Candidate Questionnaire
Timothy L. Rozar, FSA 2004
Chief of Staff to the CEO
RGA Reinsurance
Chesterfield MO
Brief description of current work:
In my current role, I am Chief of Staff to the CEO, serve as a member of RGA’s Executive Committee, and am responsible for strategy and communications on behalf of the executive office. I manage the development and execution of our strategic plan and lead Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) strategy and other enterprise-wide initiatives. I previously served as founder and CEO of RGAX, RGA’s innovation accelerator, and previously as RGA’s Global Head of Research & Data Analytics.
Primary Area of Practice:
Life
Other Areas of Practice
Reinsurance, Strategy, research, Pricing/Product Development, Predictive Analytics
Why do you want to be on the Board?
I have extensive experience in strategy development and execution both in my current role as an executive at RGA and in my previous board service at the SOA. I have led large data analytics, research, and innovation teams and have been on the front lines of many of the emerging trends facing the profession. I have spent much of my professional career in a global role traveling and working with clients and colleagues around the world which has helped improve my perspective on the needs and cultures of international markets. Finally, I have developed strong relationships and interpersonal and communication skills that will help as I work with the board, staff, and with leaders of other actuarial organizations to advance the interests of the SOA and the actuarial profession.
Professional Background
Provide a brief description of your professional background and the type of work you have performed and explain how these experiences have prepared you as an Elected Board Member and qualify you in carrying out the strategic direction of the SOA.
From my service as an SOA board member, my executive and leadership roles at RGA, and board and volunteer experience with other organizations, I have developed the skills, relationships, and judgment needed to serve as President of the SOA.
The most critical responsibility of the SOA President is strategic and generative governance, including implementation of the strategic plan and prioritization and oversight of strategic initiatives that the board approves to advance the interests of the SOA and the actuarial profession. To fulfill this responsibility, I will build on my extensive experience in strategy development and oversight. My current professional responsibilities include analyzing emerging trends and identifying, vetting, and operationalizing strategic initiatives to respond to those trends. During my service on the SOA board, I chaired the Issues Advisory Council and served on the subcommittee to develop the long-term growth strategy against which the SOA is now executing.
The SOA President also must serve as an ambassador for the organization and build relationships both within the SOA and with other actuarial organizations and stakeholders. In my professional and volunteer experience, I have forged strong relationships and developed the personal, interpersonal, and communication skills necessary to work with various stakeholders with empathy, integrity, and transparency.
Finally, the leader of the SOA must have the vision to look to the future. As RGA’s Global Head of R&D, as the CEO of RGAX, and currently as Chief of Staff overseeing enterprise strategy execution, I have been on the front lines to see many of the emerging trends impacting the profession. The actuarial profession and the SOA are at a unique time in our history, and although the skills and credibility of actuaries position us well, we must respond with urgency to the threats and opportunities in front of us.
Volunteer, Governance and Personal Experience
Describe how your volunteer, governance and personal experiences would strengthen your contributions to the SOA Board, the organization, and strategic plan execution. Please list your relevant volunteer experience. Please include the name of the organization, your role, and approximate dates.
My educational and professional background and volunteer service have taught me the key principles of strategic governance and allowed me to build my skills as leader. As an MBA, I have studied strategy and organizational governance. In my current professional role, I have responsibility for board engagement on strategic and governance issues, including facilitating strategy sessions and working with the board on Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) strategy.
As a volunteer I have actively participated in strategy development, implementation, and oversight. Among my volunteer roles that are relevant to service as SOA President in these areas are the following:
- SOA, Board of Directors (Oct 2016-Oct 2019)
- Issues Advisory Council (strategy committee of the board), Chair
- Long-Term Growth Strategy Board Subcommittee
- SOA, Responsible Use of Data Advisory Panel (May 2020-Present)
- SOA, InsurTech Task Force, Chair (Nov 2017-Oct 2019)
- SOA, Research Executive Committee (2017-2019)
- SOA, Product Development Council, Chair (2011-2014)
- SOA, Committee on Life Insurance Research (2012-2014)
- SOA, Technology Section Council (2006-2009)
- Junior Achievement of Greater St. Louis, Board of Directors (2018-Present)
- United Way of Greater St. Louis, Board of Directors (2018-Present)
- Maryville University, National Leadership Council (2017-Present)
- Longer Life Foundation, Advisory Board (2009-Present)
- St. Louis Actuaries Club, President (2006-2009)
Agility/Change
What did you learn in the COVID19 pandemic that will help you, post-pandemic?
At a global life reinsurance company, pandemic risk is an ever-present consideration that requires ongoing scenario modeling and preparation, which proved invaluable when an actual pandemic emerged. As important as contingency planning is to build a resilient strategy, however, it is equally important to have the awareness, humility, and flexibility to recognize when that plan needs to be adjusted.
In a crisis, it is important to quickly identify, triage, and respond to the most immediate threats. It takes an all-hands-on-deck approach and requires leaders to muster resources and inspire action from their teams. At RGA, we quickly prioritized the safety and well-being of our employees and launched programs to address the challenges triggered by uncertainty and social isolation. However, even during a crisis, other strategic priorities must not be ignored. Throughout the past year, for example, we advanced our long-term enterprise strategy while also increasing our focus on social responsibility and diversity, equity, and inclusion.
I also learned that frequent open and transparent communication is critical to building trust. You must be honest about what you know, what you don’t know, and even what you thought you knew but later realize you didn’t actually know. One-on-one outreach to those you may not connect with as frequently is also important. For example, one of the first calls I made after the lockdown was to the SOA’s Executive Director to see how he was doing and what I could do to help.
This past year has also highlighted the important role actuaries play in ensuring the financial resilience of the insurance industry. The ability for the industry to deliver on our promises when people need it most should be a point of pride for all actuaries and a reminder of why we do what we do. the impacts have been manageable.
