Description: This book explores diplomatic strategy in an historical context. Many of the lessons in the book are useful to business decision-makers.

Description: Carlos Arocha, the 2022 Chair of the International Section Council, introduces the articles featured in the current newsletter issue. In addition, he highlights recent and planned activities undertaken by the section.

Description: Relationship management is your ability to use your awareness of your own emotions and those of others to manage interactions successfully. Given enough time and quality exchanges, we can form a relationship with any person we encounter. We should strive to develop positive relationships with people we like, and even with those we don’t like as much. Once established, both parties will understand each other better and benefit from the connection. Relationships can be challenging, especially at work or under stress. Skillfully managing them will help you initiate direct and productive conversations to alleviate misunderstandings, solve conflicts and achieve desired goals. This article explores strategies to develop the skill of relationship management.

Description: Article outlines application of the 11 leadership principles defined by the Marine Corps in a corporate setting.

Description: "Stories have the power to change minds, and leading with facts and figures only hardens pre-existing opinions. Learn to leverage the power of story to effectively communicate with and enroll your stakeholders. Andrew Sykes, CEO, Habits at WorkAndrew Sykes is the founder and CEO of Habits at Work, an experiential sales training company on a mission to make sales the most trustworthy profession on the planet by empowering sellers to practice and embody the mindsets, skills, and habits that build and maintain customer trust. Sykes is a Lecturer of Entrepreneurship at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management and part of the Kellogg Sales Institute Executive Education Team where he teaches the award-winning course “Entrepreneurial Selling.”"

Description: Knowing how we and those around us are wired is very important for having successful relationships, whether it be family, a work team or any interaction that can be built upon for the future (e.g., a potential client). There are several models of human behavior inexistence. Like any model, none are perfect. However, having one that can generally guide us the majority of the time with simplicity, practicality and success is of great benefit.

Description: It highlights key initiatives and leadership changes within the SOA Education and Research (E&R) Section in year 2025.

Description: In the spring of 2019, Dr. Cai started to serve as the Actuarial Science Program coordinator at Salisbury University, a medium-sized public teaching school in Maryland. At that time, the program was small, with only two faculty members who focused on both statistics and actuarial science, with approximately 10 students. During the next five years, the program did make some achievements in curriculum development, student exam preparation, job placement, and recognition, but Dr. Cai continued to have a dream to make the program unique. Dr. Cai believed that the skill sets students learned, even from a small program, could enable them to compete with anyone on a global basis. In spring 2024, Dr. Cai advised a group of exceptional actuarial students to participate in the 2024 Society of Actuaries (SOA) Student Research Case Study Challenge (SRCSC), and the team won third place – —behind two teams from the University of New South Wales, Australia. This article is the story of the journey.

Description: With more than 24 years of experience in the reinsurance market, Bruno Freire is the CEO and one of the co-founders of Austral Re, along with Vinci Partners, a private equity firm. Austral Re is a Brazilian- based multiline reinsurer which that writes business across Latin America. It has grown organically throughout the last 13 years, and had its credit rating upgraded to A- in 2023 by AM Best (it also has AAAbr from S&P). Before joining Austral, Bruno had been a reinsurance broker at Aon Re for more than 10 years, having witnessed the opening of the reinsurance market in Brazil. As we will be seen in his interview the following, he believes in a data driven analytic approach, client focused but with an underwriting mindset, as well as a strong support from actuaries and technology as key instruments to run a reinsurance company successfully.

Description: An article summarizing the SOA Asia-Pacific Annual Symposium held June 12 - 13, 2024.