Board Member Candidate Questionnaire

Phuong Chung, FSA

AI / Technology

Describe your experience understanding, applying, and/or overseeing technology, particularly AI, data, and analytics to support strategy, operations, and decision-making, including how you consider technology’s limitations, risks, and impacts on business models, workforce needs, governance, and long-term growth. 

AI/Technology is very important to our work as actuaries. However, most people are simple users of AI. Actuaries are uniquely positioned to deeply understand and use AI/Technology to benefit our stakeholders (the regular citizens, insurance companies, governments, etc.). AI fundamentally is matrix multiplication and minimizing a loss function in calculus—driven by big data for training and highspeed computation from GPU-optimized systems.

Actuaries have been using AI for decades, for example in health insurance optimization, fraud detection, etc. AI must be understood and managed/regulated just like any important technology. Actuaries must lead the implementation of AI/technology to ensure that our risk management systems work properly (especially by our employers), while ensuring that governments do not leave behind those even more vulnerable and cannot be covered by traditional risk transfer mechanisms such as insurance. AI for general insurance will also lead to great disruptions as the impact of climate change, storms, floods will be amplified by AI/technology and data. Meanwhile AI data centers may contribute even more to global warming unless carefully managed. More and more parametric insurance products will be introduced and competing with online risk pricing platforms is a very real possibility that may revolutionize general insurance. This is an extremely important and complex topic and the SOA has a lot to offer given its important and impartial work in Social Security, for example.

Board Experience and Readiness

Describe your prior nonprofit or corporate board experience and how you approach the board’s governance role (strategic oversight and mission stewardship), including how you distinguish governance from management and how you uphold fiduciary duties (care, loyalty, and obedience) in acting in the best interests of the organization.

I have contributed an award-winning paper on par fund for the Actuarial Society of Hong Kong. I am also a member of the Greater Asia Committee of the SOA. I have also served on the board of the Canadian Chamber of Commerce Shanghai. I am not sure what "obedience" means but I have always served by understanding the structure of the organization, its mission, its legal/moral obligations. From there the strategic direction of the organization is set/changed given the environment and then the important stewardship follows. Care is of course very important and acting in the best interest of those I am responsible for with fidelity (transparency, legal and institutional rules as the guiding principle) has always been the core responsibilities. I (and my fellow members) have always been working together with this principle to avoid having to resort to loyalty and obedience. My roles have not been to manage in any of the above organizations.

Corporate Leadership

Describe your senior leadership experience in corporate and/or not-for-profit environments, including examples of leading people, guiding decision-making, managing complexity, and providing strategic direction while upholding strong governance standards. 

Corporate leadership is always about people as people make the difference. Leadership of any kind is about leading by example. Being a leader means ensuring that all important interests are aligned, that the organization has very clear goals and focus and then have a culture (being lived by the leaders and all levels of the organization) that delivers the goals to the benefit of all stakeholders - not the leader. Governance is about honesty and transparency. If everyone acts honestly and transparently then governance functions smoothly and effectively. Otherwise, governance becomes just a buzz word or worse yet just an exercise. Decision making should always be guided by the goal(s) of the organization and with alignment with culture, governance and transparency at the core. This will ensure strategic goals are set, achieved in the manner that the organization envisions and the stakeholders are satisfied. It is very important that time is given to achieve the goals above as well as team members are selected to fit the mission together. Otherwise then very frank and cordial communication should take place to achieve this.

Financial Oversight

Describe your experience providing financial oversight in a corporate setting, including your ability to understand and scrutinize key financial documents and reports, identify financial risks, develop mitigation strategies, and ensure regulatory compliance.

I have been a CFO of a large insurance company. Therefore, risk management is very key as good financial management is the most import task of any financial organization. The assets must always be certified to exist and have the right valuation. This is followed in the same manner as the liabilities with the right equity being the result. This is the most fundamental task and must be done well. After this it is the process of payment which dictates resources leaving an organization. This must be done transparently, captured properly, have three levels of control (one request, one check, one pays—all independent). Payments must be made based on contracts and/or proper documentation. If this framework is in place, then we begin to ensure regulations are followed, AML, KYC, solvency standards. Finally, financial oversight must contribute to the strategy of the organization to remove unnecessary friction within an organization that may lead to non-compliance over time.

Global

Describe your international experience (e.g., multinational corporations or significant projects abroad) and how your understanding of global markets, cross-cultural communication, and international business practices would contribute to SOA’s strategic positioning and international relationships.

