Beyond the Actuarial Answer

As an actuary in 2012, I was leading the biggest product launch of the year when I found myself in an ambulance, barely conscious. My blood pressure had dropped to 80/40. In that moment, the product launch wasn’t on my mind.

Weeks later, I learned what happened back at the office. My team did not freeze. On schedule, they jumped in to lead the project and launched what became our best-selling product at the time. That forced me to see something I had missed. By staying too close to the work, making too many calls, and focusing too much on being actuarially correct, I had been holding both my team and myself back. I needed to shift.

We are trained to be expert analysts, critical thinkers and risk managers, which builds credibility. But company leadership, I believe, calls for something broader and relies on more than technical strength. It shows up in how we guide decisions, see the business, move work forward, influence others and foster ownership within teams.

To position oneself as a company leader, I believe a shift in mindset should be considered. This article and its focus on five shifts reflect my personal experience moving from actuarial roles into broader company leadership. It is intended to share lessons that may be useful to actuaries at different career stages and backgrounds considering similar paths in their pursuit of company leadership roles.

SHIFT #1: FROM EXPLAINING THE WORK TO GUIDING THE DECISION

In meetings with the senior leadership team, consider: Is your mindset to walk people through your work or to help the team move forward? These mindsets land very differently, and I believe the second one often matters more.

As actuaries, we are rightfully proud of our work. Our presentations typically focus on background, assumptions, details and caveats. By the time we reach the recommendation, the audience may be tired or lost. I have found it more effective to start with the recommendation and then give the reasons behind it, the tradeoffs and what to keep an eye on.

Early in my career, I had the opportunity to present to the CEO. I walked him through my findings. I covered every base leading up to my recommendation and believed he’d sign off. It fell flat.

Afterward, I spoke with the CFO to understand why I missed the mark so badly. He explained my mindset through an analogy, like this: “Actuaries are like Swiss watchmakers. They care about every gear, every function and every bit of precision. They are so passionate about their work that they create a thick owner’s manual for everyone to read. Yet most people just want to know what time it is and whether the watch is worth buying.”

I was left with an understanding that company leaders are generally not interested in the full manual. They are looking for judgment, company relevance and what to do next.

Going forward, my presentations shifted to:

My recommendation is _____.

It should result in _______ and _________.

The biggest risks are _______.

And we’ll monitor ________.

For slide decks, I put details in the appendix for reference, if needed.

I believe once the focus shifts to guiding decisions, the next shift is taking a broader business view. A good way to think about it is to put on your business hat instead of your actuarial hat.

SHIFT #2: FROM ACTUARIAL STRENGTH TO BROADER BUSINESS VIEW

Technical credibility matters as an actuary. Broader business roles often call for more than technical credibility.

Senior leaders are often trusted across functions, not just one function. They understand how product, claims, underwriting, finance, operations, distribution, technology, talent and customer experience affect one another. They step beyond the actuarial answer and speak to the business as a whole.

When I joined one company, the actuarial department was not seen as a real partner. Over time, that changed. We shifted our mindset to a CEO perspective, became a strong voice for the company, and eventually reported directly to the CEO. I found that leaders tend to trust actuarial groups more when we take a company view and swim outside the typical actuarial lane.

One of my most significant shifts was joining bi-weekly sales meetings to learn. With a broader understanding, I found myself advocating for them. I was asked to join distribution calls to explain business decisions and to present at sales conferences. We were united with mutual respect, and we grew both top and bottom lines.

Rising to this level often calls for a broader understanding. Here are four things to consider:

1. Volunteering to lead a cross-functional effort.
2. Taking on a business issue with a meaningful impact on the business.
3. Spending time with leaders in other areas, especially sales, learning what they are trying to achieve, what slows them down, what they value most, and what you can do to better support them.
4. Most importantly, listening to understand without defensiveness.

Once you see the business more broadly, creating alignment moves the business forward more quickly and builds influence.

SHIFT #3: FROM BEING RIGHT TO MOVING THE BUSINESS

Put 10 actuaries in a room, and you’ll get 10 right answers. It’s a common joke that, I believe, reflects reality.

Our technical training focuses on accuracy and providing the right answers. It’s a sense of pride, in my estimation. Putting on our business hat can increase our perception as company leaders by focusing on getting people moving in the right direction and learning quickly to improve the path as we go.

At times, we can be so convinced of “the” right answer that we stop listening. It risks not getting the buy-in needed to move forward. We can leave frustrated because the idea was so sound.

From a company leadership perspective, the goal is getting enough buy-in to start, learn, and adjust the path as we go, and less about being right.

Getting buy-in on half or less of what you propose can still be a win, because the business starts to move. And once moving, we may learn something that changes the remainder. Execution can reveal what was right, what was missing and how the business might move forward.

