Episode 99: Actuarial Careers - Part 2

My guest for Episode 99 is Julia Lessing, FIAA, Director at Guardian Actuarial.

The theme for the episode is 𝗔𝗰𝘁𝘂𝗮𝗿𝗶𝗮𝗹 𝗖𝗮𝗿𝗲𝗲𝗿𝘀 - 𝗣𝗮𝗿𝘁 𝟮.

Julia and I explore the following topics:⁣

✅ The actuarial profession in Australia
✅ The market for new graduates and qualified actuaries in Australia
✅ Opportunities for actuaries in data science and non-traditional roles
✅ The impact of generational dynamics for future actuaries
✅ Transitioning from individual contributor to manager
✅ Tips for actuaries leading a team for the first time
✅ Tips for actuaries presenting results to stakeholders 
✅ Tips for actuaries managing high-quality technical work
✅ Communication and leadership traits to be an effective actuary
✅ Retraining, upskilling, and future-proofing actuarial careers

If you are an actuary interested in building a dynamic and resilient career, you want to listen to this.

My Website: maverickactuary.com

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to episode ninety nine of the Live with the
Maverick podcast. The theme for today's episode is Actuarial Careers
Part two, and we are very excited to have with
us our guest for today's episode, Julia Lessing. Julia is
director at Guardian Actuarial and the host of the We
Are Actuaries podcasts.

Speaker 2 (00:21):
Very excited to have you, Julia.

Speaker 3 (00:23):
Thanks Tom. I'm really excited to be here too. It's
interesting being on the other side of the mic, so
please forgive me if I default back into my comfort
zone of asking you the questions today, no problem.

Speaker 1 (00:35):
I love to make these conversations on and this is
this is truly a full circle moment that we're in. This,
this very this very fair well new to industry. I
guess podcast space people have done. You know, a few
people have done podcasts in the past and the actuarial space,
but relatively speaking, not many. So it's just always great
to collaborate with someone in the space who understands the journey.
And I know this will be a great episode, So

(00:58):
just love to give it up to introduce yourself.

Speaker 3 (01:02):
Thanks Tom. So for those of you who don't know me,
my name is Julia lessing, and I'm a qualified actuary
based in Australia. I've had about twenty years of experience
as an actuary, but I actually I've been a mum
longer than I've been an actuary. So I married my
high school sweeter sweetheart in first year UNI UNI that's

(01:25):
what we call college here. We had our first baby
in second year UNI. So we graduated from UNI with
our toddler and a newborn. And so started my actuarial
career with three small kids at home. And I was
lucky to secure a role in life insurance consulting and
I love consulting. I've been a consultant my whole career.

(01:48):
The first decade was as a Big four consultant, and
for the last decade I've been running a boutique consulting
business called Guardian Actuaryal, which I started in twenty fifteen.
So I guess some of my career highlights have been
outside the typical insurance world. We've, you know, led a

(02:09):
team a couple of times to do some work in
the child protection space, helping governments better understand how many
cases a child protection caseworker might be able to manage
at one time, and so how do we best sort
of staff that space and make sure that you know,
we've got enough workers to look after vulnerable children. And

(02:31):
another area has been in public health, so you know,
putting together different data sets to help build business cases
and help governments make decisions about you know, do we
have enough need for a new ward in a hospital,
for example, and if so, how many beds might we need?
Those kinds of challenges. So there's some of my highlights

(02:52):
in the actual real consulting world, but probably quite recently,
some of my recent pursuits are more in the teach
an education space. So I'm a certified coach, I'm an
educator as you mentioned at the start. I'm a podcast
host as well, and I'm also currently writing my first textbook.
So lots of different things in my actual world career

(03:14):
and probably not where I thought it would take me
or where i'd be twenty years down the track after
leaving university and outside work. My kids are all grown now,
so I've got four adult kids. Here in Australia. The
weather is usually amazing, so I really like to be
outside if the weather's good, whether whether it's hiking or
stand up paddle boarding, or my husband and I just

(03:36):
recently traded in our motorbikes and we've got e bikes,
so we're doing a lot of e bike riding. So yeah,
that's a bit about me.

Speaker 1 (03:44):
Those e bikes are nice. I'm in California and the
weather it's great. Hear it too, And actually saw you're paused.
I think you did a post on one of the trails,
and the funny thing was I was actually at Ronnya
and Canyon. Most people in California will know where that
is when I was reading it, so I thought that
was kind of ironic, you know, with some.

Speaker 3 (04:01):
I remember that. I remember seeing your comment on the
post because I think I was out there had taken
a selfie on the trail, and you were like, you're
out on the trail too, So yeah, shared pursuits.

Speaker 1 (04:10):
It is amazing howle technology connects us in real time,
isn't it amazing. I'm connecting the dutch between something that
Kathy said on my last episode and no, I'm starting
to connect the dots. So anyone who you know, wat's
the last episode and you'll be able to connect those
dots too.

Speaker 2 (04:27):
Yep.

Speaker 3 (04:28):
Yeah, that was a great episode with Kathy and you know,
and She's a great connector too. But it is fun
being in this host role, isn't it Because we get
to talk to so many actories doing different things or
you know, different professionals doing different things in the world.
So it is fun to be able to see all
those dots and connect them.

Speaker 1 (04:45):
That's the best part for sure. Before we get into Australia.
What part of Australia, I know Australia has states, right, we.

Speaker 3 (04:52):
Have states, yep. So I'm just north of Sydney in
New South Wales, the state of New South Wales, and
I was born here. I've grown up here, I've raised
my family here, so I haven't really gone too far
from here at all.

Speaker 1 (05:04):
Is that where the International Congress of Actuaries meeting was
last year in Sydney?

Speaker 3 (05:08):
It was it was in such a fantastic conference to
have actories from all around the world coming to Australia
and to be able to network and share ideas and
actually Kathy that's where I first met Kathy in person.
We co co facilitated a diversity workshop which was great fun.

Speaker 2 (05:27):
Sure, great. No, we talked a bit about Australia.

Speaker 1 (05:31):
So speaking of Australia, that's something that fascinates me about
your background, I'd love to go there.

Speaker 2 (05:35):
I'm so far.

Speaker 1 (05:36):
I feel like I'm so far, but it seems interesting.
But at a high level, if you were like Hold,
you describe is just the insurance and risk management landscape
in which maybe perhaps some of your clients are currently
operating in.

