Candidate Questionnaire
Hassan Scott Odierno, FSA 2000
Actuarial Partners Consulting
Brief description of current work:
Life insurance consulting including Takaful (Islamic) insurance primarily in Malaysia but also in a number of developing countries. I am currently the appointed actuary for insurers in Malaysia, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania and Burundi. I am active in other projects such as World Bank related projects in countries such as Bangladesh and assist people interested in setting up Takaful insurance companies. Most recently I have set up an online learning platform.
Primary Area of Practice:
Life Insurance
Professional Background
Provide a description of your professional background and the type of work you have performed. Explain how these experiences have prepared you as an Elected Board Member and qualify you in carrying out the strategic direction of the SOA.
I have been involved in projects throughout the developing world, which has given me exposure to many different cultures and ways of doing business. I feel this will help me in helping to guide the SOA in its global aspirations. In particular I have been the appointed actuary to insurers in Malaysia, Hong Kong, Mauritius, Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Burundi, Cambodia, Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Nepal and Brunei. As appointed actuary I have given numerous presentations to boards of directors, giving me insights into the need to balance technical details with strategic issues. In addition to these countries, I have been involved in appointed actuary work under another actuary in Singapore, Saudi Arabia, Sudan and Bahrain. I have been active in project work such as appraisal valuations and company setup in additional countries such as Indonesia, Bangladesh, Maldives, Thailand, Taiwan, Egypt, Jordan and Nigeria. I have been involved in regulatory consulting assisting regulators in Jordan, Labuan (Malaysia), Thailand, Nigeria and Bahrain. Regulatory consulting in particular has given me insights into the needs of regulators in managing the insurance industry whilst encouraging growth and innovation. I feel this combination of understanding different cultures, presenting to a wide variety of boards and working with regulators will be useful in carrying out the strategic direction of the SOA.
Volunteer and Governance Experience
Describe how your volunteer and governance experiences would strengthen your contributions to the SOA Board, the SOA, and strategic plan execution. List your relevant volunteer experience. Include the name of the organization, your role, and approximate dates.
I am and have been on several committees of SOA and IAA which has exposed me to the practices and processes of SOA:
- I am currently on the inclusive insurance virtual forum of the International Actuarial Association, since July 2021.
- I am also currently on the SOA Societal Purpose Committee, since September 2023
- From January – December 2021 I was on the SOA Diversity, Equity and Inclusion committee
- From September 2018 – September 2021 I was on the SOA Greater Asia Committee
I have also been active in food distribution and assisting the needy, which interestingly is very relevant to actuarial science, as its focus is on gaining trust, building connections, collecting data and using the data to help people.
- From July 2013 – September 2017 I was a team leader for food distribution of Kechara Soup Kitchen. We went through the streets of the capital, Kuala Lumpur, finding the homeless, giving food and talking to them to understand their needs and how to help them.
- From September 2017 until now I have been the lead of Kechara Foodbank Negeri Sembilan operations. This focuses on assisting the poor of the state, providing food monthly to the most needy but also organizing daily collections of excess food from supermarkets in the state (vegetables, fruits and bakery which is about to be thrown away) to give to the needy. During floods and other emergencies this has also included finding aid for people as required.
This combination of experience both helps me understand the needs and focus of SOA as well as experience managing a wide range of people and personalities on a volunteer basis (managing volunteers is quite different from managing people when you pay their salary). This has also given me insights into how SOA can appeal to a greater purpose.
Leadership/Managing Change
Describe a significant project that you led in the workplace or in your volunteer activities. Describe how you addressed changes that were proposed, whether changes were made, or were not made after considering all options. How did you influence alignment in the final outcome, and what were the biggest challenges you had to overcome?
A recent project was a project under the World Bank assisting the national life insurance company of Bangladesh. The original scope included significant amounts of live training in Bangladesh. Unfortunately after 4 months of the project (total time was 3 years) Covid 19 forced a complete lockdown, making it impossible for us to travel to Bangladesh. In order to complete the project we decided to shift the learning arm of our company online. This required significant discussions on the platform to use, the format for the online learning, and the balance between allowing flexibility to participants to take the course at their leisure and live training sessions. In the end we created 4 courses of approximately 15 hours each as well as live sessions to discuss issues they have and answer questions. The project was completed successfully and in addition as a result of that project we now have an online learning platform (actuarialpartnerslearning.com) which is being used to help actuarial staff around the world to bridge the gap between university learning and actual practices in the developing world. We now have had over 400 participants from 16 countries. The development of this system has not been perfect and has forced us to shift many times. This ranged from the platform itself as well as the modules such as locations of videos and whatnot to whether to include games in the coursework.
