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Chris Dolman has wide ranging insurance industry experience, having worked across multiple countries as both an advisor and in industry, in both traditional and non-traditional roles. He is currently Director, Data and Algorithmic Ethics at IAG, helping to ensure that modern decision making algorithms and other advanced uses of data are designed and implemented in an ethical, responsible and thoughtful way.
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Rachel Keaney
Senior Pricing Actuary
Munich Re
Rachel Keaney currently works with Munich Re as a senior pricing actuary and is focused on the reinsurance of Australian Retail business.
Before relocating to Australia in 2017, Rachel worked with Munich Re in the UK and was involved in pricing work across Protection, Longevity and Structured reinsurance deals. Prior to that she worked at a life insurance company in both Valuation and Pricing roles.
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Aaron Cutter
Aaron was a physicist and is now an actuary and Principal at Finity experienced in general insurance and accident compensation. Recently he has set up and leads Finity’s Big Data practice, also known as Defin’d and is committed to actuaries in analytics playing a further significant role in this space. He is a strong believer that actuaries help organisations better understand their businesses, their customers and hence are well placed to help with issues of strategic importance. Actuaries, data and analytics in business problem solutions will only deepen as the world’s generation, retention and ability to interrogate data explodes. |
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Dr. Raymond Yeow
GP Registrar
Advance Medical Practice
Raymond Yeow qualified as an actuary in 2000 and worked primarily in the financial derivatives space whilst an actuary. He commenced medical training early this decade at Sydney University, and since graduating in 2014; he has worked as a Junior Medical Officer at RPA hospital, and is currently a GP Registrar in private practice.
Through his lived experience of medical training coupled with his actuarial background, he is cognisant of significant flaws & inconsistencies in the Australian health system and consequently opportunities for actuarial skill sets to optimise healthcare delivery and better patient outcomes.
He is passionate about improving health and healthcare system literacy among the public in general and the actuarial profession in particular.
He also serves as in the Army Reserves as a medical officer.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/raymondyeow/
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Colin Yellowlees
Chief Pricing Actuary
RGA Australia
Colin is the Chief Pricing Actuary at RGA Australia |
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Nathan Bonarius joined Rice Warner in early 2010 and is currently a Senior Consultant in the Market Insights team. Nathan is responsible for the production of Rice Warner’s superannuation research reports as well as maintaining our industry projections model.
Nathan actively contributes to Rice Warner’s public policy submissions including those for the Financial Systems Inquiry, Productivity Commission, Treasury and Budget. Nathan also undertook a six month secondment to the Department of Treasury in 2018.
Nathan has also been actively involved in a range of consulting activities within superannuation including the provision of strategic advice, assistance with mergers, outsourcing and administration tenders, risk management and Actuarial valuations.
Nathan qualified as a Fellow of the Institute of Actuaries of Australia in 2014 and completed his Masters of Business Administration at MGSM in 2018.
Prior to this Nathan studied at Macquarie University where he obtained a double degree, Bachelor of Commerce – Actuarial Studies and a Bachelor of Science majoring in Statistics.
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Adam Stolz is a senior actuary with broad experience in health insurance, life insurance and retirement savings, in Australia as well as internationally. Adam is currently Deputy Chief Actuary and General Manager Pricing at Medibank, and has previously worked with AIA, as well as AXA for 11 years in France and the US. Adam has a passion for customer-orientated innovation in the health and insurance sectors.
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Adrian Mak is head of valuation at SCOR Global Life Australia
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Aloysius Lim heads the Decision Analytics team in Gen Re Life Australia. His role focuses on deriving business insights through experience analyses for Australasia. He has been heavily involved in actuarial pricing projects and regional data analytics initiatives.
Prior to joining Gen Re Life Australia, he focused on experience investigations for Medical businesses in South-East Asia for Gen Re Singapore. He has worked closely with clients to manage their Medical business in the region using the insights from these various investigations.
Aloysius is a Fellow of the Institute of Actuaries of Australia (FIAA) and a Chartered Enterprise Risk Actuary (CERA).
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Angat Sandhu is the Head Of Oliver Wyman’s Australian Insurance and Wealth Practice. He is motivated to improve consumer awareness and trust in these sectors and believes the industry needs to further increase transparency, simplify and make better use of advances in technology and analytics. Prior to joining Oliver Wyman, he worked at Macquarie Group and Towers Watson. He is an Actuary, a holder of the right to use the Chartered Financial Analyst & designation and the Financial Risk Manager designation.
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Anthony Saliba is a qualified actuary with ten years experience in the financial services industry, possessing a unique skill set and a passion for solving complex problems in the retirement income and wealth management spaces and communicating results in innovative ways. Anthony has applied his sound grasp of modern technologies (including mobile and web development) to address long-standing problems.
Anthony currently works at CommInsure as a Senior Actuary, spending most of his time on the annuities portfolio and dealing with pricing, investment and valuation considerations.
Prior to that, Anthony was a Senior Manager at EY, where he spent over seven years in the banking and derivatives team, assisting clients with stochastic modelling techniques and retirement income design and assessment.
Anthony is also a regular contributor to Treasury consultations on retirement income and currently is independently developing an economic scenario generation tool, including a CIPR-style retirement income module that is aimed at assisting advisers with communicating the trade offs between different retirement solutions.
