Leading Through Change

We live in a world of great change that is often disorienting, confusing and at times almost beyond understanding. Change is nothing new. In our daily lives we talk all the time about how much and how fast things are changing. All of us know we need good skills in “change management,” in fact, that may be our most important skill today. People change and adapt. Our greatest risks and opportunities always come from the changes around us and the “gaps of chance” that open as a result.

This is why the characteristics and values of the actuarial profession, and the work of actuaries and the SOA, remain so relevant and timely today.

THE WORLD IN WHICH WE LIVE

The SOA always begins its strategy work with a diagnosis. What conditions are we facing and how are they likely to affect the profession and our work?

Some of the most important opportunities and challenges the actuarial profession and the SOA face today include:

• Significant new opportunities for growth in the use of actuarial talent that are opening up across the world, especially in Asia, the Middle East, and Africa. The structure, functioning and needs of insurance markets vary considerably across the globe, so the specific needs for actuarial training also vary. But these markets offer great opportunities to develop new actuarial talent, along with the risks that are always attendant to operating globally.
• The human desire for social engagement, including engagement with other professionals in the same field, is as strong as ever, but the ways in which it occurs have changed dramatically. This creates challenges for a professional community to adapt, but it also opens up many new ways to reach students interested in the field and to connect those who are part of the community.
• The number of students studying actuarial science in the U.S. and Canada has been declining, while the number of students studying in competing disciplines has risen. The profession faces significant competition for the talent it and the industry need. The SOA has been experimenting with new ways to attract and retain talented students, and our rising candidate numbers over the past three years tell us it can be done very successfully.
• At the same time, as the World Economic Forum and other reports show, the rising use of AI for tasks historically done by entry-level hires will undoubtedly change the demand for actuarial talent. The SOA is now working to incorporate critical AI skills into the training of candidates and members, and to incorporate these tools into our own work.
• Overall, the techniques, methods, and expectations for adult learning and assessment continue to change. These changes were dramatically accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic and the underlying economics of adult education. They’ve led to a massive rise in the use of online education and differences in how students learn and demonstrate knowledge. Because of that, the fields of credentialing and skill development are also changing dramatically and we’re responding. We’ve found that these trends have opened up many new ways to offer learning to our members and candidates, sometimes at dramatically lower cost.

While these issues affect the SOA as a professional society, we don’t exist in a vacuum. Across the world, there are other, deeper societal issues the SOA and others face. These issues pose both challenges and opportunities for the actuarial profession:

• Birthrates are falling across much of the world, posing special challenges to developing future talent, future economic growth, and the sustainability of critical social programs.
• At the same time, the actuarial profession specializes in addressing issues of aging, retirement, and longevity, and these trends will obviously create new demands and opportunities for actuarial insights.

The World Economic Forum’s 2026 Global Risks Report highlighted key challenges facing the world today, including:

• We live in a time of receding multilateralism and unfettered global trade characterized by declining trust, diminishing transparency, lower respect for the rule of law, and heightened protectionism. This is a challenge for all businesses built on global trade and multinational market access, including the SOA and much of the insurance industry, which, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, employs the most actuaries. At the same time, actuarial work, credentials, and designations are respected and used across the globe, grounded in the universal language of mathematics, creating ever more opportunities for actuaries to work across international borders.
• The world faces an intensifying set of economic risks, including the potential for asset bubbles bursting, stubborn or resurgent inflation, economic downturns, and questions about the dollar’s future as a reserve currency.In the SOA’s most recent , 63% of life insurance executives rated “greater-than-normal financial volatility” as their single most impactful risk over the next 12 months. These issues have the potential to have a major impact on the life insurance industry, where long-term bets on inflation, interest rates, longevity, and asset returns are routinely made. Actuaries are specifically trained to address these issues and have the insights needed to manage these risks.
• We face significant questions about the sustainability of debt levels incurred by many governments, including whether social programs supporting the health and well-being of many in society can continue to be sustained. As these critical programs are reformed or replaced, actuaries will necessarily be at the center of the discussions, creating more demand for actuarial insights.
• We see ongoing and accelerating extreme weather events across the globe posing new challenges for adaptation and response. Actuaries specializing in these risks and in the needed insurance coverages are essential to society’s response.
• In the U.S., according to Pew Research, public trust in many institutions has declined dramatically. In January 2025, the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago found that barely one in 10 Americans thinks the government represents them well and only two in 10 trust government officials to “do the right thing.” At the same time, the actuarial profession is consistently seen by the public as one of the most trusted professions, known for its integrity. In a time of low and declining trust in institutions of all types, the actuarial profession’s reputation for honesty and integrity is critical and will drive future demand for actuarial insights.
• Finally, while many business leaders are “all in” on the potential of AI for their organizations, few, in my observation, can yet document meaningful returns on their AI investments. In addition, employee and public concern over adverse outcomes from AI is rising rapidly. The SOA’s Emerging Risk Survey echoes these concerns. Nearly 70% of life insurance executives rated technology risks as their most impactful risks over the next three-plus years, with a special focus on adverse outcomes from AI and cyberattacks. At the same time, we see many actuaries embracing the use of AI tools in their work and becoming early adopters of this technology. This puts them and their employers in an excellent position for future success.

WHY ARE ACTUARIES MORE RELEVANT NOW THAN EVER BEFORE?

Actuaries bring uniquely deep technical expertise to the mechanics of insurance and social benefit systems. Their knowledge includes mathematical statistics, economics, accounting, finance, probability theory, financial mathematics, short- and long-term actuarial mathematics, model construction and testing, predictive analytics, and fundamentals of actuarial practice, including the actuarial control cycle.

As student actuaries move through their education and to the Fellowship level, they develop deep, specialized knowledge in areas such as corporate finance and emerging risk management (ERM), group and health insurance, general (or property-casualty) insurance, individual life and annuities, investment management, quantitative finance, and retirement benefits.

SOA members, both ASAs and FSAs, demonstrate tremendous grit and determination to move through the credential pathway to receive their designations. By the time they finish, they’ve demonstrated an elite level of technical competence and professional capability.

The SOA is committed to protecting and extending the value and relevance of our credentials. We’re wrapping up a three-year project to enhance the Fellowship pathway aimed at addressing friction points for candidates and making educational requirements more relevant to candidates outside North America.

And with this Fellowship review nearly done, we’re beginning to focus new attention on our pathway beginnings in the Associateship designation. Our goal is to understand how the SOA can best prepare candidates for tomorrow’s changing workplace demands including, but not limited to, the training required for an AI-enhanced world and to make the changes needed by our candidates and their employers.

In a world facing as much change and turmoil as we do, the stability and strength of our members’ commitment to deep technical knowledge is needed now more than ever. Having professionals in your organization who understand at a deep level how the business works is always important. The same is true for policymakers addressing serious societal issues, such as those noted earlier. A world full of chaotic, confusing challenges is a world that desperately needs people deeply trained in the “hard skills” actuaries have in abundance.

Actuaries are committed to learning. Our members come from many backgrounds and experiences, but a common characteristic among almost all actuaries is an absolute commitment to lifelong learning. When we describe the SOA as an education and research organization, we mean “education” across the entire range of a professional career. The SOA offers an amazing array of professional learning opportunities for our members. We do so because our members need and demand those learning opportunities.

Over many decades, and even more so in the past several years, the SOA has created and offered a wide range of new educational programs and services. One we’re proudest of is the creation of PD Edge+, our online learning platform that includes more than 40 new video courses and more content being added all the time.

Another area demonstrating actuaries’ commitment to learning is in the research programs we support. The SOA is unique among actuarial organizations in the size and depth of its commitment to research. We released 80-plus research products last year, including tools for actuarial work such as Experience Studies Pro and mortality tables, research papers on leading societal issues, AI adoption by the profession, and longevity risk. We have a highly productive research partnership with LIMRA that regularly produces half a dozen new major experience studies each year.

