2025 Board Member Candidate
Arthur da Silva, FSA, FCIA
Credentials: FSA 2018, FCIA 2021
Country: USA
Practice Area: Life
Employer/Current Work: Slope Software
SOA Board Experience: N/A
Video
Candidate Messages
Message One
The three main focus areas I'd like to push for in support of the SOA's strategic plan, if elected to the Board are:
- Building the delivery of SOA education, content, and engagement utilizing AI in a purposeful manner to ensure that the profession remains attractive to both employers and candidates.
- Ensuring that the SOA's activities are more relevant and inclusive of our global members' geographies and industries.
- Making SOA processes more agile with technology to improve member and candidate experience.
Everyone has a moment when using cutting-edge technology where they think, "I didn't realize I needed it so much" or "I didn't even know you could do that". These moments have been becoming more frequent lately with the rise of generative AI tools. Shortly after the popularization of ChatGPT, I said that "actuaries will be using AI whether they realize it or not", since AI will be embedded in every single application that actuaries will be using. I strongly believe that the SOA needs to adapt the content and delivery of its activities and education to embrace AI so that the profession can properly use it and navigate the challenges associated with its improper use, which will be inevitable without the proper education.
Furthermore, I believe in the importance of the SOA to continue growing its presence in underserved global markets. There's so much room for the actuarial profession to grow across the world. However, it's important that the SOA continues expanding its efforts to create relevant content and ways to engage its international stakeholders. Making US-centric content, setting up events in US-centric time zones, and making decisions without input from international stakeholders is a recipe for alienating our members and candidates living outside of North America.
Follow me on LinkedIn to hear more about how actuaries can leverage technology and AI to solve problems in a better way. I also plan to post about planned conversations with actuaries and actuaries that moved to "non-traditional" roles on these topics and where the SOA needs to head going forward. You'll also hear more in the future about how I think we can achieve the above-stated goals and what makes me uniquely positioned to serve on the Board to guide the SOA through its strategic plan.
Message Two
In my last message, I outlined my goals and areas of focus I'd push for in support of the SOA's strategic plan, if elected to the Board. A few initiatives I would advocate for to achieve these goals include:
- Modify education pathways by embracing AI to prepare candidates for a world that is full of AI while still ensuring candidates learn foundational knowledge and skills without relying on AI as a crutch.
- Create regional exam content for key international regions to ensure relevance to these audiences.
- Leverage AI in knowledge sharing across the SOA and its members through examples such as AI transcriptions and summaries of video content (such as webcast recordings and PD Edge+ content), AI-powered translation of SOA published content where human translators are impractical, among other areas that are traditionally painful to perform manually.
- Utilize async processes to address broad time zones at the appropriate times within SOA activities rather than defaulting to meetings in order to ensure that decision making considers international regions.
What makes me uniquely positioned to guide the SOA on the Board to achieve its strategic plan for 2025-2027?
- My career now working as a leader at a modern actuarial software company and in the past in tech-focused actuarial consulting has provided me a perspective of what is possible with modern technology and a broad overview of actuarial roles across industries and geographies.
- My use and research of AI tools have enabled me to understand how such tools can be used by actuaries in addition to the potential risks caused by misuse of these tools. From that work, I have already been actively engaging in the shaping of education in these areas through SOA volunteering and research, so I have a strong sense of how to move this initiative forward to improve our profession's use of AI tools.
- My global experience and network from supporting clients across multiple continents, including living abroad in the UK and Europe, has put me in a mindset to consider multiple perspectives outside of North America to support the SOA's desire to grow globally.
In addition, I envision a world where actuaries expand their work beyond the traditional areas covered today. In 2010, I saw predictive analytics transform disability claims analysis and that moment changed the way I viewed the future of our profession. It drove me to work with data scientists, build analytics tools, and show actuaries how emerging technology could unlock new ways of thinking and working. Showcasing these facets to the world is important to strengthening our candidate pipeline and our profession as a whole as it keeps actuaries attractive in the market both for candidates and for employers.
I humbly ask for your support and your vote if you feel driven by the same cause. Follow me on LinkedIn to engage in conversation with me or to understand other insights have gathered on these topics as I continue to speak with more actuaries and those that have left the actuarial profession.
Questionnaire
PROFESSIONAL BACKGROUND AND VOLUNTEER EXPERIENCE: Provide a brief description of your professional background and the type of work you have performed. Please include SOA and non-SOA volunteer and governing experiences including collaborative leadership. 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'm approaching the 15-year mark of total actuarial work experience. My career started with over a decade of actuarial consulting at Deloitte, focused on building modern actuarial processes by replacing legacy systems with newer technologies, which transitioned to predictive analytics and business intelligence tools. As part of this work, I also contributed and led research papers covering the usage and impact of predictive analytics and emerging technologies on the actuarial profession. While home base was in Toronto, Canada, my career took me across the world on several projects in the US, UK, and Germany in addition to a couple of smaller projects remotely serving clients in East Asia. I have also volunteered in various internal initiatives at Deloitte, including developing go-to-market strategy, leading knowledge sharing across Deloitte's global actuarial practices, driving recruitment initiatives, and more.
Now at Slope Software, I focus on showing actuaries around the world how modern technology can empower them and their stakeholders to do more in less time, collaborate more effectively, and work using a more seamless experience. Part of the role involves scanning the environment for opportunities and having frequent discussions with several stakeholders in our company and our clients to figure out how we prioritize efforts.
Outside of work, I've frequently volunteered with the SOA and elsewhere:
- SOA Entrepreneurial & Innovation Section: 2020-2023
- SOA The Actuary Canada Editorial Board: 2021-Present
- SOA Emerging Topics Community: 2023 - Present
- SOA AI Insights for Actuaries Virtual Symposium Planning Committee: 2024 - Present
- Regular speaking engagements for the SOA and CIA; filming of content for SOA PD Edge+
- Actuarial Club of Toronto Executive Committee: 2017-2023
How does this prepare me for the Board and carrying out the strategic plan for the SOA?
- My leadership roles at work and in volunteering provide a strong foundation for collaboratively establishing a strategic direction and priorities.
- My passion for and experience in applying AI and predictive analytics will support the SOA's desire to promote AI expertise and innovation in the profession. I believe it is imperative to empower actuaries with AI expertise to amplify their work.
- My global experience provides me with a unique perspective in helping the SOA grow globally.