Diversity
What should the SOA’s goals be in the area of diversity, equity and inclusion? You can read more about current efforts by the organization at www.soa.org/programs/diversity-inclusion.
Diversity is a complex issue. In my mind we need to cut up the issue into a few aspects:
- To what extent are there issues with certain segments of the population understanding the beauty of actuarial science. As an example, for people who are the first in their family to go to university and they are interested in STEM professions actuarial science is very unlikely to be top of mind as opposed to being an engineer, doctor, lawyer or other well known professions. It is clear why being a doctor can help the community, but being an actuary is much less clear. In this sense the work of the societal purpose committee is amazing, but once we get organized SOA needs to determine which segments of society have this challenge of awareness and work to increasing awareness in these communities of the amazing work of the actuary.
- To what extent are some segments of society having limitations as to university education and how can SOA work within this. One example is due to financial considerations some people will be going to public universities rather than private or out of state universities. Another example is people who would prefer to attend HBCU (this is the American term, outside the USA there are also examples). In this case SOA can determine how to support public universities in each state as well as HBCU.
- To what extent are companies hiring actuarial graduates (inadvertently) hiring more from some segments of society rather than others? SOA can consider firstly identifying the various segments and then highlighting those companies who hire on a diverse basis. Could even consider an award or recognition for such companies.
International
The SOA has been growing internationally. How would your experiences help the SOA further the needs of the membership outside of North America?
I am active in a wide range of markets throughout the developing world, some with established actuarial programs and some frontier markets with very few actuaries. The needs of these two types of markets are very different. Take Malaysia as an example, we have hundreds of actuaries, with Malaysian actuaries also in Singapore, Indonesia, Thailand and other countries. Here there is heavy competition between SOA and IFoA (UK). Normally if a student goes to university in USA or Canada they will choose SOA, and if they go to the UK they will choose IFoA. This leaves the graduates of local universities. I have been the external advisor to several universities in Malaysia for their actuarial programs so I am aware of the pressures of lecturers and their KPI including where SOA can get involved. I feel this grassroots involvement is vital to shape university education to be in line with SOA syllabus and needs, making it as straightforward as possible to choose SOA.
In virgin markets such as Bangladesh the needs are different. Bangladesh has a huge population with only a handful of actuaries. There is also a significant risk of brain drain, meaning the actuaries potentially leaving the country if they qualify. SOA can be involved in establishing “introductory” versions of the exam syllabus, whereby the potential actuarial students take a certain number of core exams from SOA, plus perhaps an exam of local content in order to practice locally. SOA can work with insurance regulators to build such a program, which can be strengthened over time as the actuarial profession develops. The actuaries completing the introductory version can then continue to obtain full FSA qualifications if desired. In any case my experience in these markets will be useful in understanding the issues.
Emerging
The SOA needs to continue to attract the brightest students to our actuarial profession and now there are more technical career options available. What do you recommend that the SOA do to continue to attract the right people to the actuarial profession?
As an actuary we are always learning new skills and developing not only our technical knowledge but also soft skills. As actuaries the best and brightest have the opportunity to not only learn but also apply that knowledge to help people. In my opinion SOA needs to continue with a strong focus on the why of actuarial science. As actuaries we firmly believe in the value of insurance as a way to manage risks. We are experts in modeling the future and using this modeling to help our clients understand their risks and succeed. In this sense we are both technical experts as well as people experts, understanding people and their needs. I feel that if people understand the why behind what we are doing this will make SOA fairly unique rather than simply being technical experts, no different than data scientists or other fields. In this sense the societal purpose committee will play a huge role, showing people how the skills we learn as actuaries can be used in so many diverse ways to help society.
Personal Experience
Share a personal experience, trait, or characteristic that will help the membership to better understand you and your candidacy.
Although I am American and grew up outside Boston, I have spent almost my entire adult life outside of the USA and western world. This has given me frequent exposure dealing with different languages and cultures. One of my earliest projects was assisting a life insurer in Taiwan with an appraisal valuation. To perform such an appraisal we need to learn everything about the products being sold. Normally we use the pricing certificates, but unfortunately everything was written in Chinese! This was before there were apps to translate online. What I found amazing was that inside all the Chinese writing there were formulas: Cx, Dx, Mx and whatnot, telling me exactly what the products are covering. This taught me that actuarial science is universal, not just for one culture or people. As actuaries if we can be exposed to a range of cultures and ways of doing things this gives us more tools to help use our knowledge to create solutions for each community. One size definitely does not fit all, it is up to us to use our knowledge and experience to help everyone live their best life, understanding the risks they face and managing it appropriately.