Description: An interview between Timothy Morant and Jinnah Cox. The chair of the reinsurance council discusses with the chair of the product development section, including personal questions and volunteering for the reinsurance section.

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: 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: This editorial notes how change is constant in the world around us and that the SOA has adopted a theme of change. Articles in this issue of The Actuary, which are all related to change, are summarized.

Description: Espouses the benefits of an actuarial program at smaller universities and liberal arts colleges.

Description: This column descrbes the Society of Actuaries' Leadership Resource System, an important new project intended to help identify, develop and support the many members who volunteer their time or are elected to leadership positions.

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