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Didier How Yin Fat
Pricing Actuary
TAL Life
Didier is a Pricing Actuary specializing in Group Insurance at TAL Life. He plays a central role within Group Life at TAL with responsibility for delivering innovative and contemporary client solutions to our customers. Didier is also responsible for pricing New Business tenders and overseeing the insurance reviews and profitability updates for large existing mandates.
Prior to joining TAL Didier was a Senior Associate at Mercer, providing consulting services to superannuation funds, advocating on their behalf to obtain outcomes that are in the best interests of members. |
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Douglas Isles, FFA, MA Math (Trinity College, Cambridge)
An actuary by training, Douglas first joined Platinum in 2003 as an investment analyst, having been at the Commonwealth Bank as a product actuary and, prior to that, as an investment manager at Aegon Asset Management in Edinburgh.
Douglas left Platinum in 2008 to relocate to Singapore where he made a significant contribution to developing Standard Chartered Bank’s equity broking business.
Having re-joined Platinum in 2013 as an investment specialist, Douglas serves as a bridge between Platinum’s investment team and the financial advisory community.
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Eric Ranson has been working on improving pathways for innovators to find funding and on a number of startup ventures.
Fund Manager: He worked in the US life settlement market for over 10 years. He managed a Luxembourg based retail life settlement fund for over 3 years before it was sold and helped establish a San Francisco based provider.
Treasurer: Previously, he was treasurer of Australian Mortgage Securities and responsible for risk management and the funding of approximately $6bn pa of prime mortgage backed securities.
Investment banker: Eric left the actuarial world to manage swaps and options books at Bankers Trust. He was involved at the beginning of the Australian securitization market and spent a year establishing an Australian commercial paper conduit with over $1bn of assets.
Actuary: He has his own consultancy firm and has also consulted for Tillinghast and MIRA.
Eric is an FIAA and has a Masters of Applied Finance.
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Estelle Liu
Superannuation Consultant
Rice Warner
Estelle is a Superannuation Consultant at Rice Warner. She joined Rice Warner in February 2019 after four years at Mine Super. Estelle’s areas of focus were on retirement solutions and investments and has previously worked on:
- Retirement solutions design including longevity solutions such as group-self annuitisation/mortality pooling solution and investment-linked life annuity.
- Superannuation lifecycle investment strategies design with multiple factors.
- Public policy submissions including those for Treasury, DSS and APRA.
- Development of investment performance reporting system and investment risk management tools.
- Development of Members’ Default Utility Function (MDUF) which is an open-architecture metric to assist the industry to design retirement outcome solutions. It subsequently won two industry awards.
Estelle is currently the convenor of the Actuaries Institute’s Superannuation Projection and Disclosure Sub-committee.
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Hazel Bateman
Professor of Economics
School of Risk and Actuarial Studies
UNSW Sydney
Hazel Bateman is Professor of Economics in the School of Risk & Actuarial Studies at UNSW Sydney and a Chief Investigator and joint Deputy Director of the ARC Centre of Excellence in Population Ageing Research. Her current research investigates pension choices in accumulation and decumulation and policy responses in the form of choice architecture, financial product disclosure, financial advice and financial literacy. Hazel has published widely on retirement and pensions and has consulted on these issues to a range of Australian and international organisations. She is a member of UniSuper & Consultative Committee, the Scientific Committee of Netspar, and the Expert Reference Group of the Melbourne Mercer Global Pension index, and is Joint Editor of the Journal of Pension Economics and Finance. Prior to joining UNSW, Hazel worked as an economist in the Australian Treasury. |
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Johan Rampen is currently a senior projects actuary for Swiss Re's ANZ Life & Health Pricing team covering both retail and group insurance clients. He joined Swiss Re’s Netherlands office in 2011 where he was the senior pricing actuary responsible for the Dutch market. His other experiences include team leadership and a secondment to the Canadian office.
Johan is a qualified actuary with the Swiss Actuarial Association. He started his career in the Netherlands, where he's originally from, working in employee benefits consulting and asset liability management. He's enjoys the variety of work and he is passionate about helping Swiss Re's clients close the protection gap by bringing ideas from his varied background to Australia & New Zealand.
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John De Ravin is a retired actuary who spent most of his actuarial career in the Government Actuary’s Office and as an Appointed Actuary to the Australian operations of two of the world’s leading reinsurers. He holds Bachelor degrees in Science and Economics (from ANU), an MBA from Macquarie University and a Graduate Diploma in Financial Planning from Finsia. He is a Fellow of the Financial Services Institute and a CPA. He has won numerous prizes, awards and scholarships.
His interests are in financial planning and investment. He convenes the Actuaries Institute’s Rule of Thumb Working Group and he is a member of the Institute’s Retirement incomes Working Group. He has held many roles within the Actuaries Institute and was on Council from 1999 to 2001.
He has written about twenty papers on a variety of actuarial topics, and also, since his retirement, a book about personal financial strategies, Slow and Steady: 100 wealth-building strategies for all ages.
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Kaise Stephan
Partner
Deloitte
Kaise is a Partner in Deloitte Consulting with a focus on insurance. He has a keen interest in exploring the future role of the actuary and what an insurer of the future can look like including enhancing the operations across the insurance value chain. Kaise is interested in finding ways to increase industry’s ability to “dance with disruptions” and turning them into opportunities.