Speaker 3 (05:48):
Yeah. Sure, so I mean, as you said, I haven't
worked in insurance. I mean I teach actuaries and other
quantitative professionals who work in insurance, but I haven't worked
doing actual real working in insurance for about fifteen years.
So I'm not going to try and give you where
you know lots of specific details, but what I will
say is that you know, wherever you have people and

(06:09):
you have risk, you need insurance. So you know, in
Australia we have people who need you know, we have cars,
we have homes. We need short term insurance. You know,
we get SEK, we die, we retire. We also need
long term insurance and other products too, So you know,
we do have similar lines of insurance to what you
have in the States because we have people here and

(06:32):
people have risks and we need insurance for that.

Speaker 2 (06:36):
Great.

Speaker 1 (06:36):
So regarding your clients, know, you know you're you're doing coaching,
you're helping students or actuaries going into the first management role. Yeah,
but let's talk about the profession first. Actually, I'm always
one of the great opportunities that have is to ask
people around the world what the profession looks like within
their countries, because it can be very different. So what

(06:58):
does an actual real profession look like in Australia.

Speaker 3 (07:01):
Yeah, great question. So we talk about being a really
small profession, and I think as an actual real profession
globally we are. But in Australia we've only got about
maybe five and a half thousand members of the Australian
Actuaries Institute, and just after just over half of us
would be fully qualified fellows of the Institute and the

(07:23):
rest would either be associates or there maybe affiliate members,
maybe they belong to another professional organization, or maybe they're
still studying. So not really a lot of actuaries. In
terms of total magnitude quantum, about eighty percent of us
work in Australia, so most of us are based here

(07:45):
in Australia, but there's also many who are based in Asia,
New Zealand and the UK, and it's quite common for
actories here in Australia once we get qualified to have
an international adventure. I didn't because I had lots of
small children at home, but it's quite common for actuaries
to do that. Probably a third of the profession's female,

(08:05):
and I think the racial and ethnic diversity of the
profession has really been increasing as time's going on, and
we've got different people coming into the profession and coming
through university doing their actual real studies. So the way
we tend typically get qualified in Australia is we'll go
to university and we'll do a degree with a major

(08:28):
in actuarial science or actuarial studies, and then after that
we'd get a graduate job and do probably three years
of graduate study while we're working before we get qualified.
So that's the typical path to get qualified here.

Speaker 1 (08:44):
Now, when we know you talked about the path to
get and qualified and the profession itself is relatively small.
One thing I always like to ask about is like
that you know in some ARAA, in some countries and
some regions there is a demand to play gap.

Speaker 2 (08:57):
Would you see that.

Speaker 1 (08:57):
There's an excess or a shortage of of actuarial talent
in Australia And to follow up on that, would you
see that it's different for qualified actuaries versus actuarial students.

Speaker 3 (09:09):
Yeah, really good question. I think there's really across. If
I think about the career continuum from getting that first
graduate job through to mid career actories and then more
experienced actories, I think the job prospects really changed across
that career continuum, and they've probably changed through time as well.
So when I graduated from university, there were lots of

(09:31):
jobs for new graduates. I think in that time though,
there's been a bit of change and more universities are
now accredited to teach actuarial studies and the profession itself
is becoming more popular, more highly regarded. We have a
lot of international students who come and study actuarial studies
here in Australia, and so we have lots of graduates

(09:52):
coming out, and not always it's not always easy for
them to all find jobs. I know, I talked to
a lot of actories who are at that stage where
they've finished university and they're trying to get their first
actuarial job and they're really struggling to do that. It
might be that they have great technical skills and they
don't have the communication skills to get through an interview.

(10:13):
Or it might just be that there's so much competition
for some of those actuarial graduate jobs that they have
to get a job in a different area and maybe
move into actual wearial down the track. So it can
be quite hard I think for our younger actuaries starting out.

Speaker 1 (10:29):
Would you see on that note, would you see that
there are opportunities in things like data science? I know
actually had a previous interview I think it was with
Charles Calling, the President of the AE, and I think
he talked about the fact that I think it was
roughly two thirds of the new graduates in Australia or
going into data signs. So it's sounded like, don't quote
me on that paraphrazing, but it sounds like there's some

(10:52):
opportunities in data science. Do not, of course, not traditional
actuarial but is that something that you're seeing?

Speaker 3 (10:58):
Definitely, definitely, And in fact, the new actuarial education program
here in Australia has a subject called Data Science Applications,
so we're teaching that as part of our qualification process
and it's a very popular subject. I think The beauty
with data science is that it's industry agnostic. So if
you have data science skills, you can use your actuarial

(11:20):
superpowers in a whole range of areas, not just in insurance
and financial services, which is where we've historically worked. And
so I think a lot of our younger professionals are
really wanting to make a difference in those different areas,
and that data science skill set is so powerful.

Speaker 1 (11:38):
You brought up something really interesting when you talked about
the fact that universe, and I think it's similar in
the US. I'm certainly seeing that where a lot of
universities are or more people are credited to teach actuary
or actual areas are getting more popular in college and
as a result, No, like I said, I know, there's
different perspectives on this. There are some people who are

(11:58):
saying that there's a you know, earth of talent. So
there seems to be at times conflicting views on this.
But at times you can have situations where you have
a lot of graduates competing for the same jobs, and
I think the traditional actuarial jobs maybe that pie isn't
growing as much, but there's you know, a lot of
you know, non traditional jobs out there. So do you

(12:21):
ever see people within the culture you're the course, are
your coaching business, who you know they have an actual
all background. And I actually talked to Kathy about this too,
because you talked about people in developing nations where you
may not have many opportunities. I even see people in
my community, you know, do you see people who who
you think, okay, they have this actual background, They're talented,
their intelligent, but I don't really see them being you know,

(12:43):
like an appointed actuary or something in the traditional space.
Do you ever run into that issue and you know,
do you have any thoughts on that?

Speaker 3 (12:52):
Yeah? I do, And I think sometimes it's about exploring
options about what you can do with your actual real
training because our skill set is so transferable and we
can really apply that to so many different areas. And
I think sometimes it's about working out well, firstly, it's
about working out where do you want to apply your skills,

(13:15):
So what's important to you and how do you want
to take that? And for some people that's by taking
a senior leadership role in an insurance company, and that's
really important. We need smart actuaries to be in sevingor
leadership roles in insurance companies because insurance is such an
important part of our protection for our society. But if
insurance isn't your thing, I think figuring out what is.