It is no exaggeration to say that without the SOA’s research programs, there would be no historical, continuously updated body of significant actuarial research available to the public and to insurance regulators, as there is today. We are the indispensable source for that work and that value.

In a world where change is constant, volatile, and often deeply confusing, professionals must be committed to continuous learning throughout their careers. Without that commitment, professionals won’t keep up, won’t drive favorable change, and their industries will lose the capacity for adaptation in response to change. The insurance industry is truly fortunate to have the actuarial profession with learning and adaptability embedded in its professional DNA!

Finally, the actuarial Code of Professional Conduct and the Actuarial Standards of Actuarial Practice (ASOP) are critical to the value actuaries bring to the world and they’re more needed today than ever before.

All SOA members are bound to follow the Code of Professional Conduct and ASOP for the jurisdictions in which they work. Our actuarial candidates are bound to our Candidate Code of Conduct, which is our way of setting expectations for candidate behavior and of helping them understand they’re entering a profession committed to integrity and high professional standards of conduct.

We live in a time when public trust in many institutions and leaders is at historically low levels. In the coming years, I believe we will find that the commitment by professionals to act in ethical and responsible ways, enforced by codes of conduct and disciplinary systems, is one of the best protections available to clients and the public.

THE SOA’S RESPONSE

The SOA is the world’s largest actuarial professional organization; more than 35,000 actuaries working in the world today are SOA members. How the SOA views the appropriate role of the actuary, what we expect actuarial students to learn and know, and how we support our members’ professional work has a huge impact on the success of the entire actuarial profession. And the success of the actuarial profession has a major impact on the success of the insurance industry, the employee benefits industry, and many public social welfare and retirement programs globally.

The world and our industry are facing many challenges, and the SOA is committed to doing its part to face those challenges and to find the new opportunities embedded within them.

We’re committed to continuous review and updating of our educational programs while maintaining the standards that ensure employers can count on the knowledge and abilities of those who carry our credentials. That means demonstrated mastery of the “hard skills” required by the industry; it means continually adding the new topics needed; and it means maintaining the security and strength of our exam and qualification system.

We’re committed to continually strengthening our research programs. We’ve recently completed a new research strategy that further focuses our work on the core topics that need our attention, and we’ll keep growing our partnership with LIMRA, which has already provided many benefits.

Finally, we’re deeply committed to innovation. The SOA has created an internal innovation fund to invest in new ways to support candidates, deliver exams, and develop educational programs for members or university support programs. For instance, we’re currently exploring ways to drive AI tools into our examination process to assist candidates preparing for exams, help exam question writers create new exams, and develop new tools to give candidates better feedback on their exam performance.

We’re using our innovation fund to partner with MIT to better understand emerging trends in actuarial adoption of AI tools, emerging risks and mitigation strategies, and the impact of AI on the future supply and demand for actuarial talent.

We’ll also be exploring whether there’s an emerging market for new actuarial training in health insurance programs outside the U.S. and Canada.

As we do these things, the SOA is and will continue to be the indispensable actuarial professional body because of our history, our membership, our commitment to ensuring the relevance and impact of the profession, and our commitment to investing in its future.

A FOND FAREWELL

This will be my last message to members as the CEO of the Society of Actuaries. Our Board of Directors and I announced last fall that I would be concluding my tenure as part of a multiyear retirement plan. The SOA announced that, as of May 4, Clar Rosso became the SOA’s CEO.

As I step aside, I want to say that it has been my great privilege to work for an industry and a profession that exists to protect people in their times of greatest need and to serve so many wonderful people dedicated to that mission. Actuarial work is noble work and so is the work of educating and supporting actuaries, which is what the SOA does.

Thank you for the work you do, and for the support you have given to me and to the Society of Actuaries.

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.

Copyright © 2026 by the Society of Actuaries, Chicago, Illinois.