Kaise has led a number of senior roles and engagements in the Australian, New Zealand and European insurance and reinsurance markets. He has provided advice relating to strategic and operational insurance matters as well as reserving, pricing and capital modelling advice. He has led actuarial streams in a number of merger & acquisition deals. Kaise continues to serve in a number of Appointed Actuary roles.
Kaise has authored and presented papers at Actuaries Institute and industry forums on topics including: Offshoring, Telematics, Insurance Cycle Management, ALM, and more
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Kirsty Hogan is a life insurance actuary who has worked in a variety of Life Insurance roles both here and in the UK.
Kirsty currently works for Munich Re, where she is the Head of Pricing, Profitability and Experience. Prior to that Kirsty has worked with Munich Re a in a number of different roles both here and in the UK, including Head of Pricing for UK & Ireland, and Head of Operations here in Australia.
Prior to working at Munich Re, Kirsty worked as a pricing and valuation actuary in a number of direct life offices both here and the UK.
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Kudzai Gumbie has over 12 years’ experience in reinsurance, working in various roles for RGA in the UK, Middle East and Australia. His experience spans valuations, capital, pricing and product development and he is currently a Senior Research Actuary in RGA’s Sydney office.
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Mark Smith
Claims Training & Development Consultant
RGA Australia
Mark Smith is RGA Australia’s Claims Training and Development Consultant. Mark has 20 years of Life claims experience across both insurers and reinsurers. Mark joined RGA in 2013 after working for AC&L / AXA / AMP and Swiss Re and is the Treasurer of the ALUCA Claims Management Group. In this role works in partnership with major life insurers across Retail and Group product lines to development best practice claims management training designed to enhance the claims assessment skills of assessors across the industry. Marks’ previous roles have included claims management, process and policy development, research and compliance reporting.
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Mathew Ayoub is a Fellow of the Institute of Actuaries of Australia and Chartered Enterprise Risk Actuary.
Mathew regularly contributes to the actuarial profession including driving policy recommendations during his time at APRA for the program of changes regarding the Appointed Actuary role and Actuarial Advice Framework, the release of actuarial transformation and capital related papers, and actuarial part three course leadership.
Mathew has looked at the industry through the full spectrum of lenses from working at a corporate insurer, a regulator and in consulting, covering core actuarial, finance, capital, risk management and strategy related roles.
Mathew works for Deloitte Consulting and is passionate about balancing customer and shareholder insurance outcomes for long term customer value.
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Paul Scully is an actuary with 40 years’ experience in financial services both in Australia and overseas. His last full-time position was CEO and Managing Director of ING Investment in the Asia Pacific region. Since then he has pursued a portfolio career in non-executive roles on the Boards and Committees of listed entities, superannuation funds and various financial services businesses, and as a consultant in various capacities, including teaching at Macquarie University and assisting improvement programs for retirement and provident funds in the Pacific islands under the auspices of the Asia Development Bank.
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Rein Van Rooyen is an Investment Manager at QSuper where he is responsible for the development of ALM strategies for the DC fund. Rein serves on the IAA Education Committee, the Actuaries Institute’s Education Council Committee, the Superannuation, Projections and Disclosures Sub-Committee as well as the Young Actuaries Program Committee. He is also the Convenor for the Investment Management and Finance Faculty at the Institute as well as being the Superannuation and Investments Editor for Actuaries Digital.
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Richard Land
Head of Insurance
AustralianSuper
Richard Land is Head of Insurance at AustralianSuper, responsible for the Fund’s insurance offering.
Prior to joining AustralianSuper Richard was Insurance Segment Leader at Mercer, providing consulting services as follows:
- Appointed Actuary to four friendly societies;
- Calculation of policy liabilities, capital management, pricing and risk management for life insurers;
- Insurance benefit design, independent pricing of premiums, general advocacy and the design and review of insurance management frameworks for superannuation funds; and
- Strategic asset allocation and investment consulting for insurers.
Richard was a member of the Actuaries Institute’s Life Insurance and Wealth Management Practice Committee (LIWMPC) for the four years to 2017 where he edited the LIWMPC newsletter. He is currently the tutor for the Actuaries Institute’s Life Insurance course and also held this position for three years until 2017. He is an active contributor to the actuarial and insurance communities and has co-presented at Actuaries Institute’s Insights sessions and conferences, at the Conexus Group Insurance Summit, the Public Sector conference and the Indigenous Super Summit.
Richard was a member of the Actuaries Institute’s International Accounting Standards Committee for approximately eight years and co-presented at Actuaries Institute summits and assisted in writing submissions to the IASB.
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Shang Wu
First State Super
Before joining in First State Super, Shang was a Senior Research Associate at in CEPAR, University of New South Wales. He has a PhD in Actuarial Studies from UNSW. His PhD thesis studies the demand for long-term care and longevity insurance. Shang’s main research interests are retirement income, retirement financial products, aged care financing and portfolio optimisation. He also has expertise in life-cycle modelling and survey design. |
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Tim Jenkins
Convenor
Superannuation Practice Committee
With over 20 years of international experience as an Actuary and Risk Manager, Tim has led underwriting and pricing teams and operated as Appointed/Approved Actuary in multiple regulatory regimes throughout Asia
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Xavier Conort
Chief Data Scientist
DataRobot
Xavier Conort is the Chief Data Scientist for DataRobot, where he leads the R&D efforts in Data Science globally from Singapore. Xavier is a French actuary with 20 years experience in France, Brazil, China and Singapore. Since 2011 he has transitioned into a data scientist. He has won 10 prizes and was a former #1 ranked Data Scientist on Kaggle. He is passionate about extracting value and insight from data and has applied machine learning to a diverse set of business problems from claims modelling to flight arrival prediction, essay scoring, sales forecasting and biological response prediction.