(13:38):
But then I think the additional challenge when you start
to work, if you start to take your career outside
that sort of traditional career path that's a little bit
more well laid out for you. One of the things
that we struggle with, and I've been here myself as
well as I moved out of that sort of traditional space,
is that we need to be able to explain to
the rest of the world, or at least the area
that we're wanting to apply our skills in. What do

(14:01):
actuaries do. You know, It's not enough to turn up
and go, oh, I'm an actuary, trust me, I can
help you. You know, in an insurance company, people kind
of have an idea about what actuaries can do, and
it's sort of easier to sort of find find the
roles there. But when you step outside that world, we
need to be able to really clearly articulate what it
is that we're doing, what our value proposition is, and

(14:23):
how we can help. And maybe that's without using the
word actuary.

Speaker 1 (14:28):
And that's one of the eras I think we're so
closely aligned down is I use the term value proposition,
which I like is if you look at my website,
not a seamless plog here.

Speaker 2 (14:37):
But when I when I.

Speaker 1 (14:38):
Came up with ambick actuary content community, I thought the
three gaps within the profession. One was the area of
nime recognition. I'll do the third one and I get
to the second. The third one is strategic mindset, and
then the second one, which is like explainable value proposition
because to your point, you know.

Speaker 2 (14:57):
Like and what I was seeing is that the power of.

Speaker 1 (15:00):
The traditional rules aren't growing necessarily as quickly as some
of the other rules that are out there, that where
the skill set could be transferable. And that's what's been
driving me largely for the past few years. And it's
exciting to see certainly I could see some change, even
though it's still slow within the societies, even I don't
know if you know Dave. I saw Dave Dylan, he's

(15:21):
an say president, like that's how him post on it.
He's been posting on this a few for the past
few days. And you know, asking actuaries they have experience
and wider fuels. So I see the societies and some
of their folks talking about you, which I think is
is good because to your point, I think there's opportunity.
But on this we can articulate what the value prop is,

(15:41):
won't be able to take advantage of them.

Speaker 3 (15:44):
Yeah, absolutely, And I mean, Tom, you've done a great
job of raising the profile and the name actually across
the world as well with your content and with your
podcast and with your Instagram. You know, we are a
small profession and most people won't come into contact with us.
We're not doctors or lawyers or accountants that most individuals
need to see at some point in their life. Many

(16:04):
people will never come in contact with an actuary. So
we've already got a challenge in getting our profession's name
out there and helping people understand what we do for.

Speaker 1 (16:14):
Sure, not being B two C. You know business content
that that's a big challenge. And that's that that's something
I honestly never thought about much when I started the
whole brand. But it's something I've gotten to to learn.
But I still don't think it's it's something that can
prevent us from stepping into that. I just think it's
more of a challenge. Yeah, and that's why we need help,
and that's why we all need to work together. No,

(16:36):
you talked about l right, I did mention your current
role as director at Guardian Actuarial. So how you describe
your company and the current role. I know, I know
you talked a bit about you know, you gave us
a bit of a high level over you at the beginning.

Speaker 2 (16:50):
But if you talk a bit more.

Speaker 1 (16:51):
Specifically about this role, how do you describe Guardian and
then and your current role?

Speaker 3 (16:56):
Yeah? Sure, So, So, as I mentioned, I started Guardian
actuar Eal in twenty fifteen after about a decade career
in Big four consulting. And when I started it, it
was an actual real consulting business, largely consulting to state
government departments. I could see that there was a need
for actuarial skills in government health and human services, as

(17:17):
I talked about at the start, and so, you know,
just started building a consulting business and really enjoyed that experience.
Alongside that, you know, I've always had a passion for
working with people and managing teams, and so I've also
had a whole lot of mentoring and coaching kind of roles,
helping actuaries primarily build great careers along the way. So

(17:41):
before the pandemic, my business was probably ninety five percent
consulting and five percent coaching and mentoring. But when the
pandemic hit, and I'm sure many people can relate to this,
we al sort of went back to the drawing board
with a whole lot of things and thought, okay, where
to from here? Because you know, most of my clients
were government health organizations and so they weren't interested in

(18:04):
hiring consultants. They were trying to keep Australians safe from COVID,
and so I found myself with a lot of time
on my hands. I couldn't leave the house. And so
that's sort of when the balance of the consulting and
the coaching work kind of changed. Because one of my
corporate clients, who i'd been delivering corporate mentoring and training

(18:24):
services too, said to me, Oh, I wonder, you know,
do you do any sort of cross company training or
you know, we've got some new managers that need some
help building the skills to step into their first management
role and build their networks. And I was like, I don't,
but I could. Sounds like a lot of fun. So
at that point, I decided to write the Guardian Actuarial

(18:44):
Leadership Program, which is a small group coaching program for
actuaries stepping into their first management role. We run it
over three months. It's only a couple of hours a week.
There's sort of self paced study and group sessions to
kind of learn from each other, and you know, it's
a fantastic program. I absolutely love delivering it. In fact,
Acdex is helping me turn it into a textbook now,

(19:06):
so that will also increase its as reach across the world,
which is really exciting. But what that means is that
Guardian Actuarial now is essentially a coaching and training business.
I had to basically put a pin in all of
my consulting work because I just couldn't do both. And so, yeah,
actuali is stepping into their first management roles or even

(19:28):
their first senior leadership roles come to us for help
for group training to build the skills that they need
to make those transitions. I also provide one on one
coaching to actories right across the career continuum. As I
mentioned before, right from going for that first actuarial job,
preparing for that first interview, through to chief actories and

(19:49):
c sweet as well. So I really enjoy that one
on one coaching, just helping people walking alongside them through
those really challenging but important transitions in their careers. And
as well as that, I do a bunch of other
things too. I'm an educator with the Actualis Institute, so
everyone who gets qualified as an actuary comes through and

(20:10):
takes one of my classes, which is fantastic to get
to know the next generation of actuaries as they come through.
I'm a lived experience advisor for the Black Dog Institute,
which is a mental health organization research organization here, and
I do some sessional academic work for mcquarie University, which
is one of our actuarial studies providers of undergraduate studies

(20:34):
here in Australia too. So yeah, I wear a lot
of different hats, and the Guardian Actuarial badge and brand,
I suppose has evolved a bit over the last decade.

