Description: Using thoughtleading as a business development strategy. Tying revenue to media presence and quantiying the ROI.

Description: This article notes how “we can do much more at the company, industry and social level by combining what we know with other actuaries as well as members of other disciplines.” This will become easier due to social technologies that allow individuals to collaborate regardless of conventional barriers. The author asks “how do we use these new social technologies to leverage our existing actuarial skill set data in a way that creates value for customers and clients?”

Description: This paper discusses the issues of an independent actuary providing product development, or more accurately sales development, services to a life insurance company. The author explores the process, and proposes “compensation to the entrepreneurial actuary who accepts the challenge of operating in a setting where true success is not measured by isolating theoretical profit margins or business sold, but rather focusing attention on the unfolding experience of what is hopefully to be truly profitable policies.” Instead of basing the actuary’s compensation on time spent, the author is suggesting compensation based on results.

Description: In this article, the section chair of the Entrepreneurial Actuaries Section, ‘EAS,’ addresses the growth of the life actuarial profession. The author notes the significant growth in size of the profession in terms of membership, but cautions that calling us a growing profession on this basis only addresses the supply of actuaries, not the demand. The article then discusses current efforts to address the question of demand, noting that the EAS is in early discussions with other sections and the SOA staff to develop some measure of future demand for actuaries.

Description: This article, an Honorable Mention Essay for the Society of Actuaries' Entrepreneurial Actuaries Section 2010 Papers Competition, is a discussion of the various issues relating to measurement of data in healthcare. The author presents “a light hearted & tongue-in-cheek take on how healthcare is typically measured, and an entrepreneurial vision for a better world.” Noting that typically data is summarized in deterministic models that produce point estimates for analysis and decision making, the author’s vision presented in the paper “is that of a central repository of actuarially modeled distributions that can either be used as benchmarks or adapted to an organization's experience.”

Description: The author offers suggestions for selecting the subject of an article to write for publication. His advice is to include information about issues you have solved for your clients, but avoid writing about broad expertise that you know a lot about. Rather he suggests that “by focusing on specific, truly relevant problems, your readers will gain the wisdom of your consulting expertise.”