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Antony Claughton
Actuary
Finity Consulting
Antony has eighteen years of experience in the insurance industry, and has worked within and consulted to companies and governments in Australia and the UK. Antony is currently straddling both the general insurance and health insurance worlds, providing services to a number of general insurance companies, health insurance funds and government insurers.
Antony has been a member of the Actuaries Institute’s Health Practice Committee since and the AASB 17 Implementation Taskforce since 2016. He was a member of the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries’ GIRO working party on PPOs for five years. Antony has presented publicly five times already on the impact of AASB 17 on the Australian general insurance and health insurance industries, and is providing assistance to a number of companies and funds on AASB 17.
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Francis Beens
Actuary
Finity Consulting
Francis has spent thirteen years consulting to general insurers and accident compensation schemes on actuarial valuations, financial projections, and capital. He is currently a member of the Actuaries Institute AASB 17 Implementation Taskforce, and the liaison between that taskforce and the Actuaries Institute General Insurance Practice Committee. He has presented a number of times on the changes of AASB 17 in Australia for the general insurance industry, and on topics such as superimposed inflation and ICAAP best practice. Francis is currently providing assistance to a number of general insurance companies on the implementation of AASB 17.
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Darren Wickham
General Manager Group Product and Pricing, Investments and Retirement Incomes
TAL
Darren has written a number of papers on superannuation, insurance and employee benefits. Darren was Actuary of the Year in 2008 which now makes him Actuary of yesteryear!
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Angie Mastrippolito
COO
NGS Super
Angie Mastrippolito worked as a consulting actuary for over 22 years before changing course to become a Super fund executive with 5 years as CEO of NESS Super.
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Phil Patterson
Actuary and Senior Consultant
Willis Towers Watson
Phil has over 30 years’ experience in the superannuation and employee benefits industries, specialising in group insurance. He has over 10 years of previous experience dealing with group life and disability insurances, including 5 years as Group Risk Actuary with Legal & General.
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Stuart Turner
Finance Integration Lead
Zurich Financial Services Australia
Stuart Turner is an actuary with over 20 years of experience working in life insurance and wealth management, currently at Zurich Financial Services Australia Limited as the Finance Integration Lead, and previously a Partner at EY. Over the last 5 years, Stuart has developed an interest in ethics through being a volunteer ethics teacher at his children’s primary school, and through presenting the Actuaries Institute Professionalism Course content on ethical reasoning.
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Richard Lyon
Head of Actuarial (Individual Risk)
TAL
Richard is Head of Actuarial (Individual Risk) at TAL, a position that he has held since October 2016 and the author of 'Safe as Houses'
Previously, he was a Director of the actuarial consulting firm PFS (Professional Financial Solutions), based in Martin Place in Sydney.
In addition to his current role and his many years of consulting, Richard has been CFO of a medical indemnity underwriting agency, Chief Actuary of a life office and a Partner in the actuarial practice of an accounting firm. None of that experience particularly qualifies him to opine on the cost of housing.
Richard has served on several committees of the Actuaries Institute and was a member of Council in the dim and distant past. Very little of that is particularly relevant to this presentation.
Younger members would know Richard through the Control Cycle textbook, of which he is a co-author and co-editor. The Control Cycle is definitely relevant to this presentation.
Richard’s presentation addresses the cost of housing as part of wider research into inter-generational equity. Like many actuaries, Richard has been aware of the Treasurer’s Intergenerational Report (IGR) since the first was released in 2002 and thought that they were a GOOD THING. Serving on the taskforce for the Institute’s response to the 2015 IGR opened his eyes to some of the deficiencies in the report.
Co-writing the paper Lies, Damned Lies and the 2015 Intergenerational Report (presented to the Institute’s 2016 Financial Services Forum) helped him to see so much more about what is wrong with the IGR. This was followed in 2017 by Fair’s Fair: A Discussion of Intergenerational Equity, a presentation in which Richard explored a few aspects of measurement of intergenerational equity, including housing.
In the last couple of years, he has focused his attention on housing – seeking to uncover what the real issues are. |
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Nick Stolk is a consulting health insurance actuary and the editor of the Institute’s Private Health Insurance Letter. He has worked in the private health insurance industry for 15 years and loves to discuss the people, politics and intricacies of Australia’s health system with anyone who will listen.
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Dilan SriDaran
Actuarial consultant
EY
Dilan is a former Research Assistant at the School of Risk and Actuarial Studies and the ARC Centre of Excellence in Population Ageing Research (CEPAR). Dilan completed his undergraduate degree at the University of New South Wales, receiving a First Class Honours and the University Medal in Actuarial Studies. He is presenting his research, which focuses on the application of statistical learning techniques to mortality modelling and forecasting. Dilan now works as an Actuarial Consultant at Ernst & Young.
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Gavin Pearce
Chief Risk Officer
icare NSW
Insurance & Care NSW (icare) was created on 1 September 2015 to deliver the State’s insurance and care schemes. Gavin joined icare in November 2015 as their inaugural Chief Risk Officer (although his LinkedIn profile says “Chief Risky Dude”).
