Board Member Candidate Questionnaire

Vincent Shi, FSA, CERA

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. 

As Head of APAC Business Development at SCOR Digital Solutions, I serve as the regional leader for SCOR’s AI solutions (Predictive, Generative, and Agentic AI), overseeing high-visibility strategic transformations across Greater China and Southeast Asia countries. Partnering closely with client C-suites to align technical capabilities with corporate strategy gives me a front-row seat to how advanced analytics reshape insurance business models and workforce needs.

My core framework is that AI must elevate, not replace, core actuarial capabilities. We deploy well-trained AI models when advanced intelligence enables use cases that deterministic tools cannot, yet we avoid reinventing the wheel where proven rule-based mechanisms deliver high reliability and explainability. With this pragmatic approach, my team has unlocked high-impact use cases across the insurer's value chain: pricing competitiveness, underwriting efficiency and decision quality, claim fraud prediction, agent misconduct monitoring, and 24/7 channel chatbots. These deployments successfully shift the actuary’s role from basic risk analyst to complex risk orchestrator.

Operating within a European global reinsurer serving Asian markets provides deep compliance insights. My deployments concurrently satisfy strict European standards like General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and evolving local regulations. This requires a rigorous approach to data privacy, algorithmic limitations, and model governance to ensure the responsible adoption of emerging technologies.

On the SOA Board, I will utilize this expertise to evolve our curriculum and continuing education pathways. I will ensure global actuaries retain a distinct competitive edge over pure data scientists by combining modern tech capabilities with profound risk knowledge.

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. 

My approach to board service is shaped by the practical realities of concurrently managing corporate sustainability and executive execution across diverse markets. Holding Board Director roles for multiple SCOR Digital Solutions entities in Singapore, Malaysia, and Indonesia while simultaneously serving as a senior executive has taught me the discipline of “wearing two hats”. I intentionally separate governance from management: as an executive, I drive operational growth, but as a director, my responsibility shifts to a macro-level focus on strategic oversight, boundary risks, capital allocation, and mission stewardship. This strict mental segregation ensures I provide the independent, objective oversight necessary to protect institutional integrity without operational interference.

This philosophy was forged during my actuarial advisory tenure at EY, where I regularly produced complex due diligence and valuation materials and handled Q&As to guide the high-stakes decisions of client boards. That experience taught me that true fiduciary care goes far beyond reviewing board packs. It demands using deep financial and technical expertise to stress-test financial projections, evaluate systemic risks, and challenge strategic assumptions before casting a vote.

Providing board service within a multinational reinsurer has also given me a practical understanding of institutional loyalty and obedience. I recognize that serving on the SOA Board requires a mindset that transcends corporate, personal, or regional ties. I will ensure the SOA’s global strategies are executed with the cultural and market intelligence necessary to drive universal member value, while staying obedient to our strategic priority of advancing the actuarial profession in the global and AI context.

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.

Throughout my 20-year career across New York Life, EY, and SCOR, I have consistently demonstrated the corporate leadership sought by the SOA—navigating multi-billion-dollar M&A complexities, managing cross-border collaborations, and steering innovative Tech deployments under strict governance standards.

A definitive highlight is my role as Chief HealthTech Business Officer at SCOR Digital Solutions. Operating essentially as a "Product Manager" or "CEO of the product line," I hold end-to-end accountability for transforming an innovative HealthTech vision into a global profit center. This demands comprehensive leadership/executive skills: strategizing, translating concepts into prototypes, forming partnerships with a Tier-1 wearable brand, driving real-world market landing, and upholding Tech governance. I lead a cross-functional international team of actuaries, data scientists, and developers, rallying internal stakeholders and regional clients to invest in and adopt our solutions.

Under my strategic direction, this unit achieved distinctive commercial impact, driving rapid Health & Protection business growth, high user engagement, and strong sales conversion. Our work brought home prestigious honors, including the Singapore FinTech Festival Award (2021), the iF Design Award (2023), and grant funding from the Monetary Authority of Singapore (2021-2023).

