2024 Board Member Candidate
Hassan Scott Odierno, FSA 2000
Actuarial Partners Consulting
Message One
I believe the key to any Board is diversity. Having views and opinions from people with different perspectives combined together can truly add value. Although I am originally from Boston, I have worked almost my entire career in Singapore and Malaysia working in projects in diverse places such as Malaysia, Sri Lanka, Jordan and Kenya to name a few. During this time I have been fortunate to serve on SOA committees such as the greater Asia committee, DEI committee and societal purpose committee. The types of projects I have been involved in have been quite varied: helping to design Risk Based Capital regulations in Nigeria, designing Takaful (Islamic insurance) regulations in Tanzania, rehabilitating an insurance company in Indonesia, IFRS17 training in Pakistan, leading the first merger of insurers in Nepal, acting as external actuary for the Jordan insurance regulators, assisting the World Bank in Bangladesh, assisting the United Nations Development Program in Maldives, as well as being appointed actuary in a wide range of countries.
I feel I can add value to the SOA in two main areas: expanding SOA globally and diversity. Expanding SOA globally to me means ranking potential markets within three categories: countries where there are already significant numbers of actuaries without their own exam system such as China and Malaysia, countries which have a huge population but few actuaries, such as Bangladesh and Nigeria, and countries with actuaries but their own exam system such as India, Australia and UK. The approach to each market needs to be quite different, with the first category focusing at the grassroots level at university relations helping lecturers and the second category focusing on regulators and designing micro credentials for those markets.
Diversity is a much more difficult subject. Most people honestly want diversity, but as the saying goes the devil is in the details. In a sense I have been on both sides of the diversity discussion, growing up as a white male in Boston but spending almost my entire working life in non Western countries. My adopted community here in Malaysia is also dealing with severe under representation as actuaries. To foster diversity we need to take a multi pronged approach. We need to get the message out to under represented communities that actuarial science is an amazing career and does good in society similar to doctors, engineers and lawyers. We also need to ensure there are strong actuarial science programs in universities catering to under represented communities. With the technology we have today this is definitely within our reach. Related to this, although the UEC program was launched with the very best of intentions we simply must ensure that a full range of universities catering to under represented communities are under UEC or the program be discontinued. Finally we need to celebrate employers who focus on bringing in a diverse voice for the betterment of the whole organization. Whether I am on the board or not I would love to discuss these issues further with you, feel free to contact me on Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/hassan-scott-odierno/
In my spare time I run a foodbank using actuarial science to get the homeless off the streets and pull families out of poverty, and also develop online actuarial science courses to assist actuarial students in developing countries on our platform www.actuarialpartnerslearning.com
Thanks for your consideration and I look forward to serving you on the Board of Directors of SOA.
Message Two
The time to vote is now!
As a profession actuaries are facing a much wider range of issues than ever before. This is consistent with the rest of society, so we can expect the range of issues to continue to grow. It is vital for the SOA to have a diverse board, with members able to complement each other to bring SOA forward. In my last message I discussed increasing SOA footprint globally, leaning on my experience with various global committees at the SOA and my practice in a range of countries in Asia, the Middle East and Africa. In this message I want to discuss diversity.
Diversity or DEI can be so sensitive, but it doesn’t have to be. Race of course is the most obvious and easiest to spot aspect, but are we comfortable we are attracting the best minds from all subsets of society? It is up to us to take a sensitive issue and dig deeper, which as actuaries we always do! During my time on the SOA DEI committee I found it amazing seeing such a diverse group of actuaries get together with an honest attitude of learning and digging into the underlying issues.
I firmly believe that most actuaries believe in fairness and DEI initiatives. As the saying goes, the devil is in the details though. We must ensure that firstly there is awareness of the amazing profession called actuarial science in all segments of society. We must ensure that the under represented communities (especially those who are first in their family to go to university) are aware of the societal good actuaries do, no less than doctors, lawyers, engineers and other STEM professions. As a member of the SOA Societal Purpose Committee I have seen examples of the amazing work of actuaries beyond their office. This needs to be spread far and wide for the world to see!
We must further ensure that there are universities representing all segments of society with strong actuarial programs. Related to this is the UEC program, fairly new to SOA and not without controversy. The idea of the program is good, to compete with IFoA globally (in my opinion, I was not involved in its development). However, we simply must ensure that we have a plan to strengthen the programs of universities representing all segments of society to achieve UEC status, or the program be terminated. As an aside I am a graduate of Worcester Polytechnic Institute, one of 16 universities requesting the termination of this program. With the technology we have today, we should be able to raise the quality of actuarial education for all segments of society.
Finally we should celebrate employers who strive to ensure a diverse workforce of actuaries, not just hiring of actuaries, but a nurturing environment where this diverse workforce remains with the employer. If your would like to see a more in depth discussion of DEI in actuarial science, please see a YouTube video of a presentation I recently made to the Actuarial Society of Malaysia at the following link: Actuarial Diversity and Inclusion: Insights from Malaysia (youtube.com)
Please vote for a diverse SOA board, your vote will help to push SOA forward in these challenging times!