Gavin is part of icare’s Executive Team and he manages the Risk & Governance area. Prior to joining icare, Gavin was the Chief Risk Officer at Zurich Financial Services Australia Limited.
Gavin has also held senior actuarial positions in a number of large insurance companies. Before moving to Australia in 2008, Gavin worked at the Accident Compensation Corporation in New Zealand where his last role was Chief Actuary.
Gavin has a Masters degree in Statistics, an MBA from Henley Management College, a Graduate Certificate in the Psychology of Risk from ACU and is a Fellow of the Institute of Actuaries of Australia (FIAA)
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David Carruthers
Principal Consultant, Head of Members Solutions
Frontier Advisors
David joined Frontier Advisors in 2015 and leads the Members Solutions Group. He provides investment advice to a range of clients and conducts research in the area of retirement strategy and product development for superannuation funds. Prior to Frontier David spent nineteen years at Mercer in London and Melbourne. Prior to joining Mercer, David was at Towers Perrin for around six years, working with a number of clients in an investment advisory and research capacity. David holds a Bachelor of Economics from Macquarie University and is a Fellow of the Institute of Actuaries.
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Diane Somerville
Principal
Deloitte
Diane is a Principal in Deloitte, with over 20 years’ experience in the financial services industry, specialising in superannuation and other employee benefits. During her career she has provided actuarial, consulting and strategic advice to many of Australia’s largest employers and superannuation plan trustees across all aspects of the superannuation value chain.
Diane is a lead author of Deloitte’s regular Dynamics of the Australian Superannuation System publication. She has a keen interest in how our superannuation system can support, and ideally improve, the retirement outcomes and financial security of all Australians in an environment of investment volatility and uncertain longevity.
Diane is a member of the Institute’s Superannuation Practice Committee and the Accounting Sub-Committee of the SPC.
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Greg Martin
Chief Actuary & Risk Officer
ClearView Wealth Limited
Greg Martin BA FIAA FFin FAICD CERA has more than 30 years experience in life insurance and funds management, including in the areas of financial management, governance, product development, and capital and risk management. He currently oversees ClearView’s actuarial team, and group risk management and compliance team. Prior to joining ClearView in 2011, he was a Partner of KPMG, where he provided actuarial advice to the industry for 17 years. He has held 10 appointed actuary roles during his career and has been a member of various regulatory, industry and professional committees and Boards, advised regulators, and published a number of industry related papers and articles. He has been a member of the Actuaries’ Institute Council and was Institute President in 2008. He is a currently a member of the International Actuarial Association’s Actuarial Standards Committee.
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Shane Burdack
Senior Underwriting Consultant
Shane's career spans 25+ years across reinsurance / insurance including Chief Underwriter & Claims Manager positions and with these, seats on respective company senior management teams. He has served as a member of the IFSA (now FSC) Risk Management Board, National ALUCA Executive Board and is a member of the FSC Genomics Working Group. Shane represented the Industry as a member of the Australian Government appointed Human Genetics Advisory Committee (HGAC) for the triennium 2009 - 2012. He has been published in national and international industry journals, presented and chaired sessions at the 2015 and 2017 FSC Annual Life Insurance Conferences, and has delivered presentations at ALUCA bi-annual and mini-conferences, retail insurer national risk conferences and key broker / distribution seminars.
Shane is a Fellow - ALUCA, Senior Associate - ANZIIF, Associate of the Academy of Life Underwriting in the U.S. (with distinction) and holds a Diploma of Health Counselling.
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Mike Thornton
Chief Risk Officer
As Chief Risk Officer, Mike is responsible for risk and compliance capabilities, and has 30 years’ experience in life insurance and wealth management, largely in the UK, Asia and Australasia.
He has held a wide range of executive roles, including Group Chief Actuary and Chief Risk Officer roles. Prior to joining AIA in February 2016, Mike was the Group Chief Risk Officer at AMP, and prior to that, had a long career with the AXA Group.
He is a Fellow of the Institute of Actuaries in Australia and the UK, and is a Certified Experienced Risk Actuary.
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Wen Chen
Research Scientist
Data61 CSIRO
Wen Chen (Monica) has a PhD in computational mathematics and financial mathematics from the University of Western Australia. She developed mathematical and statistical models, as well as numerical and optimisation methods in quantitative finance and actuarial science. She is currently developing stochastic optimisation algorithms for superannuation management, optimal withdrawal strategy and retirement income problems under financial and longevity risks.
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Grace Li
Director
National Disability Insurance Agency
Grace is a Director in the National Disability Insurance Agency’s (NDIA) Office of Scheme Actuary with experience in applying actuarial skills in a social policy context and is proud for be part of a ground breaking scheme aimed at bettering the lives of people with a disability. Prior to joining the NDIA, she was a consultant at PwC where she worked with clients across the healthcare, government and general insurance sectors. Grace is currently a member of the Actuaries Institute Wider Health Subcommittee.
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Corinne Glasby
Chief Risk Officer Insurance
Suncorp Risk
Corinne joined the Suncorp Risk team in January 2017 as Chief Risk Officer Insurance. Prior to her current appointment, Corinne was a member of the Insurance team and was responsible for Insurance capital management as well as reinsurance, including both the General Insurance and Life entities.