Speaker 2 (20:42):
That's excellent.

Speaker 1 (20:43):
And I'm a big advocate and a big proponent of
any development program, leadership development program. That's how I started
my career at a large yeah, at a larger PNC
courrier in the US. That was my first ten years
and the program there was favureational saw three different roles,
got many different experiences.

Speaker 2 (21:04):
So I'm a big believer.

Speaker 1 (21:05):
I know that not everyone gets the opportunity to get
that formal training upfront and then you can learn different ways.
What if you can get an opportunity to that, I
would say, certainly encourage folks to do that. Now, something
to follow up on that. You know, development is obviously
a big part of what you're doing. You said you
actually wrote the program. I'm curious to know when I

(21:26):
think of generations, are the development gaps that you're seeing
for the current generation similar to similar or different to
the prior generation? And I give you a with their
context on that one specific example. When I think of
because I know communication and leadership are big for you,
and we're going to get into those later on in
the conversation in more detail. When I think of communication,
for for instance, when you think of how gen Z

(21:48):
communicates compared to I would stay necessarily to millennials. They
are probably more similar to millennials, but the generation before,
they're heavy on short form, they're heavy on text. Let's comfortable,
you know, having phone calls and things in person. And
when I think when I think about that, just just
I'm just curious because I know you're working with these
kind of type of clients all the time. I just

(22:08):
wonder sometimes, like if people are reluctant to have a
conversation or are they going to be managing some of
these meetings and doing these long actuary reports and reviewing them. So,
you know, any thoughts on that generation or dynamic.

Speaker 3 (22:20):
I think there's always gonna be differences in generations and
the way we communicate. I think there's you know, what
I'm seeing with the younger actories coming through. Actually, the
class I teach as part of the Actors Institute program
is communication, and so you know, we are I think

(22:41):
in a state of change in business as well. You know,
communication isn't just writing reports like it used to be.
We've got emails to write, We've got you know, we
communicate like this verbally, over podcasts, short form content. I mean,
there's so many different ways. Like communication as a banner
is so much broader than it used to be. And

(23:03):
I think, you know, we're not handwriting anymore, We're typing.
We're using different kind of shorthand and different kind of words,
and I think you know that certainly colors the way
that we show up at work as a generation. Whether
it's unique to actuaries, I'm not sure. I mean, I
think there's some broader sort of generational changes that are

(23:25):
coming through. But the point you made about, you know,
not wanting to make a phone call, you know, sending
a text before you make a call sort of thing,
I think some of those things can make it challenging
for us to progress through our careers if the people
that we're communicating with and the people whose careers who
have our careers in their hands are from a different

(23:48):
generation and have different expectations around communications. So I think,
whether it's a generational thing or not, I think understanding
our own preferred communication styles and those of people around us,
and maybe how we need to adapt that so that
we can make sure that they match and message lands,
I think is really important.

Speaker 2 (24:08):
Yeah, I couldn't agree more.

Speaker 3 (24:10):
No.

Speaker 1 (24:10):
I mentioned that You're my contra parts and the Actuary
old podcast there, so you did start we Are We
Are Actuaries podcast a couple of years ago, kind of
similar timeline to me. I can't believe by the way
I was reading a notes, you said it's been two
years now.

Speaker 2 (24:23):
A man's almost three. Can you imagine time flays? Doesn't it?

Speaker 3 (24:27):
It really does, doesn't it. I mean, you've been so
busy with your podcast. You know, every week you're releasing
an episode. It's it's so great to see that bank
of interviews come together, and you know, that body of
work that that's available for so many people to just
tap into and listen to what's interesting to them or
what's relevant. It's it's exciting when you realize how much

(24:48):
you've produced.

Speaker 1 (24:50):
Yeah, so what what inspired you? What was your did
you have an aha moment? What inspired you to start
your podcast?

Speaker 3 (24:56):
Yeah? So you mentioned that sort of be to B
beta see as actories. I mean the work that I'm
doing as a coach is now a bit more B
two C. I am engaging with individuals and so as
I was trying to get the word out about the
program building the Guardian Actual or Leadership program, the head
of marketing said to me. Our head of marketing said

(25:17):
to me, oh, Julia, you should have a podcast at
some point, And I was like, no, no, I'm not
that kind of person. I wouldn't even know where to start,
and what would I talk about and who would listen to? It,
and no, I don't think so. Anyway, she sowed that seed,
and then throughout the pandemic, we were all, you know,
I was delivering this program online, but I was also
wanting to harness some of the senior experience of people

(25:40):
from the profession, and so I started interviewing people over zoom,
you know, from their homes and from my home. And
we were just doing these interviews to try and capture
some of that wisdom from more experienced actories in the profession.
And I was doing it for the participants of my program,
and so and I found that I really enjoyed having

(26:02):
those conversations, and I really enjoyed being able to capture
some of that collective wisdom. You know, in the old days,
we'd do it, you know, over the water cooler or
you know, in the kitchen making a coffee or something
at work. But with people working from home, I think
there's less opportunities for us to share that wisdom. And
so I started building these with this bank of interviews
for the program. And then my head of marketing came

(26:24):
back and she said, Okay, you've been doing this, you
can keep doing this, and why don't you turn this
into a podcast series because that way, not just the
people in your program get to listen to these interviews,
but the whole world can listen to your interviews. Which
felt a bit daunting at the time because I thought,
what if people don't want to be interviewed? What if
I run out of people to interview? And I'm not
sure what it's like for you, don but I feel

(26:45):
like I've got a longer list of people who I'd
love to interview that I have interview slots for the podcast.

Speaker 1 (26:52):
Yeah, it's a mixed bag. I certainly, you know, I
certainly have a listen as well. What I'll say, every
so often you run into someone who doesn't want to
do it, not other disrespect, but maybe just don't want
to be on the internet. So every so often you
run into those folks are some people who just yeah,
maybe too busier and not responding. So I think it's
a bit of a mixed bag, certainly. Now when you

(27:13):
when you tie the two pieces together, you know, the
coaching that you're focused on. We talked about, of course,
the genesis of that going from consulting driven by COVID,
and we talked about again the evolution of the podcast
from those conversations. You know, what have you set out
to accomplish jointly with those ventures? There's something that ties
those two efforts together, if you think that from a

(27:33):
bigger picture perspective, I think.

