Leadership: The presidential perspective

What does it take to lead a profession?

Is it more than chairing a board, directing a business or managing a team? What is required to stand at the front of a community of thousands of highly capable, independently minded people and earn their trust, their energy and their commitment to a shared direction?

To explore that question, I sat down with six past presidents of the Actuaries Institute: Trevor Matthews (1997), David Knox (2000), Helen Rowell (2002), Andrew Gale (2005), Bozenna Hinton (2010) and Barry Rafe (2011). With careers spanning across consulting, regulation, executive leadership, and board governance, their presidential years were shaped by very different challenges such as the aftermath of HIH to the Banking Royal Commission. Yet when it comes to leadership, the themes that emerge from their conversations are strikingly consistent.

The skills that matter most

Ask any of these six what makes a good leader and the answer, almost without exception, starts not with strategy or technical expertise, but with something more human.

Humility tops the list. Barry Rafe describes the mindset he brought to the Council table as assuming the people around him were smarter than he was. "If you don't make that assumption," he says, "it's a dangerous position to be in." David Knox echoes this, pointing to a willingness to listen and work with colleagues as foundational — not just as a personality trait, but as a deliberate practice. For Helen Rowell, humility connects directly to authenticity. People spot inauthentic behaviour very quickly and a leader who cannot be true to their own values in a role will struggle to be effective in it. Bozenna's own description of her path to the presidency is perhaps the most fitting illustration of this quality.

Closely linked is the importance of emotional intelligence, what Andrew Gale calls “EQ versus IQ”. Actuaries are, by definition, analytically strong. Once you move into leadership, he argues, it is self-awareness, awareness of others and the ability to influence that start to matter most. Barry reinforces this in his own way, urging aspiring leaders to "get your head out of your book" and recognise that every person in the room sees the world differently.

Communication, of course, is a frequent theme. Trevor Matthews built a weekly note to his entire organisation, eventually 12,000 people, as a means of imprinting his values and priorities and inviting engagement in return. The media may have changed, but the principle hasn't. Leaders must be able to make complexity accessible and they must do it in a way that connects emotionally, not just logically. As Barry puts it, strategy needs to be an emotional statement rather than a document in the bottom drawer.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly across all six conversations, was the role of purpose. Andrew describes it as the foundation of any good organisation — the why that provides inspiration and holds everything else together. Helen made every career decision, including her decision to become president, through the lens of purpose and values. It is not merely a corporate buzz word but rather the foundation that makes a volunteer profession coherent.

What's different about leading a profession?

Several of the presidents came to the role with substantial corporate leadership experience — running large business units, serving on major boards, leading through significant market crises. They were not short of leadership credentials, yet each of them describes the role of president as genuinely different in ways they had not fully anticipated.

The most common distinction that was quoted is authority or, rather, the absence of it in the conventional sense. Trevor Matthews describes it simply: in a corporate role, you represent the shareholder. As president, you represent the members. "You're not trying to build an empire," he says. "You're trying to make decisions that make the profession a better profession." That shift, from directive authority to influence and persuasion, requires a particular kind of leadership.

Andrew Gale experienced this directly when navigating one of his presidential year's central challenges: the introduction of Financial Condition Reports in general insurance. It was the right policy direction, he believed, but it met genuine resistance within the profession. His response was not to push harder, but to listen. He took the concerns seriously, engaged widely with stakeholders inside and outside the profession, and brought people on the journey rather than announcing a destination. "It was understanding, listening, stakeholder engagement and lots and lots of communication," he reflects.

Helen adds another dimension specific to professional bodies: the dual accountability of the role. A president must simultaneously chair a board (with all the governance discipline that entails), advocate externally to regulators, government and the broader sector, and serve the diverse interests of a membership spread across multiple practice areas and career stages. That requires breadth, the ability to think across the whole profession, not just one's own corner of it.

Underpinning all of this is what David Knox describes as the profession's commitment to acting in the public interest, even when that conflicts with the immediate interests of individual actuaries. He cites the Institute's stance against the superannuation surcharge in the 1990s, a policy that would have generated actuarial work but which the profession opposed because it was simply bad policy. That kind of principled independence is, he argues, exactly what earns a profession its trusted status.

Advice for aspiring leaders

The final question put to each past president was the same: What is your one top tip for actuaries aspiring to leadership roles?

Their answers vary in framing but converge on a common spirit - don't wait until you feel ready!

Andrew Gale calls it "growth through stretch", the idea that the most formative opportunities are precisely the ones that feel well outside your comfort zone. Trevor Matthews, who was thrown into general insurance knowing almost nothing about it and then into superannuation with much the same preparation, puts it even more directly: "Go for it. Just go out there and have a go." Helen Rowell, who describes herself as a natural introvert, adds that you can develop the communication and engagement skills leadership requires if you are genuinely committed to doing so.

Barry Rafe connects the personal to the professional, becoming involved in the Institute through committees and working groups, This is not just altruism. It is the chance to develop your understanding of how people with different backgrounds think and how to influence them in ways that don't feel threatening.

Bozenna Hinton brings perhaps the most personally distinctive perspective. She stepped into council, and ultimately the presidency, while working part-time around significant family commitments — far less conventional corporate leadership experience than most of her peers. Her story is a reminder that the path to leadership in this profession is not one-size-fits-all, and that the decision to put your hand up, even when the timing feels imperfect, can be exactly the right one.

A privilege worth pursuing

Six past presidents. Six very different years, contexts, and careers. However, they share the conviction that leading the actuarial profession is a privilege, a responsibility and one of the more rewarding things you can do with your actuarial career.

Listen to the full conversations

The interviews behind this article are available in full via the Guardian Actuarial podcast. Listen here.