My leadership style relies on being a strategic shaper who bridges actuarial rigorousness with commercial viability, while fostering a collaborative culture that empowers bottom-up innovation. By combining entrepreneurship with sound governance, I ensure innovations deliver sustainable growth. On the SOA Board, I will apply this capability to provide sharp strategic direction and oversee the SOA’s global innovation agenda.

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. 

My foundation in financial oversight was solidified during my actuarial advisory and audit tenure at EY, where comprehensive financial scrutiny was a core regulatory mandate. I was directly responsible for constructing various financial models, valuation reports, and M&A due diligence reports, routinely defending our methodologies through Q&A sessions under direct challenge from client boards and executives.

At EY, I also specialized in auditing and scrutinizing financial statements to uphold regulatory compliance. A definitive highlight was leading the financial due diligence and reserving audits for Singapore’s national health insurance fund during its structural transition from MediShield to MediShield Life. This required intense scrutiny of statutory reserves, long-term claims projections, and solvency metrics to safeguard public-sector financial sustainability under shifting regulatory frameworks.

This technical grounding proved vital as my career transitioned to corporate leadership and innovation, where financial oversight often demands navigating scenarios with no textbook answers. At SCOR, as a profit-center leader, I apply this scrutiny to untraditional financial landscapes—such as establishing a viable financial model for innovative Tech product lines and partnering with client C-suites to quantify the return on investment (ROI) for advanced AI use cases. Leveraging my Chartered Enterprise Risk Analyst (CERA) designation, I combine rigorous balance-sheet discipline with pragmatic foresight to identify systemic financial risks and develop robust mitigation strategies to safeguard institutional sustainability.

On the SOA Board, I will apply this rigorous scrutiny to oversee the SOAs fiscal discipline, and ensure our long-term strategic investments remain financially sustainable.

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. 

People occasionally ask me where I got my accent from, and I usually reply that it is a melting pot of my life experiences: growing up in Shanghai China, completing my actuarial graduate studies in the US, learning French for two years, and being based out of the international hub of Singapore while traveling extensively across the Asia-Pacific region for the past 15 years. This personal and professional path gives me an authentic, multi-dimensional understanding of international insurance markets and a native capacity for cross-cultural communication.

Throughout my career at SCOR and EY, I have led strategy, M&A and high-stakes corporate transformations across diverse jurisdictions, including mainland China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Japan, Korea, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, Vietnam, Philippines, Cambodia, Myanmar, and Laos. This on-the-ground execution has taught me that international success requires deep respect for localized business practices and regulatory realities. I understand how regional insurance regulations interact with multinational corporate goals, and what international employers and candidates truly demand from a premier professional credential.

My deep international background directly supports the SOA's strategic priority to expand its global presence. On the Board, I will help the SOA refine its international positioning, ensuring that its designations are viewed as vital, locally adapted drivers of financial stability and talent development. I will leverage my active professional networks with regional regulators, local actuarial associations, and universities to strengthen the SOA’s global relationships and ensure our institution delivers unmatched value to an increasingly diverse, worldwide membership.

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. 

Over the past decade, I have actively advanced the SOA’s mission by contributing directly to our professional ecosystem. I have delivered high-profile speeches almost every year across regional platforms, including dedicated SOA forums, the Asian Actuarial Conference (AAC), and local societies in Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam, Japan and Taiwan. I also collaborated directly with the SOA’s research team in 2023. These experiences have taught me that a non-profit cannot survive on its mission alone; it requires operational sustainability, fresh intellectual capital, and highly engaged members to thrive.

This on-the-ground work gives me a practical, hands-on approach to volunteer recruitment and coordination. Actuaries are busy professionals who cannot be managed by traditional corporate mandates. Instead, I lead by aligning project objectives with individual passions, providing structured mentoring, and ensuring their contributions gain high visibility.

For me, fostering diversity is driven by my genuine enjoyment of interacting with local actuaries and students during my regional travels. Seeing the direct impact that sharing knowledge can have on a young professional’s career has shaped my approach to leadership. When guiding cross-border initiatives, I make it a priority to ensure that international members, younger actuaries, and tech specialists from non-traditional backgrounds are not just present but actively empowered to guide our strategic agenda.