Corinne is an insurance executive with 25' years general insurance experience. A qualified actuary, she has worked in a variety of roles across the risk, actuarial, reinsurance and capital fields. Prior to joining Suncorp, she has worked at both CommInsure and IAG. |
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John Walsh AM
Magoo Actuarial Consulting
John Walsh retired in 2013 as a Partner in the Advisory practice of PricewaterhouseCoopers, where he worked for more than twenty years. John's major client work was in the areas of social policy and funding of accident compensation insurance, health, and disability services. His ability to contribute to social policy is assisted by his own disability, traumatic quadriplegia.
John has contributed heavily in accident compensation, health and social policy and has been a Board member of the NSW Motor Accidents Authority, the NSW Homecare Service, the NSW Paraquad Association, and is currently on the Board of the National Disability Insurance Agency and the Australian Commission for Safety and Quality in Healthcare.
In 2001 he was named Australia’s Actuary of the Year, and in 2011 was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia, and received the Prime Minister's Award for outstanding service to the disability sector. In 2015 John was appointed Australia's Patron for the United Nations International Day of People with a Disability, and is currently the Principal Member of the NDIS Independent Advisory Council.
John has an appointment as Adjunct Professor in the School of Medicine at University of Sydney, and is an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Australasian College of Physicians.
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Bridget Browne
Partner
Ernst & Young’
Bridget is a Partner in Ernst & Young’s actuarial services group providing actuarial consulting advice principally to the government sector in human services and risk quantification. Bridget has over 25 years’ experience in actuarial practice and education both in Australia and internationally and is both a Certified Enterprise Risk Actuary and a Fellow of the Institute of Actuaries of Australia.
Bridget brings a wealth of experience in human services sector across child protection, disability and justice, combining extensive actuarial modelling experience with active involvement in the development of the investment approach and the social impact investment sector. Bridget’s engagements throughout Australia and New Zealand means she has familiarity with much of the literature and research in the field as well as extensive experience working directly with sensitive linked longitudinal datasets.
Bridget has lectured in actuarial studies and risk management at the Australian National University with a research focus on aged care, mortality, longevity and securitisation of these risks. Prior to this Bridget practised in the life insurance and reinsurance sectors both in Australia and in Canada, the UK and France, ultimately leading the global pricing team for life reinsurance for a major reinsurer and responsible for the development of their stochastic economic capital model across all life course risks.
As a Chartered Enterprise Risk Actuary, Bridget has practiced in all areas of the enterprise risk management framework, which enables her to put quantitative outputs into context for organisations.
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Jon Tindall
Actuary
Finity Consulting
Jon has over 16 years of experience across a wide variety of investment and general insurance roles. Jon has previously held positions with Milliman Inc, JP Morgan and QBE Insurance.
Jon regularly assists clients in managing the risks generated from exposure to financial instruments and counterparties, including: the design of weather derivative contracts, the dynamic hedging of investment portfolios and the management of systemic risk for Australia’s securities exchanges.
Jon has a particular interest in the convergence of insurance and capital markets and with the intersection of debt and equity markets more generally. He has published a number of articles and papers on various topics across capital markets and alternative risk management, including:
- “Weather Derivatives Pricing and Risk Management Applications” (2006)
- “Securitise This - The Structuring, Pricing and Risk Management of Insurance Securitisation” (2011)
- “Weather and Carbon Derivatives - Pricing and Managing Risk in the ART Market” (2010)
- “On the Theory of the Firm: What the Debt is Equity Anyway?” (2015)
- “CAT Bonds and ILS - Getting Bang for your Buck in a Maturing Market” (2018)
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Sarah Johnson
Scheme Actuary
National Disability Insurance Agency
Sarah Johnson is the Scheme Actuary of the National Disability Insurance Scheme.
Prior to her appointment, Sarah was a Director at PricewaterhouseCoopers. Sarah has worked within the disability sector, and broader health and human services sector for the last fifteen years. She assisted the Disability Investment Group in costing a NDIS in the Way Forward report, and worked with the Productivity Commission on the Disability Care and Support Inquiry.
A Fellow of the Institute of Actuaries of Australia, Sarah has also collaborated with a number of state/territory departments and undertaken actuarial work in accident compensation, housing, child protection, health and aged care.
In 2016 Sarah was awarded Actuary of the Year by the Actuaries Institute in recognition for her significant contributions to the success of the NDIS and the introduction of actuarial techniques into new areas of social policy. |
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Andrew Gale is an actuary with over 20 years’ experience in the Australian health insurance industry. He currently provides actuarial advice as an independent consultant. He has previously held Chief Actuary roles for Medibank Private and AXA Health Insurance (now BUPA), where he was responsible for the appointed actuary functions and providing actuarial advice to the board and management.
He has published papers and presented extensively on numerous private health insurance topics, including historical trends and developments, community rating, demutualisations and claims selection effects. He also presents health lectures to actuarial students at the University of Melbourne and the Actuaries Institute Commercial Actuarial Practice course.
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Dr Zili Zhu
Director
Risklab, CSIRO's Data61
Dr Zili Zhu is the Director of RiskLab at CSIRO’s Data61. RiskLab is the Australia node of the global RiskLab network (RiskLab.com.au).