Speaker 3 (27:37):
My objective has probably evolved over time. You know, I'd
say with the podcast, my objective now is to showcase
the diversity of what actuaries can do, because I think
there's still this stereotype that actuaries are just numbers people
don't like talking to people, can't communicate with anyone. You know,

(27:58):
there's there's this stereotype that it still exists, and I
don't really think it's true. I mean, I don't think
that most actories are like that. I think, yeah, I
think it's maybe it used to hold, but I don't
think it holds so much anymore. And I think, but
I think that stereotype gets in the way of us
making a difference in the world. I think the more
that we can let the world know what actuaries can do,

(28:21):
and the more we can hear from other actuaries, and
you know, for our younger actories coming through to sort
of look up and see what the different options are
for them and their career paths, not just what's in
front of them, what they can see in their organization.
I think that's great for the profession. I think it's
great for us to have a better sense of what
we can do. And I think it's it's great for

(28:42):
us to show the world what we can do as well,
because I think smart quantitative professionals, I think there's lots
lots of good that we can do.

Speaker 1 (28:51):
You know, people probably think that I probably knew a
Lothors before, but one of the the Josidis conversation for
me is seeing whole aligned we are. I knew that
we had some alignment before, but just hearing you talk
about this stuff makes me realize that we're even more
aligned than I originally thought.

Speaker 2 (29:07):
So for sure, you know, So that's good. That's good
to know.

Speaker 1 (29:10):
So, you know, as a coach, you know, one thing
that you're focused on is preparing actuaries to embark on
their first management role. Before we talk about management or
you know, the management specifically and that transition and some
of the specific skills.

Speaker 2 (29:25):
What are the most.

Speaker 1 (29:26):
Significant differences between an individual contributor and a manager.

Speaker 3 (29:30):
Yeah, it's a really great question, and I think, you know,
we all start as individual contributors, and I think getting
qualified as an actually we need to be great individual contributors.
We need to be able to do the work, to
do the technical work, and we may continue in that
individual contributor role for a whole career. Is some fantastics

(29:52):
seeing it individual contributors in our profession. Sometimes people want
to take that different path and start to manage pay people,
manage teams, lead teams, take on leadership roles within their organization,
and so that transition from being an individual contributor where
you're doing the work yourself, you've got sort of control
over the checking and the quality of the work. You're

(30:17):
then needing to build this whole new set of skills
to get work done through other people. Because as much
as you might you might think you're faster and more
accurate at doing the work than your junior team members,
it's not practical even if you wanted to to keep
doing it yourself, and it's not serving your team either.
So you know, we think about that promotion into our

(30:37):
first management role as oh, we've been so good at
our individual contributor work, so we get promoted into being
a manager. But actually the roles and the skills required
of and effective manager are really different from that of
an individual contributor because it's not about doing the work,
it's about inspiring, supporting, motivating others to get the work done.

Speaker 1 (31:00):
And that's a great transition into what I was going
to ask about next is what are the relevant skills
the most relevant skills for new actuarial managers to develop.

Speaker 3 (31:07):
Yeah, so, I mean most of us don't learn any
of these skills through our actuarial training, which is partly
what makes it so difficult. But some of the things
that I commonly help actuaries with that are struggling with
when they're making that transition would be that managing the
high quality technical work, so you know, feeling comfortable to
step back and allow your team to do the work,

(31:30):
even though they might not be as experienced as doing
it as you are. Also presentation skills, so being able
to not just do the work, but explain the results
to somebody else and maybe explain it to a wider
stakeholder that maybe isn't a naturally that can be very
challenging as well. And I think also, you know what
we're talking about before around communication, like understanding what your

(31:53):
communication styles and preferences are and what are those of
the people around you, whether it's people in your team,
your manager, other peers, paper outside your tame and understanding
any differences there and what you need to do to adapt.
I mean, that's that's what I'm saying with Australian actuaries.
What are you saying in the US doom?

Speaker 2 (32:15):
Well?

Speaker 1 (32:15):
For me, I mean I haven't managed in a while,
but a couple a couple of things I could think
of is one is communication is just the level of detail,
you know, being able to communicate the right level of detail.
And the second thing I thought of is what I
call more strategic thinking. So what I would always see
with individual contributors was not just them, but the profession

(32:36):
I think would put a high premium on efficiency. You know,
who can code the best then who can write the
quickest and most efficient program? And who can build all
these tools that can do all with all these bells
and whistles.

Speaker 2 (32:48):
Yeah, But for.

Speaker 1 (32:49):
Me, strategic thinking is more taking a step back and
saying not just how can we build the most the fastest,
most effective too, but what problem is it solving? Is
it relevant? Where is it adding value? And I think
that's when I was managing that. Those were some of
the very clear gaps that I saw.

Speaker 3 (33:06):
Yeah, and that's a really different mindset too, isn't it.
That strategic thinking, Because when you know you're doing that
individual work, you're often on tight deadlines. You're just about
getting getting the work done. But that strategic thinking often
requires you to sort of step back and think broader
and connect broad and collaborate broader as well.

Speaker 2 (33:27):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (33:28):
One thing I want to dig deeper on, because I've
seen this so many times too, is well, I guess
you could add this to my response in terms of
what you see. One of the things I always see
is new managers wanting to be more clear than coach
because they're accustomed to doing it and they think there
are ways better.

Speaker 2 (33:42):
And I've worked.

Speaker 1 (33:43):
For wonderful unfortunately, But like if you were kind of
circling back to the managing the high quality technical work,
what are the keys to managing high technical work as
you move into a management rule?

