On 17 June 2020, the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries (IFoA) announced the commencement of Tan Suee Chieh’s presidential term. Suee Chieh has been part of the Presidential team for the past year, in the position of President-elect. Watch the full Presidential address here.
From the Presidential Speech:
“The global Covid-19 crisis has prompted new ways of doing things both in our professional and personal lives. We now have a unique opportunity to shape the future, instead of simply responding to it. I think it is imperative that the IFoA takes this opportunity to reinvent itself for the digital age and for a rapidly transforming social agenda. Now more than ever, the actuarial profession must consider how it can best contribute to social impact and influence policy and regulatory change in the public interest around the world.
“In this organisation and across our profession, let us create a culture that promotes courage, curiosity, adaptability, judgement, imagination and continuous learning. Our quintessential values as actuaries are cautiousness, accuracy, consistency and reticence. But these can hold us back if we do not create space for other values to encourage innovation, thought leadership and diversity of our ideas. Our reinvention is really about cultural transformation of the profession. We must be bold in doing away with the practices and processes which are unhelpful, or which stand in our path.
“I begin my Presidency by launching a new strategy with a focus on vision, skillsets, mindsets and domains for the profession. We want to enable our members and the profession to thrive in the digital age, and in a future filled with both uncertainty and opportunity. We also want to ensure that the generations who come after us have the right range of skills and the growth mindset to succeed as the industrial landscapes we work in are re-drawn. The goal is to be recognised as actuaries and analytical problem solvers, not only in our core fields but across a wide range of domains, wherever our unique attributes can add value.”