Description: Join this session to awaken your “Inner Actuary” and identify new, state-of-the-art resources and perspectives to discover purpose, direction, and value in embracing and growing the competencies for career and life.

Description: Creating an effective team is core to actuarial transformation. This involves establishing teams with jobs that line up to achieve the company's goals, with clear roles that engage people and enable them to develop. Coupled with this, effective teams need to harness the benefits of diversity. This is done both directly and through sponsorship and allyship to ensure that the full benefit of diverse teams can be realized with multiple viewpoints and perspectives strengthening teams. During the sessions, the speakers will draw on their experiences from around the world on, building global and diverse teams. By attending this session, you will:•Be able to gain insight on the benefits of embracing diversity when creating an actuarial team across the globe, and how sponsorship and allyship in workplace foster an inclusive environment.

Description: Increasingly, actuaries need to collaborate and partner with clinicians in order to be successful in value-based care and population health initiatives. Gaining credibility with professionals from different backgrounds, training and sometimes different objectives can be a challenge. Gain perspectives from actuaries and clinicians to discuss how to collaborate and achieve stronger results and outcomes. By attending this session, you will be able to: • Identify common scenarios where actuaries and clinicians need to collaborate. • Understand perspectives on how to partner and communicate with clinicians. • Describe successful strategies that take into account improvement of financial and clinical outcomes. • Understand how actuaries can provide valuable data to drive results and demonstrate outcomes.

Description: Learn to master leadership, communication and teamwork during the Soft Skills in the Quantitative Field webcast. While actuaries work in a technical field, discover ways to implement creativity into professional settings. The second portion of this webcast focuses on technical skills. Determine best ways to utilize time management for deep work, while also concentrating on knowledge exchanges between colleagues with different perspectives and areas of specialization to increase satisfaction. Explore how both soft and technical skills can challenge the actuarial perception standpoint and which will be least vulnerable to automation in the future.

Description: This article is intended to provide an introduction to microfinance and microinsurance. Microfinance began in the 1960's and 1970's as a humanitarian activity directed at the poor to provide micro loans for working capital. Microinsurance MI protects people in the low-income range against specific perils in exchange for regular premium payments.

Description: The objective of this article is to provide an overview of the research mission of the SOA, its inner workings, major efforts, funding and its unique qualities.

Description: Linda M. Springer, FSA, MAAA, spent more than 25 years in the financial services industry in executive positions responsible for general and financial management and strategic operational planning. Springer is now the eighth director of the United States Office of Personal Management. In this interview, she discusses government life, on–the–job challenges and how her actuarial background has helped her progress in her career.

Description: This article is an overview of the FAP course, a new e-learning tool that encompansses real-world applications and examples to demonstrate actuarial practice and to teach principles that help candidates make the transition from the preliminary examinations.

Description: Non-actuary discusses how studying for the ASA exams has helped him to excel in his field.

Description: Read the February 2018 issue of Innovators & Entrepreneurs published by the Entrepreneurial and Innovation Section. Newsletters provide practical information for the working actuary, articles on trends that impact sections and news about section activities.