Board Member Candidate Questionnaire

Taylor Pickett FSA, MAAA

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. 

Over the last 10 years, I’ve worked at the intersection of actuarial science, data, and emerging technology, applying advanced analytics and novel data sources to underwriting and pricing decisions. And I’m now transitioning to a new role with a heightened focus on deriving value from data, most often by employing advanced modeling techniques, to improve both customer experience and insurance product performance. I partner closely with clients and cross-functional teams to translate previously untapped data into actionable insights that support strategy and operations, while maintaining strong governance and risk discipline. Because of this new role, I will also be more exposed to the regulatory environment around AI and automation in the life insurance process.

Much of this work occurs in areas where established actuarial frameworks do not yet exist, requiring thoughtful consideration of model limitations, data quality and potential bias. I approach technology with a balanced mindset—recognizing both its tremendous potential and the importance of transparency, validation, and appropriate use. This often results in best of both worlds’ solutions that allow humans and technology to play to their respective strengths.

I would bring this perspective to the SOA, helping the profession proactively shape the role of advancing technology while ensuring continued trust, relevance, and long-term value.

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. 

While I have not served on a formal corporate board, I have held leadership roles within the SOA and my organization that require a governance-oriented mindset, such as chairing the Professional Development Committee and leading cross-functional teams. To me, sound governance sets direction, provides oversight, and ensures accountability while enabling effective execution. Distinct from management, my vision of governance focuses on strategic priorities, risk frameworks, and long-term outcomes rather than day-to-day decisions.

In my work, I regularly operate in uncharted waters where formal frameworks are yet to be established, making disciplined judgment, transparency, and stakeholder alignment crucial. I uphold fiduciary duties by acting with care, integrity and objectivity, prioritizing the long-term interests of the organization. I believe decisions made through a long-term lens and grounded in sound principles are essential to effective governance and sustained success.

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.

In my corporate role, I lead cross-functional initiatives focused on underwriting innovation, guiding decision-making in a complex, rapidly evolving space. My work requires translating emerging data and technologies into practical strategies that balance competing priorities, such as improving customer experience and operational efficiency while managing cost and risk. My approach to strategic direction emphasizes establishing clear guardrails, defining priorities, and aligning stakeholders. This fosters an environment where diverse expertise contributes to stronger outcomes.

For more than five years, I have owned and stewarded RGA’s assumption philosophy for new underwriting paradigms, such as accelerated underwriting. Success in this role requires a balanced approach—establishing strong guiding principles and standards while preserving flexibility to keep pace with a rapidly expanding knowledge base. At times, I have also led the team in influencing through thought leadership, delivering content and promoting messages that advance our strategic direction by shaping perspectives and building alignment.

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. 

In my role, I provide financial oversight through direct responsibility for assumption development, influencing business profitability and risk. I regularly analyze experience studies, model outputs, and financial projections to evaluate performance and identify emerging risks. This includes assessing uncertainty in new underwriting approaches where credible experience may be limited, requiring both quantitative rigor—sometimes finding new applications for established analytical frameworks—and professional judgment.

I identify and mitigate risks by establishing monitoring frameworks, defining guardrails, and recommending updates to assumptions or program design as new information emerges. My work is anchored in actuarial standards and strong governance, emphasizing transparency, documentation, and peer review. Through this approach, I support informed decision-making, maintain disciplined risk management, and contribute to long-term financial sustainability.

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.

While my experience has been U.S. based, it has been within a global organization with meaningful cross-border collaboration. In my role as RGA’s subject matter expert for accelerated underwriting, I have worked with colleagues across markets including Canada, India, South Africa, and South Korea. Each market presents unique dynamics, requiring a careful balance of sharing U.S.-based expertise while adapting to local regulatory, cultural, and business considerations.

Through these engagements, I have developed a strong appreciation for the importance of listening, flexibility, and context in cross-cultural collaboration. I have also gained new perspectives from international approaches that challenge conventional thinking and offer insights applicable beyond their original markets.

I would bring this global mindset to the SOA, supporting its strategic positioning by helping ensure initiatives are informed by diverse perspectives, adaptable across markets, and responsive to the evolving needs of an increasingly global profession.

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.

My non-profit experience is primarily with the SOA, serving on various conference planning committees and most recently chairing the Professional Development Committee (PDC). In these engagements, I focus on clear prioritization, realistic scope, and effective coordination to ensure meaningful progress without overburdening contributors. In my time as Vice Chair and now Chair of the PDC, I have pushed to more clearly define success for the group. Without a clear definition of success, it is difficult to determine the right path forward. This clarity of vision and direction increases the likelihood of achieving key objectives.

This approach directly supports volunteer recruitment. A clear vision enables more strategic recruiting of volunteers from varied backgrounds who can unite around a common purpose. Ultimately, engaged volunteers deliver stronger outcomes, and this is an area I have actively worked to strengthen as PDC Chair.

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 have built and delivered professional education across academic, corporate, and SOA settings. As an adjunct professor, I designed and taught a full semester course, developing curriculum, assessments, and lesson plans with a focus on transparency, practical application, and structuring content to align with how learners engage and retain concepts.

In a corporate setting, I have co-designed and delivered presentations as part of a broader training program for professionals across multiple organizations, translating complex concepts into clear, actionable insights. I have also designed and delivered sessions at numerous SOA conferences, including multiple sessions recognized with outstanding session awards.

Finally, I have served on the Professional Development Committee (PDC) since 2023, currently as Chair. This has given me an opportunity to more directly contribute to the SOA’s education and continuing professional development offerings across a wide range of topics, formats and media.

Across these experiences, I emphasize clarity, relevance, and engagement—recognizing that professionals learn best when content is practical, accessible, and directly connected to real-world decisions.

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.

With my role’s focus on new underwriting approaches that leverage emerging data sources, surfacing key risks and planning for their mitigation is critical. Because claims experience develops over an extended time horizon in life insurance, alternative early performance indicators are necessary. I have led the team in designing, implementing, and continuously refining these frameworks, which are now a core component of our assumption philosophy for this business.

Reputational risk is also a key consideration when advancing the insurance buying process. I have collaborated with individuals across the organization and from multiple disciplines to identify potential reputational risks to both our organization and our clients, and to recommend guardrails or alternative approaches where needed.

Ultimately, I help ensure risks are understood and proactively managed while maintaining strong alignment with financial goals and customer objectives.

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’ve had the opportunity to develop strategy in a few different contexts.

When setting direction for cross-functional research as part of my corporate role, I focus on first identifying the most important questions to answer, prioritizing efforts that will meaningfully influence decision-making rather than those that are simply interesting. Our resources are finite, and this approach ensures they are focused on projects most likely to improve business outcomes and ensure we’re well positioned for future developments. I also emphasize collaboration across disciplines. Success requires each function to contribute its unique expertise, and integrating these perspectives early in the process helps ensure the work is both practical and actionable.

As a manager, I build on this foundation by setting a clear vision for the team, translating strategic priorities into defined, measurable objectives and aligning resources accordingly. This includes establishing guardrails, sequencing work and maintaining focus on outcomes to ensure progress is both directed and sustainable.

As Chair of the SOA Professional Development Committee, I have applied these same principles—clarifying objectives, prioritizing initiatives, and aligning volunteer efforts—to ensure resources are directed toward work that delivers meaningful impact. Equally important, I’ve also pushed for clearer definitions of success so that we can determine whether we’ve effectively executed the strategy and achieved our objectives.