Speaker 3 (33:57):
Yeah, yeah, I mean this is this is one that
a lot of people struggle with because you've spent so
long learning how to do the technical work yourself, and
you are usually pretty convinced that your way is the
right way to do it, but having the trust to
be able to step back and delegate. You know, when
I first delegated my piece of technical work, the very

(34:18):
first time I ever delegated, you know, I was like,
I just said to the person, here's what we need
to do, like can you do it? And they were
like yeah, okay, And I was like, wow, this is great.
You know, I went and made a cup of tea
and I was thinking, Wow, this whole management gig's really great.
But I hadn't you know, I hadn't been clear about timelines.
I hadn't been clear about what checks they would need

(34:39):
to do. You know, it was all it was all wrong.
It was all you know, didn't go to plan because
I hadn't really set it up well enough. But nobody
had really taught me how to do that. I hadn't
learned those skills about how to do that. So you know,
it can be tempting when that goes wrong to then
step back in and go, oh well, I'll just do
everything myself. That really what we need to do is
learn firstly, how to communicate that delegation. We need to

(35:03):
you know, communicate the task what's required, and provide that
person with enough support to get it done because quite
often they don't have as much experience as we do.
They might not have ever done this before, and so
keeping the lines of communication open so that if they
have a question, they feel safe enough to come and
ask you about it rather than fumble through or you

(35:25):
take twice as long to get it done as they
should have. So a big part of it's a communication
and our skills as managers to be able to delegate,
but also thinking about you know, if we are really
good at the technical work ourselves, we probably know what
could go wrong, what are the common mistakes, and what
are the checks that we would normally put in place.
So part of our teaching is not just here's what

(35:48):
we need to do, it's also how are you going
to check your work? And empowering our team members to
build in their own checks and do their self checking.
Then we're just reviewing controls and checks rather than all
of the work and they learn. So that's win when
they learn we don't have to do it ourselves. And
the more that we can upscale our teams to do,
you know, more of that work themselves, that frees us

(36:10):
up to do other things and learn new things and
you know, continue to progress in our careers too.

Speaker 1 (36:16):
That's a great example because one specific example I remember
it is one of my mental former mentor of mine
who's a qualified actually in the US, and he never
grew up doing you know, excess and lots of things
with predictive modeling, open source, but he was managing someone
who was more of a data scientist, so he had
to think through, Okay, how long is this going to take?

(36:39):
And to your point, I think is not necessarily knowing
everything soup to not, but understanding what some of the
challenges are, what could go wrong, and you know, being
able to I think find that common language perhaps as
coding language agnostic, you know, when you're maging something that
you're not familiar with.

Speaker 2 (36:56):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (36:56):
Yeah, And that's a good point, Tom. I think if
we can step back and think about what could go wrong,
we're actualies, we're trained in risk management. If we can
apply that to our workload and our delegation of work,
we can harness those superpowers to beg right managers.

Speaker 1 (37:15):
Another thing you mentioned, whether it was in this conversation
or before, you talked about the importance of managers getting
to know their team. You know, any thoughts on that,
because that's one I think is really important, certainly from
my experience, not just I mean you don't have to
be a manager to know, but yeah, everyone has a
different learning style, Everyone has different even though we're all

(37:35):
working towards the same thing, we all have a different
prioritization in terms of what we value. Some people are perfectionists,
you know, some people like to be neat in their emails.
Just any thoughts on our guidance on getting to know
your team and as Anne.

Speaker 3 (37:48):
Yeah, I think you know, when you've got a new
team member, I think getting to know their working style,
their strengths and weaknesses. I think that's a really good
investment of time. And you can do that by staying
closer to them throughout that process, but also asking questions.
So as managers, we don't need to know the answers
all the answers, just getting to know our team members

(38:11):
as humans and as people. And I don't mean, you know,
blurring into personal lines so much. Everyone has different preferences
and boundaries around that, but just you know, finding out
what their career aspirations are, finding out which parts of
their job they enjoy or which parts they find difficult,
you know, having questions, asking some questions so that you

(38:31):
can get to know them, and then paying attention to
what they're doing with their work and you know, where
are some of their common traps or you know, challenges,
what are the things that they're really shining in. How
can you give them an opportunity to do more of that?
And you know, particularly in those with those very junior
new graduates, sometimes the work that we're giving them is

(38:54):
the bottom of the barrel, it's the boring work. So
you know, also getting to know where they're wanting to
take their actual old careers and remembering that they won't
be new grads forever. You might find that you're reporting
to them at some point in the future, so you know,
investing that time getting to know people, building a networks,
but getting to know people as humans. I think is

(39:17):
it always pays dividends.

Speaker 2 (39:19):
Yes, I couldn't agree more.

Speaker 1 (39:21):
One thing I used to do just kind of thrown
into out there when I started to manage people, is
if you're familiar with this, there's some people mayors. Briggs
discs these personality profiles. I think I found it productive
to find out if the person you if they didn't know,
they didn't know like what their personality profile was, because
I think that did at least partially inform, you know,
what they're valued, and whether you ask them directly or

(39:44):
where you're just kind of simply ask them what some
of their values are.

Speaker 2 (39:47):
That's that's very helpful, I think.

Speaker 3 (39:48):
Yeah, definitely. So we use kind of a derivation of
disc in the Guardian actual Real Leadership program, and so
we have a tool and everyone that through the program,
you know, completes that questionnaire to get a sense of
what's their primary style, and then we ask them to
you know, assess people in their team, but also just

(40:10):
even within a small group, you know, I might ask
someone who's got to drive a dominant style to share
how they would approach a certain situation and then ask
you know, cautious, analytical or amiable, inspiring to to sort
of look at how they would handle it too. And
that can be quite illuminating to realize that not everybody
thinks the same way we do or would tackle the
challenge the same way we do. So just that self

(40:32):
awareness is really valuable.

Speaker 1 (40:35):
Yeah, excellent, couldn't agree more. When so two going back
to two instrumental skills, that you talk about when you
bring your business, you talk about helping actuaries with I
think it's communication and leadership skills to have a good
fulfilling career paraphrase again, forgot.

Speaker 2 (40:51):
The laying that you have.

Speaker 1 (40:53):
But those are two with the communication and leadership skills, right,
But those are two skills that you focus on, you know,
in the course of your work.

Speaker 2 (41:00):
Yeah, let's start with communication.

Speaker 1 (41:02):
You know, what are the most relevant aspects of communication
that make an affect evactuary?

