialty in the US, it's their lost

(31:55):
ratio is much higher because people maybebecause there are I do not know there
were, but basically there is morelosses because people probably will buile more losses
right, Whereas in Latin American countrieslike Mexico, Argentina, Brazil, they

(32:15):
don't quite file that many claims,so the lost ratio tends to be lower
for casualty. So there is adefinitely a difference by line of business.
So I can't quite say every singleline at this moment, right, but
I can tell you that for casualty, there are significant differences among what you

(32:40):
see in Latin America versus what yousee in the United States. So it
is important to know the business.And if somebody, for example, from
the US is looking to expand inLatin America, I think it's important to
they can start with the US,you don't have anything, but also to

(33:00):
adjust it to the local market there, you know, so any product can
be tweaked a little bit so thatit gets adjusted for the needs of that
market. So that's so important becausewe can't just the same way that they
cannot do it from Latin America tothe United States. It cannot be done

(33:22):
also the other way around. Itneeds to be reviewed very carefully. The
policy forms, the deductibles, thelimits, the exclusions, everything needs to
be adjusted to the local needs.You know. That's a great point.

(33:43):
And I was actually going to askabout that, is that what are some
of the most common differences you seeacross products right, sorry, between products
across geographies. So you mentioned policyform, deductibles, limits, exclusions,
anything else in terms of the keydifferences between the products, Well, there's
a lot of different because like ifyou're found about life, you know,
the mortality tables are way different inMexico, say, versus the United States.

(34:08):
They're different. The mortality rate inLatin America it's higher, tends to
be higher than in the US.So when we compare mortality tables, so
it depends on the product, righton the proper design, it tends to
be I feel likely with that's theone item that is consistent is there is

(34:30):
there are hurricanes there the same waythat they do here in the United States.
However, the impact may be differentbecause the values of the houses there
maybe lower than in the United States. So for every product, I can
tell you a million differences. SoI think we'll be here all day.

(34:52):
Yeah, well it's good to know. No, So you talked a little
bit about mortality tables, like whatreason specific challenges do you encounter and practice
I imagine perhaps maybe one geography forthe next presents challenges for you in terms
of the work that you're doing,and you know, in terms of how
you approach the work and what youhave to deal with. So currency,

(35:21):
I think is one thing we mentionedin our previous conversation, like Curry talked
about currency risk and a few otherthings. Yes, I mean currency risk
is definitely an issue, and moreso in like a country like Argentina,
but even some of the other countriesdo have some currency risk, So it
depends. I think one way togo about is to do the reserving in

(35:44):
US dollars, you know, tothe extent that it's possible, But I'm
going I'm thinking back to what youmentioned about like a challenge. I think
for us like our biggest challenge sometimesI don't know if it's geography or that,
but it's more way and when ourclients have, like say a new

(36:05):
opportunity and they they basically there isa short window of the opportunity. So
if they have like two weeks ora week two they're like okay, to
our team is like here it isthe new opportunity. Is all the data
tell us do we participate? Yesor no? You know, And it's

(36:29):
it's mainly they timely. You know, if they give us one or two
weeks to review a whole book ofbusiness with many lines and we have such
a small window trying to analyze itand in a very short period of time

(36:51):
and be able to give them thego ahead yes or not, you know,
with that book of business when we'redealing with millions and millions of dollars.
So that is basically very challenging,rewarding, but also definitely difficult.
You know, it's not an easytask to be able to do it.

(37:14):
But I think that to me isthe most challenging thing is to be able
to make a decision in church sucha short period of time when you're dealing
with millions of dollars, and howdo you feel about something? I have
to ask about this data because Iknow that that can, I mean,
even in the US I can bea challenge. So would you say it's
just more or less the same challengesor anything interesting there? It was not

(37:38):
of the United States. We didn'thave that good data. We were wrong.
Yeah, I think it's it's thesame old thing. I think in
the United States, obviously we're nowwe have the big data and everybody's like,
has a lot implemented a lot ofchanges on ourmations, and we supposedly

(38:00):
are more advanced in that regard.In Latin America, unfortunately it's not as
advanced. They are still more notall the fields are being captured, you
know, so there's more challenges,let's put it that way. Yeah,
totally understandable. So and one morething to actually we didn't talk about cyber.