At RiskLab, he leads the R&D team in developing quantitative models and analytic solutions for achieving optimal decisions in superannuation life-cycle management. RiskLab has performed in-depth analysis of a large dataset on SMSF from ATO and comprehensive superannuation dataset of pensioners from DHS.
Another major research focus at RiskLab is on developing the latest math models for exotic options valuation in the foreign-exchange market.
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Louise Campbell
Senior Consultant
Willis Towers Watson
Louise Campbell is a senior member of Willis Towers Watson’s consulting business, working in superannuation at Willis Towers Watson in Sydney. Louise has 29 years’ experience in superannuation and benefits, and is the appointed actuary for a number of superannuation clients, including funds in the public and private sector. Her area of expertise is defined benefit pension funds with long tail pension liabilities. Louise has experience in a wide range of superannuation matters including mergers and acquisitions and expert witness work.
Prior to re-joining Willis Towers Watson as part of the acquisition of Russell Investments actuarial business in 2017, Louise spent eight years with Russell Investments, and was head of their actuarial business from 2013 to 2017.
Louise is a Fellow of the Institute of Actuaries of Australia and holds an honours degree in Science from the University of New South Wales majoring in pure mathematics. Louise is a current member of the Actuaries Institute Superannuation Practice Committee, and was the convenor of the Leadership and Career Development Committee from 2015 to 2018.
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Bevan Damm (FIAA, MSc, BSc, BEng)
Bevan is a Partner at EY and has fifteen years’ experience in the insurance industry, specialising in health insurance, general insurance and personal injury insurance, following sixteen years’ of service with the Australian Navy.
He is the Appointed Actuary to two private health insurers and the Scheme Actuary to the NSW State Insurance Regulatory Authority. This unique mixture of experience allows Bevan, in addition to understanding health insurance issues, to bring forward efficiencies and approaches that other industries are applying.
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Matthew Crane (FIAA, FIA, PhD, MMath)
Matt is a Senior Manager in EY’s Government Advisory team, focussing on the Health and Human Service sectors. In addition, he specialises in health insurance, providing actuarial advice to a wide range of health insurers. Matt has developed a deep understanding of actuarial issues in health insurance through his former role as the lead actuary for the health insurance regulator (PHIAC), and has served on the Institute’s Health Practice Committee. |
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Elizabeth Baker
Director
EY
Elizabeth has worked for more than 25 years in the financial services industry in Australia, Europe and Asia. She is a Fellow of the Institute of Actuaries of Australia (FIAA), an Associate of CPA Australia and holds a Masters of Applied Finance.
Elizabeth has been a Director in Actuarial Services at EY since 2016. Prior to joining EY, she worked at CommInsure and was the Appointed Actuary for CMLA.
Before returning to Australia in 2013, Elizabeth worked internationally for 15 years in Europe, Japan and the Asia Regional office in Singapore for AXA, in a range of senior Actuarial, Risk and Finance roles across a number of insurance and reinsurance businesses. She has extensive operational experience in Finance, Capital Management, Actuarial, Risk Management and Strategy.
Elizabeth is the Deputy Convenor of the Institute of Actuaries’ Risk Management Practice Committee. |
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Simon Lim
Cytora Australia Lead
Simon has more than ten years of consulting experience in the financial services industry in Australia. He is currently leading the Australian operations of Cytora, a London based Insuretech with 70+ staff globally and customers such as QBE and MS Amlin.
Simon is a Fellow of the Institute of Actuaries of Australia (FIAA). He is an ex-Senior Manager at Ernst & Young Actuarial Services where he was an Appointed Actuary and led actuarial and strategic engagements for financial services clients.
His prior roles have included being an operational management consultant, an Institute Health Practice Committee member, a contracting actuary and an entrepreneur in a number of businesses. |
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Daniel Marlay is a Director and the senior technical lead in EY’s Actuarial Services – Government and Public Sector team. He has 19 years of experience in data science, 12 of which have been working at EY. His experience includes a wide variety of projects across a range of industry sectors, but with a particular focus on the public sector. This experience has included:
- Operations modelling and simulation, including the development of airline maintenance optimisation models, efficiency modelling for the health sector and transport network simulation modelling
- Statistical sampling, including developing methodology documents for audit and sample designs for specific projects
- Forecasting, projection and benefit modelling for investment business cases
- Population microsimulation, including the development of a dynamic microsimulation model of the NZ child population
In addition to his work experience, Daniel is an active contributor to the data science and statistical community, and he regularly presents at a variety of forums.
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Dimitri Semenovich
Director of Analytics
IAG
Dimitri is a Director of Analytics at IAG and a board member of IAA ASTIN section. He has a particular interest in the advancement of practical actuarial methodology incorporating recent progress in optimisation and machine learning. His other interests are in market design, attribution and risk theory. Dimitri has a PhD in Computer Science and is a Fellow of the Institute of Actuaries of Australia. |
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Vanessa Dobson
Head of Research & Development
Munich Re Australasia
A member of the Life Leadership Team, Vanessa leads a multi-disciplinary team delivering strategic innovations aligned to holistic risk management. Comprising of specialists in the fields of medical science, claims, data insights and underwriting, the team identifies undeveloped areas of risk management and formulates methods by which to capitalise on these.
With a focus on digital solutions, and building upon trusted relationships plus the InsurTech Australia network, Vanessa and team explore and design outcomes to fit the needs of customers. The R&D team members are moderators of Design Thinking, a practical methodology employed to generate ideas, develop prototypes and refine solutions.