Speaker 3 (41:07):
Hmm, Well, I mean we've we've covered some of them
in today's conversation, but I think the most important one
for us as actualies is to recognize and address the
fact that our work can be very complex and we
need to be able to communicate it in a way
that is not so complex. So we need to be
able to think about who are we communicating it to,

(41:29):
what do they know, what do they understand, and how
can we communicate it in a way that's going to
make sense to them? And so I think that's really
the main hurdle. And we see this all the time.
So and I've done this myself. I've fallen into this
trap where you know, you get up to present your results,
and you want to you want to just take everyone
on the journey. You want to you want to talk
about how, you know, we got the data, and we

(41:52):
cleaned the data, we made this great model, and then
we like you know, built wrote some really sophisticated code
and we got these great results. So the time we
get to that point, your audience, unless there are other
actuaries who are really interested in that process, have probably
sort of tuned out. They're like, Okay, what's the point?
Like why do I care about what you're telling me?
Half of what you're saying it doesn't even make sense.

(42:13):
I don't understand it. But that's what we tend to do.
We want to take everyone on the journey of what
we've done. And I use a book Storytelling with Data
a lot. It's one of my favorite books around data visualization,
and it's written by the former people head of people
Analytics at Google, and she uses this analogy of you know,

(42:33):
as we're doing our analysis, where we're basically opening all
these oysters, all these oysters, but you know, only some
of them will have pearls in them, and so our
audience they just want to see the pearls. We don't
need to take them on the journey. I think it's
a really great analogy because we just need to share
this so what we don't need to take everyone on
the journey. And I think that's one of the main

(42:54):
challenges for us as actuaries when we're getting our point across,
like what's side what? How do we just distill that
important part and share that rather than taking it front
on the journey.

Speaker 1 (43:07):
All just add something to that. My two cents on
communication is, you know, similar to what you just said
is I think I've seen actuaries focus too much on
the what unless on the why. I think always sometimes
the next said start with why. That's that that will
guide you to the right place. I think working in reverse,
working in reverse showing them what they most important things.

(43:29):
But one one more thing I always suggest is when
you have to talk about the what, tell people what
they need to know versus what you want them to
know that you know it, but you know, I think
that's that's a trapped actuaries fall into because they're very
intelligent and they come up with all these very fancy
models and algorithms, and at the end of the days,

(43:52):
what he really cares? You know, what you know, it's
just what's relevant for them to know. So yeah, I
think as always.

Speaker 3 (43:59):
I think that's I think think that's a really good
piece of advice Tom, And I think that's sort of
that knowing your audience and what matters to them and
not what you want to tell them, not proving how
smart you are, how clever you are. We had a
graduate in the leadership program who told me this story
about how, you know, he couldn't work out why the

(44:19):
rest of the organization didn't understand what his team did.
But then he started just having conversations with them in
terms that they understood and you know, understanding what they
were doing. So getting to know what they all did
and it was able. It really helped him to sort
of bridge that gap and to be able to communicate
what his team did rather than just being the actual
real black box, but to use terms that made sense

(44:43):
to the other people in the organization. And then all
of a sudden, you know, he's sitting on committees and
being invited to certain things, and other people can understand
what the actually is are doing and so it fosters
that better connection.

Speaker 1 (44:56):
That sounds like agreed success story or going So leadership
the second piece leadership, you know, most relevant aspects of
leadership that make an effective v actuary.

Speaker 3 (45:07):
Yep. So I guess the first thing I'd say is
that I think leadership means different things to different people.
Like you know, I know some actories in Australia said,
oh no, we don't want to be leaders. You know,
we've got a flat structure, we don't have hierarchy. You know,
we're not going to be leaders, We're not going to
be bossy. I think leadership is you know, you can

(45:27):
be a leader even if you're an individual contributor. Leadership
is about how we show up and it's about how
we represent our profession. It's about how we interact with
people at work. It can also be about how we
manage up. So you know, I had a graduate on
one of the last year's cohorts of the leadership program,

(45:49):
and you know, they were having trouble with their direct manager.
Didn't feel like their direct manager trusted them. Direct manager
was kind of micromanaging, and you know, feeling really frustrated
with it. And so you know, the graduate said had
the courage to say to their manager, you know, how
can we work together better? You know, what do you

(46:09):
need to ask those questions, and it really opened up
that dialogue about how they were working together and what
was important and helped the graduate understand, you know, what
their manager needed and actually it wasn't about mistrust, it
wasn't about what they thought it was about. It was
about other things. And so then understanding what they needed,
being able to tailor their communication and sharing results and

(46:32):
timelines and things in a way that was important to
the manager. You know, that was more successful. And I
think that's a great example of leadership. You know, that's
about managing up, that's about managing your manager. So I think,
you know, if we think about leadership as a not
just I'm the boss or I lead the company, it's
about how can I have the courage to show up

(46:54):
in a way that is helping me to be more effective,
helping me to strengthen relationships, helping our whole tame and
why to stakeholders to be more effective in contributing to
our cause and our purpose. I think that really helps
us to be effective later as in actuaries.

Speaker 2 (47:13):
Excellent.

Speaker 1 (47:14):
Now, you know, we spent some time talking about early
career development, you know, transitioning from individual contributor to your
first management role as in actuary. We've talked about lifelong
skills or you know, communication leadership, the skills that they
are really important that you focus on.

Speaker 3 (47:33):
No.

Speaker 1 (47:34):
Something that you talked about earlier, whether it was in
this conversation or in our premiate. You mentioned that mid
and senior level folks that you're you're seeing within Australia
with the consolidation of companies, and that's happening in the
US to some.

Speaker 2 (47:47):
Degree as well.

Speaker 1 (47:48):
I'm sure in Europe and other geographies with consolidation of companies,
more more senior folks are seeing themselves in some cases displaced,
are being made redundant and as such they have to
essentially reinvent themselves.

Speaker 2 (48:06):
So when we think of.

Speaker 1 (48:08):
The career or careers actuary careers in the longer term,
how can actuaries adopt a lifelong mentality for the benefit
of their careers.