(38:21):
Cyber is something that's been emerging andyou know, I think you might
have mentioned that there's challenges with cyberpenetration, even though of course everyone's susceptible
and vulnerable to that. Is thatsomething that you're seeing that conversation happening,
you know, in terms of thework that you're doing. Yes, we
definitely have many of our clients increasethe retentions for cyber It is definitely risk.

(38:46):
It's a global risk. It isincreasing globally, not just in a
particular country. So we are seeingour companies buying higher, higher layers of
coverage for that particular risk. AndI think now with the from one side,

(39:07):
it is wonderful. I guess Ido think that a official intelligence is
a great tool, you know,to be able for us to use it
as actoris potentially and basically make itbetter. I feel like the same way
like the computer. You know,we use it as a tool and makes

(39:30):
our jobs easier in the sense thatwe can perform better, you know.
So I think artificial intelligence is Ithink it's a good a good thing that
it has emerged a good tool.Although there's a lot of people against it
and some people in favor it,and some think that they're like it's evil,

(39:53):
you know, I don't think it'sevil like anything. Obviously he has
the potential, right if they don'tcontrol it, right, but but it
does have it does give you additionaltools to explore. But because of that
new technology, I think from ourfrom the perspective of actors, we should

(40:14):
be able to hopefully use it onour job and help us perform better,
you know. But because we're nowyou're going to be using more of that,
there will be increases in the cybersecurity issues because now if they can
use our voices or faces or expressions, how can we tell, you know,

(40:38):
the real Domini dominantly, you know, from the fake one, like
I don't know, you know,uh, I think it would be a
challenge. You know, they doneed to put some controls in place for
that. But I can see thecyber issue to be even more more rmination

(41:00):
has resolved. Yeah. I heardsomeone say once and we won't go to
a fight down this rabbit hole.I heard someone say once that in the
future the default would be to assumethat when you see someone on a video
that is fake, and then youhave to prove that it's real. SI.
I thought that was interesting. I'mgoing to say, is dominant?
Is that every you? I promisesme. Yeah, so you know.

(41:25):
Congratulations again. You mentioned earlier inthe conversation that you are the ten year
anniversary. I think it was recentlyfor Actuarial Factor or whether you're there or
you're close, it will be inOctober. Yes, okay, okay,
that's great. So as you know, as you reflect on your journey so
far and what have been the keysto success, because evidently you were not

(41:46):
one of those businesses that disappeared afterthe first year or two or so,
you know what, what are someof the things that I have worked for
you so far? I think havinga great team. My team is very
very smart, and they're very passionate, you know, being an actuary,
and they work really really hard.You know, they're very responsible, and

(42:10):
I think our clients see that,you know, like I don't have to
tell our clients that that our teamis really smart and that they care because
they see it on the day today work that they do. So I
am very thankful to my staff,and I am obviously grateful to our customers,

(42:30):
our clients, because they believe onus from day one. A lot
of their clients sign up and thefirst year and I am just grateful to
them. But they continue working withus on a yearly basis, and I
just I don't know if there isa key to success Dominique I think I

(42:57):
believe that working hard every day itdoes, you know, you will see
the rewards in the long run.If you don't work hard every day,
you're not going to get any rewards, you know. But if you do
on a daily basis, and yourteam and you work, and you're passionate

(43:19):
and you love what you do,you will see the results, you know,
whether they're monetarily or not, youknow. Great. So, in
summary, have a great team,provide excellent service, have practice, discipline
and focus, and love what youdo. Yes, I definitely love what
you do because they're not what willbe. They're fun for you know.

(43:44):
Yeah, So I can think ofa better note to end. No one,
you know, really enjoy this conversation, And you know, my hope
is that we can certainly inspire someactuaries in the future to perhaps start their
own business and to explore international opportunitiesthat as well. Yes, I hope.
So, I hope that that somebodyhopefully decides to pursue it. And

(44:09):
if they do want to call me, they can reach out to me and
I'll be happy to help them.So would LinkedIn be the best place to
contact you? Or email? LinkedInor email? Either way? It's fine,
excellent, Well, thank you somuch for your time. SPN.

(44:29):
This is enjoy but let's let's definitelykeep in touch. Thank you, le
Mine. Have a great day.Have a great day, b