Description: Our ability to think and act quickly serves us well on a day-to-day basis. When we're faced with long-term, impactful decisions, we need to think differently. The very behaviors that enable us to react quickly to our daily work can make us jump to the wrong conclusion when exploring new topics. Cognitive biases--systematic tendencies to derivate from rational calculations--can hinder our abilities to conduct open dialogue and process new and different opinions. A 'de-bias' strategic decision-making process can help take bias out of meetings and lead to better outcomes. The presenters will provide behavioral tools and insights to attendees who need to participate or lead discussions that are part of a big-bet decision.

Description: Marcus highlights the council’s activities during the 2009-2010 council year, and gives a well deserved thanks to the SOA staff and the members of the council and its teams for their support and hard work toward a very productive year.

Description: Marcus Robertson gives us a rundown of key results from the recent survey conducted by the Pension Section Council’s Communications Team.

Description: Experienced actuaries will discuss various ethical problems faced by retirement actuaries in everyday practice. Actuaries practicing in other consulting disciplines will find the broad concepts of dealing with these retirement-specific scenarios instructive in dealing with the ethical dilemmas that may occur in their business.

Description: In this article, Pension Section Council chairperson Marcus Robertson reviews 2009, looks forward to 2010, thanks departing council members and welcomes incoming members.