Speaker 3 (48:19):
Yeah, I think it's a really great question, Tom, and
you're absolutely right. You know, I'm seeing a lot of
senior actuaries not sure where to go next because they've
had their traditional career path, they've invested in getting qualified,
they've turned up and worked really hard for maybe two
decades and then they've found themselves redundant, and there's not

(48:40):
enough positions for the number of actuaries that we've got
in those sort of traditional spaces with the consolidation in
the industry. And so the ones that are able to
pivot and succeed are the ones who have other tools
in their toolbox. They might have learned some other things
along the way. They might have picked up a little
bit of data science or some coding skills. They might

(49:00):
have great managerial skills or communication skills. Maybe they have
built some other things. You know, I mean, I've recently
qualified as a coach, and so that adds another thing
that I can do, and other skills that I have
in my toolkit. The actories who can build those things

(49:22):
along the way, build their networks, build their skills, even
though they might not feel like they're directly essential to
their role at the time, they're the ones that will
succeed when these curveballs are thrown at them. The ones
that struggle are the ones that have put everything into
their existing roles and haven't added other bits and pieces.
So I can totally understand, you know, when I finished,

(49:44):
when I finished all of my exams and I qualified
I didn't want to write another exam. Ever, in my
whole life, I didn't want to do any more study.
I didn't want to you know, have to do any
more training. I wanted to just play and work and
you have my family. But the world changes. I mean,
you know, when I qualified, we didn't have social media,
we didn't have internet on our phones. Like, so much changes,

(50:07):
whether we plan for it or not. And you know,
we're also going into this new stage of rapid growth
with our world. I mean even data science. You know,
when I graduated from university, we learned to use Excel.
We weren't taught how to code or how to you know,
write Python code, or you know, do any of the
more sophisticated technical modeling type skills that actually is learning now.

(50:33):
So things change. The world changes, actual or practice changes,
technology changes, and the industry that we're playing in changes.
So with so much change ahead, we can't always predict
what that will look like and what our careers will
look like. So my advice has always been to future
proof your career by adding new skills and building a networks.

(50:55):
Now you might do that by volunteering. Volunteering is a
great way to learn new and build a network and
do things that you might not otherwise have been able
to do at work, whether it's some more formal training,
and it doesn't have to be formal training, actuarial education.
You know, my coach education has been quite helpful. Some
people might like to go and do some other micro

(51:17):
credentials that also are helping the work that they're doing
and building some new skills, are staying up to date
with their actual real skills, and you know, also on
the job training, like what new skills are you learning
just in your day to day job as well. You know,
you and I both now have podcast hosting skills, which
you know we didn't have when we're first qualified either.

(51:37):
So being open to the world of possibility out there,
I think is a really great way to future proof
your career and build your skills.

Speaker 1 (51:47):
That one that I wanted to mention because I know,
if we've spoke about it before, is steeing the idea
of steing relevant, and I know that means different things
to different people. One of the reasons I always recommend,
not just because I've done it myself and I've had
success with it, is the whole idea.

Speaker 2 (52:04):
Of personal branding.

Speaker 1 (52:05):
I think it helps to keep your relevant and to
your point, us not having social well, I guess I
had it for probably more in my life than some others.
But you know, especially if you didn't have social media
in the prime of your career, it's there now and
there's so few people proportionally, I think there's end one
percent of people across the board are posting actively on LinkedIn,

(52:28):
so they have four five six hundred million users. Such
a small percentage of people are posting. So if you
just post regularly with intention, you separate yourself from the
pack and you can position your expertise. And in my mind,
that's the easiest way to stay relevant because nobody can
stop you from doing it. People can stop you from
getting promoted, they can stop you from derail opportunities, but

(52:51):
no one can stop you from opening up an app
and like LinkedIn and posting and sharing your expertise. So
that's staying relevant, I think is one that resonates with me.

Speaker 3 (53:00):
Yeah, absolutely, And that is a great way to promote
your personal brand and find your voice, even though it
might be scary at first to start posting and start
putting yourself out there, but yeah, it's a very accessible
option for all of us.

Speaker 1 (53:15):
The very last thing I want to ask about, just
a follow up on what we just discussed, is when
we talk about you know, imagine you're seeing claims who
are retooling, retraining. What are some of the things that
you're seeing them do beyond just doing the you know,
taking new courses. Like are you seeing claims doing things
like starting new businesses or anything like that?

Speaker 3 (53:37):
I mean a few are, and I think a lot
of actories like to think about the idea of starting
a business, particularly if it's mid career and they've been
made redundant and they're thinking about a new challenge. I think,
I don't know, I've always thought that as an actually,
we are well placed to start businesses. You know, we're
trained in pricing and reserving and risk management, all the

(53:59):
key things that we need to be able to run businesses.
But we're not always as strong on the communication, sales
marketing side. That's not always you know, our strength, and
so I think really just assessing whether or not you
know what are your strengths, what are your weaknesses, but
what are you prepared to invest in to address any

(54:22):
of those gaps If that's what you're wanting to do.
So I think that that's that is an option, but
it's not an option I see a lot of people
taking up and maybe maybe that's why maybe there's too
much sort of unknown with that.

Speaker 1 (54:35):
Yeah, I truly think that's going to change because I
think that kind of calling back to the generational dynamic.
I do think that the way that younger generations view
risk is either to be different, and also the way
that they view corporations and having a job, I think
you're always going to have of, you know, people who

(54:56):
aren't that. But I do think that incrementally, even if
it's stow, I think that that actuaries are going to
take more risk, not just because their actuaries, but just
because they're younger. So that's just a theory I have,
and of course time will tell how that plays are.

Speaker 3 (55:09):
Yeah, yeah, no, I think it's an interesting theory. It'll
be interesting to say how it flies out. I mean, really,
if we're actuaries, we have a pretty safe plan. Bay
if we do go into business and it doesn't work,
we can go and get a job as an actuary,
which is usually not too hard.

Speaker 1 (55:24):
Okay, well, if I had to try to quickly recap
the conversation. The first thing is there's plenty of opportunities
for actuaries, not only in insurance. I mean there's a
little bit of their creativity. There's a demand for skills,
whether it's in you know, transferable to areas like data
science and several other areas. You know, for those actuaries

(55:45):
who are going into the first first management role, being
able to manage high quality technical work, being able to
understand your team their needs, being able to communicate more effectively,
being able to develop leadership skills as well are important
and in order to future future proof for your career, retraining,

(56:08):
learning new tools and skills, and staying relevant will serve
you well. So that's what I got from the conversation.
I thought it was great.

Speaker 3 (56:16):
Yeah, I really enjoyed that. Thanks Tom.

Speaker 1 (56:18):
Yes, and Julia responded to thank you so much for
your time. Sorry, it took so long for us to connect.
It felt like it took longer than it should have.
But like I said, I enjoyed it and I'm looking
forward to sharing it with the community. So I hope
you have a wonderful rest of the day.

Speaker 3 (56:35):
Thanks Tom, you too, Thank you.

Speaker 2 (56:37):
Thank Cares.