Description: This article is about the need for actuaries and technical professionals to develop critical leadership and other soft skills, and highlights the ways the SOA Leadership & Development section provides tools to develop those skills.

Description: The numerous restrictions as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic have certainly affected everyone and those measures may have consequences for our health. The article attempts to uncover possible links between COVID-19 and depression.

Description: The Life Meeting, is the result of combining the Life & Annuity Symposium (LAS) and the Valuation Actuarial Symposium (ValAct). The Life Meeting will offer sessions specific to pricing and valuation as well as sessions on emerging issues relevant to both groups. These common themes include InsurTech, diversity, accounting change and the current economic environment.

Description: Editor’s note: This is the first article in a series of three covering the Society of Actuaries (SOA) Competency Framework. The subsequent articles will appear in future issues of the Actuary of the Future newsletter. The Society of Actuaries (SOA) Competency Framework is a powerful tool to enable you to design your future. Though it has been the SOA’s instrument for prioritizing continuing education and support to members since 2010, many actuaries are still not fully aware what a potent tool it can be to them in planning their personal careers.

Description: In “Gearing up for Designing Your Future,” published in the May 2017 issue of Actuary of the Future, the author cited four heroes as his personal inspiration. This article is the successor, showing the glory of these heroes and how they can inspire us actuaries today, as we strive to live our best lives. Identifying your own Noble Purpose as an actuary and in your life makes creating a five-year plan for personal growth meaningful and motivating. What will you gain from reading biographies of famous people and the classics? To aspire, to approach eloquence, to emulate the poetry of how they put their ideas across to mobilize their publics, to elevate our own characters by their examples, to be fully equipped to make moral and ethical judgments, to master the primary tool, verbal communication.

Description: Inclusive Leadership: A Conversation

Description: This year’s Life Meeting was unable to take place in person as planned in New York City. We are looking forward to the Life Meeting returning to New York City in 2024!

Description: The webcast addresses the four stages of effective leadership, and the three main drivers of effective leadership. It provides several metrics for assessment. Use of these ideas allows any leader in a leader-subordinate situation to raise the level of the subordinate to mastery level. The material in the discussion is based on an article in Stepping Stones (Sep 2023), "Are you an Empowering Leader", by Russell Jay Hendel.