I have worked in more than 40 countries ranging from M&A, IPO, demutualization, greenfield startups, bankruptcy rescues. Each situation is different and complex in the main task, the regulations, the stakeholders, etc. Again it is very important to immediately understand the goal at hand, the stakeholder's wishes and the regulatory environment. Very complex, urgent, financially large projects that may seem impossible to complete can be handled in this way. However, the stakeholders as employees and customers must have special attention. These are the ultimate stakeholders that we serve but often do not have a voice "in the room" and care must be taken to understand and provide for their interest. Joint ventures are very complex as there are multiple cultural institutional as well as financial and regulatory stakeholders. These are the most complex set of environmental factors I have ever faced. The key is understanding of all the stakeholders (usually x2 because of multiple large shareholders, regulators, cultures, etc.). Time must be taken for this. Very clear communication with respectful tones must be used and alignment must be achieved. This would serve as the foundation of all such projects.

Not-for-Profit

Describe how, through your involvement with not-for-profit organizations, including the SOA, you balance mission-driven objectives with strategic success and operational sustainability especially in volunteer recruitment/coordination and incorporating diverse points of view.

Not-for-profit organizations must be understood—and their stakeholders must have clear voice. Volunteers (my involvement has always been in this manner) must understand this and not have an attitude that I am a volunteer, so I do not have to carefully listen to all stakeholders and align with them. The relationship among the team (mostly are also volunteers—some are not) is of even greater importance—hierarchy is less important and continuity from one generation to the next is very important as volunteers tend to serve term limits. Clearly understand, align and work cordially and respectfully with the team and the larger organization is the key to success.

Professional Education and Development

Describe your experience developing professional education programs for actuaries or other professionals—for example, in a university, employer, professional association, or SOA setting. Include examples where you designed, led, or managed learning programs, curricula, mentoring frameworks, or structured development pathways and how your approach was informed by how professionals learn.

I had been a member of an SOA exam committee about 30 years ago. The curriculum, material, etc. were set, but I was able to review it and create questions/answers based on it. It was always done with the bigger picture of the SOA’s mission, its educational strategy and methodology in mind. I was able to apply my real-world experience to the exam questions (as it was an FSA level exam requiring real world decision making with the technical material as the foundation). Therefore, professional education and development must be based on real technical understanding, regulations, financial market realities, etc. to solve important real-world problems.

Professionals learn when they are curious about a problem and/or need help to solve a problem or develop an opportunity. This must be the focus which is to help the professional. The structure is about the fundamental actuarial practice, laws, regulations, customer needs, shareholder requirements, etc. with the method being sharing and guidance and discussion so that the professional comes to the right answer on their own. We, of course, also want their insight shared so that learning is mutual. I always create the questions with multiple "right answers" as long as the exam student uses the fundamental actuarial principle properly, understands the stakeholders and complies with the legal framework—they would have demonstrated the skills to pass and become a good FSA.

Risk Management

Describe your risk management experience, including how you have identified and evaluated organizational risks (including reputational risks) and assessed or implemented appropriate risk mitigation measures.

Risks mean different things to different organizations. The SOA is similar to financial institutions in that the reputation is one of the (if not the) most important goals. There is a saying "as long as we are not bankrupt, then reputation is the most important". Protecting an organization's reputation starts and ends with people. We must start with having the people that have this view and then recruit and train people that also have this view. Then processes are implemented to support people with this task. The world now is dominated by social media, and special care must be taken to educate all members on social media impact—especially its potential negative impact and "dos and don’ts". This is very key. The financial management has been answered above. The rest would be people, strategy alignment, stakeholder understanding and communication, which has also been answered above. One important point is loss mitigation, which is often overlooked. Despite all manners of risk mitigation, events out of our control can and will happen. It is very important to have loss minimization and recovery processes in place. All good insurance companies or any good organization for that matter have this in place.

Strategic Planning

Describe your involvement in strategic planning (including in a corporate environment), and how you have helped formulate vision, establish priorities, and allocate resources to support long-term success and effective organizational positioning.

I have been involved in greenfield startups as well as bankruptcy rescues of large organizations which are the ends of the spectrum in strategic planning. Both are very important as a new company may need the right initial strategy to pave the way for decades of future success. The bankruptcy of a large organization means that there are many, many stakeholders with very, very large stakes (millions of people with their life savings at stake) involved.

One must understand the situation carefully, face the challenge with humility, respect but also determination. Once this is done, the rest, in terms of vision, is then established clearly, priorities, resources, organization positioning will fall in their right place.