Vanessa joined Munich Re in 2003 and held several senior roles within the Life Division before taking lead of the Research & Development team in 2014. Vanessa holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science, plus completion of a Knowledge Management paper from Swinburne University of Technology. |
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Susan Looi (BEc FIAA CERA GAICD)
GM Enterprise Risk
ANZ Banking Group Limited
Susan Looi has more than 25 years of extensive local and international financial services experience, spanning insurance, reinsurance and banking.
Susan is the Group executive leading the ANZ Banking Group’s enterprise risk management and framework, heading teams responsible for managing the Group’s Risk Appetite, ICAAP and stress testing, capital and provisioning forecasting, wholesale portfolio analytics as well as the portfolio credit monitoring/experience analysis of ANZ Group’s wholesale and retail banking businesses.
Prior to ANZ Banking Group Susan headed the Capital & Strategic Solutions business for reinsurer RGA and spent several years overseas in Switzerland as the Group Chief Pricing Actuary for global insurer Zurich Financial Services, focusing on life insurance and funds management. Susan has led multi-disciplinary teams across different geographies and comes from a consulting background.
Susan is a director on Boards and is a member of the Risk Management Association of Australia, as well as convenor of the Actuaries Institute’s Risk Management Practice Committee. |
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William White
Senior Actuary
Montoux
William is a qualified actuary with over twenty five years of experience in the life insurance industries in NZ and the UK and joined Montoux late in 2018. Much of his career has been spent working in pricing roles within various NZ life companies although he has also several years experience in valuation and reporting roles. William has also spent over a decade in the UK working for five years with Mercer on actuarial systems development and support and also several contract roles on actuarial transformation projects. |
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Catherine Edgar
Senior Actuary
Montoux
Catherine is a qualified actuary with over ten years of experience in the life insurance and superannuation industries. Much of that time has been spent working in actuarial consultancy, at Towers Watson in the UK and at Deloitte in New Zealand, before her move to Montoux in late 2017. In her role as an Associate Director at Deloitte, Catherine worked with a wide range of clients across a number of industries, with a primary focus on life insurance. This experience included mergers and acquisitions, strategic advice, appointed actuary services, actuarial valuations, financial reporting, embedded and appraisal valuations, capital and regulatory compliance support. |
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Briallen Cummings is a partner in the life actuarial practice at KPMG. She has over 20 years experience in life insurance having worked in Australia, the UK and in Asia.
Briallen has been assisting clients on IFRS 17 engagements since 2016 and is part of KPMG’s global technical IFRS 17 team.
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Kieren Cummings
Assurance Partner
EY
Kieren is an assurance partner with EY and an Australian Chartered Accountant with over 25 years’ experience, in both professional and commercial roles, in the insurance industry. He is a member of EY’s global IFRS 17 working group for interpretation and implementation and over the past 3 years has worked with leading general, health and life insurers in Australia and Asia, delivering impact assessments and currently supporting implementation programs. Kieren has extensive experience in advising companies on GAAP conversions, having been based in South Korea for 2 ½ years when Korea adopted IFRS, and has assisted insurers in a number of Asian countries converting to IFRS for IPOs or other reporting obligations. |
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Blair Nicholls
Co-Founder & CEO
Blue Zebra
Blair is the Co-Founder & CEO of Blue Zebra and brings over 30 years of global experience in the insurance industry. Previously he was the inaugural CEO for Berkshire Hathaway in Australia, New Zealand and SE Asia, responsible for setting the overarching strategy and starting up their insurance and local reinsurance business. Blair has also held several global and divisional executive level roles within QBE, and continues to be an active industry participant on various boards and working committees, including the Insurance Council of Australia (ICA) and the Actuaries Institute (Australia).
Blair is driven by a desire to build an insurance business that can meet the changing needs of intermediaries and their customers, and in particular leveraging technology within Blue Zebra and their strategic partners to make all aspects of the insurance offering as easy as possible.
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Alan Merten
Partner
Deloitte
Al joined Deloitte as a Partner in the Actuaries & Consultants group in Sydney early in 2016. He has over 30 years’ experience in corporate executive and consulting roles in Australia, Asia and Europe. In consulting, he leads multi-disciplinary teams to advise Boards and senior executives in financial services organisations on improving the performance of their businesses. Al previously designed, built and led an Australian specialist business providing financial planning and products to retirees and has successfully run small and large life insurance, superannuation and wealth management businesses through good and tough times.
Al has a BEc and and MBA from Macquarie Graduate School of Management, earned with numerous awards. He is a Fellow of the Institute of Actuaries of Australia.
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Grant Robinson has been involved with insurance accounting change since 2007 when he led the Actuaries Institute International Accounting Standard Committee. He is an active member of the Insurance Taskforce and the AASB’s Transition Resource Group for IFRS 17. He currently is the actuarial lead for AMP’s IFRS 17 implementation project and before that lead AMP Actuarial Systems and Process Team. To relax, he gets out on his sailing kayak and tries to catch fish, when not actively involved with family and church. |
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Alison Nanson
Executive Lead, Pricing
MLC Life Insurance
Alison works at MLC and co-led the implementation of AASB17 at MLC. Alison is actively involved in the Actuaries Institute AASB17 Task Force and is chair of the Accountants and Actuaries Liaison Committee. |