For a company leadership mindset, these four practices could help you:

1. Letting go of the need for others to know it was your idea and instead working to create shared ownership, so people move faster and achieve a better outcome.
2. Separating essential elements from your idea and finding parts that get enough buy-in to move forward.
3. Asking questions to discover what you are missing and then pivoting, rather than getting defensive or re-proving your right answer.
4. Learning from execution and adjusting the path for a better, faster outcome.

In my experience, how willing people are to follow you typically depends on your level of influence.

SHIFT #4: FROM EXPERTISE TO INFLUENCE

I believe influence is not polish or self-promotion. I have seen it built on trust, saying things in a way people can hear, constructively dealing with resistance early and helping work move across lines that historically slowed it down.

One of the clearest lessons from my career came when I was choosing a new leader for our compliance group after its leader left unexpectedly.

Candidate #1 had technical expertise and would have been the obvious choice for most of the organizational leaders. The candidate had more depth, experience and expertise. No one could fault that decision. It was a safe decision, even if #1 failed.

Candidate #2 was better at relationships but lacked the depth of technical skills of the other candidate. If #2 failed, it would have been seen as a poor decision in the eyes of the organization.

In my eyes, #2 was the clear winner because they were strong in a more important way for this role. They had strong cross-functional relationships, grew people around them, handled conflict early and learned how to influence others without authority.

I took the risk of promoting #2 to lead the compliance group, and they excelled. People viewed the compliance group differently. Instead of coming in at the end, compliance was invited to ideation. Tension and stress dropped, rework went down and projects moved faster.

Technical expertise matters. Yet I find that influence turns expertise into movement across an organization, and #2 became a company leader.

Years after we both had left, candidate #1 was promoted to the role. Within 12 months, they were no longer there.

Although the two candidates differed in their level of technical expertise, that was not the critical success metric. It was whether the person in the role could change how the organization worked with compliance. Candidate #2 built trust and strong relationships, made the people around them stronger and created alignment across the organization. Other groups began to see compliance as a value-added partner and brought them in earlier. That is real influence. Candidate #1 was a subject matter expert, but this leadership role required relational influence that can drive organizational change.

For actuaries, this can, in my view, be a very important shift. Technical excellence serves us well, but it may also shape how others see us. The shift happens when others experience us as company leaders, not just as the technical expert in the room. For leaders building teams, that shift may also show up in how roles are defined, how candidates are assessed, and what gets rewarded in promotions. Here are three things to consider around roles and team building:

1. In your job descriptions, more prominently reflect competencies associated with influence, communication (especially listening), development of self and others, and an ownership mindset.
2. Using interview questions that reveal influence, listening skills and the ability to connect with others. Hiring primarily for specialized expertise can meet today’s needs while weakening tomorrow’s talent pipeline. Adding potential leaders to teams could help you transition them into greater responsibility and broader company roles.
3. Giving greater weight to relational strength when evaluating candidates for promotion into higher-level roles.

SHIFT #5: FROM GO-TO PERSON TO FOSTERING OWNERSHIP AROUND YOU

Many of us are the “go-to” person. We’re the ones others count on for complex work when something new comes in or when leadership needs something fast. People trust and rely on us. Being the “go-to” feels great, yet it caps our influence.

When too much flows through the “go-to” person, it may come at the team’s expense, in my experience. I’ve seen that people hesitate to speak up at times, feeling unsure of their abilities. Competencies grow slowly. The succession plan has major gaps that may ultimately limit the “go-to” person’s upward mobility.

When our mindset shifts from adding our value to every decision to building others, our behaviors change. We invest in building team competencies, focus on what we learned rather than post-mortems and reset to give people ownership of entire processes rather than just pieces.

My mindset is, I’m training my replacements. It is shifting decisions to where the work is done. It is building a broader business view and leveraging it in our analysis and recommendations. And it is creating ownership instead of dependence on “me.”

If your succession plan has no or inexperienced associates in the “ready now” and “1-2 years” boxes, it could signal that too much still depends on you. Leadership may think you are too valuable to leave your current role for the next 3 to 5 years. Some ways to get outside that pattern include:

• Delegating work that you usually keep for yourself
• Creating meaningful stretch work, not just extra work
• Giving people ownership of whole outcomes
• Asking for recommendations rather than giving directions, and being accepting of alternative approaches
• Being clear on decisions that don’t require your approval or input
• Bringing high-potential individuals into strategic meetings
• Letting others lead meetings and speak only when asked a question
• Creating an annual growth and development plan that moves each person one year closer to being ready for the next role

As actuaries, we may feel the urge to play it safe, and broader company leadership may feel inherently unsafe. Not every stretch assignment will work, and those moments can also teach us the most.

In my view, moving from actuarial leader to company leader is not about becoming less actuarial. It is about applying our curiosity, judgment under uncertainty, and disciplined thinking more broadly while building stronger trust and influence. That combination may help us guide decisions, see beyond the actuarial answer, build buy-in to move, influence across functions and foster ownership rather than dependence.

Statements of fact and opinions expressed herein are those of the individual authors and are not necessarily those of the Society of Actuaries or the respective authors’ employers.

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