2017 Candidate Questionnaire - Marc Slutzky, FSA 1979, MAAA, CERA, FCA

Marc Slutzky, FSA 1979, MAAA, CERA, FCA

Consulting Actuary
Milliman, Inc., New York, NY

As an actuary, I am a member of one of the most reputable and trusted professions, and I have conducted myself with demonstrated ethics in my dealings with my employers, clients and colleagues. This is apparent in two types of situations that I have dealt with in my practice.

As a valuation actuary in an era of low interest rates, I have had to deliver the news to clients that reserves are insufficient and must be increased.  It is difficult advice to give and to receive, but it protects the policyholder and I have given such advice convincingly, and by transparently demonstrating facts and assumptions with irrefutable evidence.

Further, when evaluating businesses for acquisition or disposition it is important to provide the client with an honest and transparent opinion. I have been able to provide such an opinion by transparently presenting the evidence for it to my client.

As a result, I will be able to perform my duties on the Board by honestly and openly evaluating each issue and situation, and clearly and convincingly providing my view on the appropriate strategic direction with an open discussion of my reasoning.  

During my career I was given the opportunity live and work abroad as the financial actuary of a Japanese life insurer.  While I had extensive experience in the U.S., working and living in Japan required quickly learning new skills, a new language and a completely new way of working with people. Specifically, I had to quickly learn to understand the members of a different group of people as my superiors, peers and subordinates, and to quickly learn what motivated and demotivated them. I had the responsibility to build a team to get things done, a difficult role in a new and unfamiliar culture. A major part of this was building trust with members of the company at all levels so that my views would be respected and acted upon, and, as well, I would be accepted as a member. One of my proudest moments and when I knew that I had been accepted as both a member of and leader of the team was when I was presented with a beautiful camera by one of my employees.

In the same manner, I expect to become a team player on the Board, relating to veteran board members and staff in the same way, by first understanding the language they use to discuss setting the SOA’s strategic direction and by working to learn what motivates them, which will lead me to the best way to present my views as to strategic direction.  It will enable me to build trust through my actions to understand the members and their views.

I am an insatiable consumer of information about current events, economics and politics on the local, national and global level, and of all areas of business. My information comes from reading reputable news sources and several industry publications daily. However I also read things that I disagree with and listen to biased sources in order to learn what others may be thinking so I can understand their actions. As a result, I often find myself the person in the office who advises colleagues of current business developments, making suggestions or recommending actions to enhance our relationships with clients or to provide current and prospective clients with better service or advice.

This intellectual curiosity has led me to develop internal and external relationships to find good sources of information and to learn thing that are not easily available to others, as they do not do the research that I do. This requires persistence and the ability to persuade others.

Further, I also follow how the actions that companies or their employees take can have positive or a very negative effect on an organization or a company, its business or its reputation. In fact, I believe that perhaps the primary responsibility of a Board is to protect and enhance the company’s reputation, or in our case the reputation of the actuary.

I will be able to use these skills to develop sources of information and use them to help make better strategic decisions for the SOA, but I also expect to use these skills to protect and enhance the reputation of our profession.

I have at various times been president, treasurer and fundraiser of an organization which has grown to 275 families, and of which I have been a member for almost 40 years. The organization has no source of funds other than the dues and contributions of its members. It is critically important to achieving the mission of the organization that its limited resources are spent wisely and efficiently, else, the members will be required to provide additional funds.  In my management of this organization I have always had a duty to minimize our expenses, at the same time dealing fairly with the professionals we employ, paying a fair salary and providing them with benefits. While this may cost a bit more, its worth is incalculable, as it leads to everyone doing the best possible job and is the best use of our resources.

I have always had an inherent need to get the best value for the money I spend, and I would expect to continue that as a Board member. This does not mean that I do not use the available resources, but it does mean that I use them efficiently.  And in my consulting practice, I consistently try to manage expenses to spend money wisely, and also try to use time wisely to efficiently provide services to our clients.

In a similar manner, I expect to work efficiently and effectively on the Board to make good use of the resources of the SOA, and to use my time and the time of others efficiently by continuing the practices I learned.

I am an FSA, MAAA, CERA and FCA. I have been a consulting actuary with Milliman in New York for over 18 years and have enjoyed every moment of this phase of my career. I often work with a team of consultants from my office or other offices around the firm, and each day provides a new challenge, a new problem to solve and something new to learn.

My clients are demanding, and working with them requires me to think strategically about how to solve their problems, about what strategies and leadership skills I will need to employ to get my team to work most efficiently, and how to provide the highest quality results.

I have had varying work experiences throughout my career, beginning as an actuarial student at a stock life insurer in New York, then moving to a mid-sized mutual life insurer and then to a very large mutual life insurer for whom I worked both in New York and on a three-year assignment in Tokyo, Japan. I was also employed by another large consulting firm and then by another mutual insurer in New York. The experiences at each of these employers has been engaging and intellectually stimulating, enabling me to learn negotiating, management and strategic thinking skills, leading to my current long-term success as a consultant and business leader. Also helping to shape my career is my leadership work at the International Actuarial Association, where I deal with volunteers of varied backgrounds on the committee I chair and in my other IAA projects.

I will be able to use what I have learned through each of these experiences, including networking, training, recruiting and volunteer management skills to effectively carry out my role as an SOA Board member, and set the strategic direction of the SOA.

I am currently in my second four year term as chair of the Life Section of the International Actuarial Association. This has required me to develop several skills that will be invaluable as an SOA Board member. It was important to learn volunteer management of a geographically diverse group of people, recruiting skills to find members to replace those leaving my leadership committee, networking skills to learn valuable information and to obtain the things that my members need, and improved time management skills as I was performing my duties while managing my actuarial consulting practice. I am also a member of the IAA ORSA Subcommittee and lead development of our work to provide an ORSA/ERM glossary to enhance actuarial practice. I have also been Secretary, Treasurer and Chair of the SOA International Section, and a member of the 2017 Valuation Actuary Symposium Organizing Committee and a frequent speaker at industry meetings.

Each of these assignments and experiences has provided me with the skills necessary to effectively carry out the role of SOA Board member.