Description: With the convergence and consolidation of the financial services industry, the advent of new technologies and the Internet, and increased focus on the customer, actuaries are facing a brand new set of challenges. This editorial prefaces the articles in this issue that point out some key challenges and opportunities facing today’s actuaries.

Description: Profiles of five actuaries who pursued nontraditional careers, using their actuarial skills and experience in a new area.

Description: This article examines conglomerate management, the need for planning, and examples of effective acquisitions management.

Description: Article from The Actuary, October 1971 – volume 5 - Issue 8 is a copy of the text from a workshop on The Future of Life Insurance presented by George R. Dinney. Mr. Dinney discusses the evolution of the actuarial profession beyond its life insurance roots and asks questions about the role of the actuary in tomorrow's society.

Description: This article discusses changes to the Society of Actuaries educational and examination program. The eagerly awaited conversion rules for the new education and examination system have been published. Now the design team has turned its attention to refining topics and defining learning objectives.

Description: Insurance professionals are seeing the industry change before their very eyes, and many are being forced to change with it. But it seems those pushed and pushing the most are those touched directly by the Internet’s World Wide Web. In this article, seven executives and professionals are interviewed about their work on this new fast track. They sometimes had widely varying opinions, but they agreed on two points: the Web is rapidly forcing a restructuring of the way insurance business is done, and this will create new and perhaps more opportunities for actuaries.

Description: Over the past 20 years, the roles and responsibilities of actuaries have expanded dramatically. We have extended the use of our core skills, namely the ability to model and manage financial risk, to new practice areas, such as asset/liability management and capital management. At the same time, we have broadened our client base to include most types of financial services organizations, many of which are operating in a global environment. This article discusses what the growing role of the actuarial profession means for current and future generations of actuaries.

Description: Among the most outspoken of the life insurance industry’s authorities is Ronald Butkiewicz, president and CEO, Irish Life of North America ILONA. In speeches to industry groups, including a 1995 presentation to the Actuarial Society of Greater New York, Butkiewicz makes the challenging statement, 'American society doesn’t need the life insurance industry. I am also quick to add that I don’t think American society needs banks, either.' However, said Butkiewicz in an interview for this article, 'It does need our products.' The article goes on to explain how Butkiewicz sees life insurance becoming part of one, big financial services industry.

Description: This article provides a recap of Colin Powell's speech at the SOA's Annual Meeting in 1994, entitled 'The Management of Crisis and Change'.

Description: This article is about change, how it affects us, how we react to change, and how leaders need to be change agents.