The global actuary – what it means for us?

When I reflect on the last few decades, I am proud to belong to a profession that worked together and used its knowledge and experience in different parts of the world to solve the world’s challenges. Today, it is more important than ever that we focus on how we continue to make an impact globally.

Globalisation makes us more connected, and we interact and integrate with each other more than ever. As actuaries, we have the transferable skills to contribute positively to this. Examples of these include our contributions in the recent COVID19 pandemic and climate change.

What does being a global actuary mean? It means using our core actuarial skillset in different settings and geographies, supporting each other in sharing knowledge and learning from each other. This points to lifelong learning and being generous with our experience and time. The AAE provides a good framework for this to happen but in order to optimise knowledge sharing, we all need to contribute to it.

As global actuaries, we work with each other to ensure that we provide the best support we can to our stakeholders, be it customers, companies, regulators or the public. Technology makes this easier now with everyone an expert in video conferencing (even though there are still those of us unable to unmute at the appropriate times!). Being a global actuary also means that it is not just the geographies we work in but also being flexible to venture into different domains and areas.  

Looking to the future, our skillset needs to evolve for our profession to be sustainable. In the advent of Artificial Intelligence and the democratisation of information where it is freely available through technology and the internet, it is crucial that we focus on what we can do with said information. This requires creativity, innovation and the ability (and the appetite) to ‘think outside the box’. More importantly, it requires courage on our part to come out of our comfort zone and venture to acquire a new applicable skillset to continue to be relevant, as the world changes.

This column was written by Kartina Tahir Thomson, AAE Board member, incoming President-Elect of the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries and was first published in The European Actuary. Please see https://actuary.eu/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/TEA-34-column.pdf