Motivating/Influencing
Describe a constructive conversation you had in a group setting or one-on-one during which opinions varied and you needed to get to a consensus.
Much of my work involves synthesizing the insights and opinions of business leaders from around the organization to build toward a consensus decision or set of recommended actions. This process rarely occurs in one conversation but requires iteration to collect input, incorporate feedback, and refine next steps. One of the most important aspects of such a role is building trust within the team so that people can speak openly and candidly. Everyone must feel as if their voice has been heard and that their thoughts have been carefully considered. Without this trust, the process either takes longer to draw out everyone’s thoughts individually or it leads to sub-optimal decision-making by failing to incorporate the collective wisdom of the group.
Such a process also runs the risk of dragging out as one can always make an argument that he or she needs more information or more time to consider alternatives (the dreaded “paralysis by analysis”). Building and promoting an action-oriented culture helps mitigate this tendency as the group can collectively determine when it is time to move forward and when more information is needed until a decision can be made. Setting and agreeing on timelines in advance also helps define an endpoint by when a consensus opinion must be formed, which drives urgency and action.
Once a decision is made, it is important to build a leadership culture that supports the decision of the group even when individuals may have aired concerns or disagreements along the way.
Diversity
Describe how your awareness of diversity, equity and inclusion has evolved throughout your life.
Growing up in a suburban middle-class home, I didn’t fully appreciate the advantages that I was born into until later in life. I knew that by working hard I would have opportunities to succeed, but I did not recognize that these opportunities were not equally accessible to all due to systemic inequities that have created lasting barriers. For this reason, I strongly support the SOA’s efforts to expand actuarial opportunities and awareness among historically underrepresented populations. Because these barriers have existed for generations and because the pipeline for candidates into the profession is so long, it is difficult to move the needle overnight. Despite this, we must continue to work to make meaningful progress.
To be clear, the rationale for DEI efforts is not just to have a more balanced membership distribution by gender, race, ethnicity, and background—it is because a diverse and inclusive profession will objectively make better decisions by responding to the wide-ranging and evolving needs of our stakeholders. Countless research studies prove that in areas as varied as the quality of jury decisions to the financial return of companies, diverse and inclusive organizations perform better. They bring in different backgrounds and perspectives; they identify and challenge unintentional biases and blind spots; and since they are less likely to have automatic consensus, they are forced to evaluate facts rather than reinforce pre-held opinions.
Finally, as we build a more diverse, equitable, and inclusive organization, we must also recognize the implications of systematic inequities in the work we do. On the SOA’s Responsible Use of Data Advisory Panel, I have come to recognize the very real risks of disparate impact and proxy discrimination introduced by new frontier technologies like artificial intelligence. Addressing these risks is fundamental to building lasting trust.
International
Issues come before the SOA Board where there may be different perspectives or needs for North American members versus international members. How would you think about balancing these competing priorities or issues? Do any examples come to mind?
It is first important to recognize that the SOA is a global organization and that much of our membership growth has and will continue to come from China, Greater Asia, and other international markets. At a high level, many of the membership needs, such as professionalism, research, and continuing education transcend boundaries; however, the specific approaches for delivering membership value need to be targeted and relevant. Even within North America, we tailor research and educational offerings by practice area and take different approaches to communicate and engage with younger members. A similar approach that reflects the context and culture of each unique market must be applied internationally.
To best serve our international members, we must listen to them. Having representation at the board level is an important step, as is the work of the China, Greater Asia, and Latin American committees, but we need to further increase our outreach and member engagement efforts. This input is vital to ensure that our organizational resources are directed where they create the most membership value. It is also important to build lasting relationships with local actuarial organizations, universities, and clubs to better understand the unique needs of each market and develop strategies and partnerships to respond in the most efficient manner possible.
When determining how best to deploy limited organization resources for competing priorities between markets, it is important to focus on scale and impact, both for the near term and for the longer term. We must maintain our focus and commitment to the needs of U.S. and Canadian members, who will continue to represent the largest portion of our active membership for the near term. At the same time, we must continue to invest for the future with targeted resources that build on international member growth and engagement momentum.
Emerging
How does the SOA need to change to meet emerging challenges and opportunities?
Having built and led research, data science, and innovation/insurtech teams, my professional experience has offered me a ringside seat to the evolution of the actuarial profession. Although I am optimistic that much of this innovation creates exciting opportunities for actuaries, we must respond with urgency to capitalize on these opportunities.
The SOA has seen a continual decline in first-time exam-takers which, as far as KPIs go, is a flashing red light. Reversing this trend will require a multi-faceted approach. First, we must accelerate the modernization of the education process to better serve the needs of candidates, employers, and other stakeholders without sacrificing the quality and rigor that embodies actuarial training. This work is underway, although we must monitor for unintended consequences including creating an uneven playing field that threatens the near-term viability of non-CAE university actuarial programs and/or reverses progress toward building a more diverse candidate pipeline.
Second, we must expand the awareness of actuarial science as a career path. Given the huge number of potential candidates to reach in high schools and universities around the world, this is a very heavy lift. Working in partnership with universities and other actuarial organizations may help this effort achieve meaningful scale.
Third and most importantly, we must ensure that actuarial jobs remain in demand and relevant for those who choose to pursue a career as an actuary. The threats to actuarial jobs include other professions such as data science, as well as algorithmic technologies that may automate work that has been the exclusive domain of humans. One protection against this risk is for actuarial training to focus on the higher-value AQ/EQ skills necessary to bridge the divide between algorithmic predictions and business applications. Another important mitigant is expanding and promoting the value that SOA credentials bestow, including professionalism, rigor, and independence.