On the SOA Board, I will utilize this decade of deep member engagement to bridge the gap between our educational mission and commercial realities, ensuring our global volunteer models remain modern, inclusive, and operationally sustainable.

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. 

Over the past three years, I have actively shaped professional development by bridging academic theory with real-world industry execution. A core pillar of my experience is my multi-year partnership with Nanyang Technological University (NTU) in Singapore. Each year, I have sponsored live corporate projects for NTU’s MBA program, designing structural pathways that give advanced students hands-on opportunities to solve complex, real-world insurance and business problems.

Concurrently, I have served as an executive mentor and grand judge for an international insurance case competition organized by NTU. Over my three-year involvement, this competition has expanded from a local event into a Southeast-Asia-wide, and now a truly global competition, evaluating and shaping the analytical capabilities of future industry leaders worldwide.

My approach to professional education is deeply informed by adult learning concepts—specifically moving away from passive theoretical testing toward experiential, problem-driven learning. To apply this, I once partnered closely with an NTU professor to co-design a specialized executive education curriculum focused on driving digital health technology adoption within the insurance sector. Although this program was ultimately postponed, this course design experience gave me direct, hands-on experience structuring high-level professional educational frameworks.

On the SOA Board, I will leverage this combined academic and commercial educational background to help evolve our curriculum and continuing professional development (CPD) pathways. I will ensure that the SOA credential seamlessly integrates technical rigor with the strategic business acumen and agility necessary to empower our members as future-ready leaders in a changing global market.

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. 

I was among the first few cohorts to receive the Chartered Enterprise Risk Analyst (CERA) designation (2007) in SOA history. This extensive training in qualitative and quantitative risk management was solidified during my actuarial advisory tenure at EY. There, I systematically applied enterprise risk management (ERM) frameworks to identify financial, operational, counterparty, and cross-border risks for multinational clients, stress-testing complex corporate models for regulatory reporting and M&A transactions.

My recent execution at SCOR has transitioned risk management from a boardroom blueprint into an active, high-stakes operational discipline. Managing digital/tech deployments that directly engage hundreds of thousands of end consumers across APAC means that risk control is never an abstract concept. Our frameworks are at times put to the test by live market incidents, unexpected vulnerabilities, and shifting consumer dynamics. Since we implemented strict, proactive mitigation protocols, we have successfully stood each test, entirely insulating our corporate partners and safeguarding our institutional reputation.

My career offers a distinctive combination of structural ERM expertise and hands-on experience in governing the risks of emerging technologies. As the SOA accelerates its AI agenda and global footprint, it faces unprecedented technological and reputation risks. I will bring this battle-tested oversight to the Board to ensure the Society’s innovative initiatives remain secure, resilient, and structurally sound.

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. 

Throughout my 20-year career across three employers, I have approached strategic planning from complementary angles: corporate blueprinting, multi-cultural advisory, and hands-on commercial execution. This evolution has shaped me into a pragmatic strategist who values actionable results over pure theory.

My foundation began at New York Life (China), where serving as Head of Strategic Planning allowed me to dissect the complex machinery of the Life & Health business. Here, I learned the disciplines of formulating institutional vision, setting boundaries and priorities, and orchestrating capital and resource allocation across a corporate structure.

My strategic perspective expanded significantly during my advisory tenure at EY. Advising multiple corporate clients in multiple countries through high-stakes transitions forced me to formulate market priorities under compressed timelines and across highly diverse cultural and regulatory landscapes. This consulting background made me a stronger strategist; it taught me to identify market trends, navigate conflicting stakeholder agendas, and understand how to effectively position varying business models for long-term regional success.

Ultimately, at SCOR, as Chief HealthTech Business Officer, I demonstrated the rare capability of translating a differentiated strategy into tangible business impact through sound execution. I built a profit center from scratch, proving that true strategy requires monitoring real-time performance, optimizing resource utilization, and adapting to market realities to secure long-term client retention. 

On the SOA Board, I will apply this end-to-end strategic oversight to ensure the Society’s global initiatives are backed by realistic execution roadmaps and sustainable resource allocation.