Looking Back, Moving Forward: Entrepreneurship in the Actuarial Profession Topic Call

Join us for the final Entrepreneurship & Innovation Section topic call before we evolve into the SOA Career Development Community. We are honored to welcome Ian Duncan, one of the founding leaders of the section (originally named Smaller Consulting Firms), and the incoming SOA President-Elect and Vice-Chair, to share his entrepreneurial journey and reflections on building a home for actuaries interested in innovation. E&I members are invited to share their hopes and ideas for how entrepreneurship and innovation can continue to thrive in the new Community model. Let’s celebrate our section’s legacy, hear from those who helped start it all, and look ahead to the future together.

Presenter: Ian Duncan, Ph.D., FSA, FIA, FCIA, FCA, MAAA, is an Adjunct Professor of Actuarial Statistics at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He has founded or co-founded five companies, most recently Santa Barbara Actuaries Inc., which merged with Arbital Health in 2023. His career has focused on advancing actuarial applications in health care, particularly in predictive modeling and health risk adjustment. Ian is the incoming 2025–2026 SOA President-Elect and Vice-Chair.

Moderator: Victor Zhao, FSA, CERA, has worked across actuarial, data science, and product management roles in both payer and provider settings. He is currently the Director of Product Analytics at Centivo and previously founded an enterprise-wide innovation tournament at Cigna that has been running strong for seven years. Victor serves as Chair of the SOA’s Entrepreneurial & Innovation Section and is pursuing his Master of Public Health in Epidemiology at Harvard.