international
actuary
Are you involved in any actuarial activities outside of your day job. If so, tell us about this activity and its benefits and challenges? I am the president of the Actuarial Society (Mauritius). In practice I am also the social secretary, event organiser and CPD coordinator. A student society has now been established and is providing some support. The challenges have been finding time to organise and co-ordinate activities for the profession given the busy schedules of the working actuaries on the Island. The reward is the enthusiastic participation of the members when events are held, especially from the next generation of actuaries. Could you tell us about an interesting project you have worked on? The company I am working in was created in 2015, and effectively was the result of the nationalisation of the largest life insurance company in Mauritius. A separate general insurance company has been set up along-side the life company. The work in setting up these new companies has proved to be very interesting and challenging, but ultimately rewarding. The role played by actuaries in these activities has been recognised as crucial. What do you believe are the social and economic drivers for actuarial work in your region? In many countries in Africa, the limiting factor is the size of the insurance industry. Many companies are too small to even consider employing an actuarial student, and it is not rare to find no qualified actuaries at all in the country. Ultimately, the growth of the industry is a factor of the general economic and social development of these countries. For Mauritius, the challenge is finding and generating enough actuarial work for the growing student population. What is the reputation of actuaries and the professional body in your country? Actuaries have a good reputation in Mauritius and there is a general awareness of the profession among the population. It is seen as prestigious profession and attracts highcalibre students. The awareness of the profession is mostly due to work of
individual actuaries, rather than activities of the society. How do you see the role of an actuary evolving in the future – can you see actuaries working outside their traditional sectors? In Mauritius, there are unfortunately not enough actuarial vacancies each year to cater for the graduates of actuarial degree courses. As a result, the majority of graduates end up working in non-traditional fields. We have many in banking, finance, the civil service (in various ministries) and in various industry roles – where their analytical and financial skills are put to good use. We have one qualified actuary working in banking, one in off-shore finance and also one in real-estate development. We also have two CEO’s of life companies who are qualified actuaries. How often and in what way do you use social media to help your professional work as an actuary? Personally, I am not a user of Facebook etc, but the student society has an active FB page. What were the influences that shaped your career decisions to date? One of the main reasons for choosing the profession was to have an internationally recognised qualification that would allow me to work in various parts of the world. I was introduced to the profession by an actuary in Zimbabwe, Mr Mark Hyde, [see our profile on Mark Hyde and Zimbabwe] who gave a career talk at my school and was very supportive when I went to see him for advice. Could you tell us about your immediate and longer term goals? My immediate goal is to see through the launch of the two new insurance companies. Longer term is to more firmly establish the actuarial profession in the region. Have you thought of pursuing other academic or CPD qualifications, or joining other professional bodies? I joke that I have made a personal pledge to not sit any further exams since I qualified. The irony is that while this has been true to the extent I haven’t taken any formal
Mauritus has a welldeveloped insurance industry with longestablished companies. We have the secondlargest number of qualified actuaries in Africa (after South Africa) and two universities offering actuarial science degrees
courses, I have ended up doing a lot more reading and studying since qualification. Fortunately much of this is also relevant for CPD, as one of my interests is keeping up with the latest in economics and finance. Please let us know your experiences of living and working in Dubai and Mauritius The main motivation to move to Dubai was to broaden my experience of work and cultures. The role was managing people and products in 13 different countries – from Nepal to Turkey, Egypt to Lebanon. I was fortunate enough to be headhunted for the role, but it was a medium-term goal of mine to work abroad and was something I was speaking with my employer about at the time. In the UK, I had the opportunity to work with companies and colleagues in different countries in Europe and North America. I was thus already aware of subtle and not-so-subtle differences in business culture. I also had some exposure to the Middle East and therefore did have a good idea of what challenges and opportunities lay ahead. The common thread to the challenges was cultural differences – both in a business or company sense, and in a social context too. Business culture does differ between countries, but also within companies – particularly those with different nationalities. What do you say when asked, “What is an actuary”? We are the finance professionals who look to the future to protect your interests. July 2016 • THE ACTUARY www.theactuary.com