Who will lead the SOA? You decide.

Candidate Questionnaire

Jiangang He, FSA 2007, FCIA 2013
Co-Founder
Beijing Aixuan Information Technology Ltd.
Beijing, China

Brief description of current work:

Insurance technology, focusing on actuarial solution, product developing, and related third party administration

Primary Area of Practice:

Life, Health

Other Areas of Practice

Technology

Professional Background

Provide a brief description of your professional background and the type of work you have performed and explain how these experiences have uniquely prepared you as an Elected Board Member and qualify you in carrying out the strategic direction of the SOA.

I am a qualified Fellow of Society of Actuaries (FSA), Fellow of Canadian Institute of Actuaries (FCIA) and Fellow member of China Association of Actuaries (FCAA), with working experiences across Canada and China. Beside working in the traditional insurance/reinsurance companies, I also worked as a full-time staff in China Association of Actuaries (CAA), responsible for actuarial research and international communications. With these invaluable experiences, my network span across both China and Canada, as well as my counterparts from other actuarial associations. Currently, I’m the co-founder of an insurtech company provides technology solutions to insurance companies, focusing on tailored and personalized risks pricing and product developments. The unique set of experience provide me the abilities to think from different angles / dimensions, to pursue innovative solutions under different stage of market environments. Leading an insurtech company as an actuary also provide me with the opportunity to merge my actuarial skillsets with advanced digital technology, which will and it is impacting the actuarial profession. During my time with the CAA, I organized the local actuarial exams, which allowed me to be connected with majority of the professors that are teaching actuarial science in China. Since then, I was frequently being invited to speak at local actuarial event. With my unique and diverse actuarial journey, which span across industry, academic, semi-regulatory and fintech in multiple geography, I truly believe I can bring a new dimension with a specific focus from the lens of Asia, if I was elected as a Board Member for the SOA.

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.

1. Board member and Chief Actuary for China Rural Kids Care(Volunteer), which is a charity program offering insurance coverages to the kids in rural area of China. Providing yearly actuarial reports, selecting operation insurance companies, setting coverage plans and premiums for different counties. 2011- now
2. Committee member of Pacific Rim Actuaries Club of Toronto, 2013-2014, organizing seminars and social networking event
3. Member of Corp. Finance ERM Strategic Decision-Making Exam.C., SOA, Jun 26, 2014 - Apr 19, 2015
4. Member of Asia Sub Committee of IAA, 2016-2019.
5. Project Oversight Group for several SOA researches, 2018-now
6. Member of Mortality and Longevity Program Steering Committee of SOA, Oct 17, 2018 - Oct 31, 2021
7. Member of Actuaries Longevity Illustrator Update, SOA, Mar 22, 2019 - Sep 30, 2019
8. Member of Asia Employers Council, SOA, Sep 01, 2021 - now

During the volunteer experiences, I have built strong team work skills with people all around the world. If I was elected, I would like to introduce to and attract more Asia actuaries to join the SOA volunteer based on my experiences by showing the benefits from my volunteer work.

Agility/Change

Describe a significant change that you led in the workplace or in your volunteer activities. Explain what worked well and what could have gone better.

When I was in CAA, it was the first time having a qualified actuary in the association performing actuarial researches and services to the insurance industry. I have to start everything from scratch. I guided the team to develop the webinar broadcast, along with other remote/virtual meeting solutions, which have become a routine these days. Since then, I promote the use of new social media platform, and new IT tools to promote CAA, while created the first publications called “Chinese Actuaries” in both physical copies and e-copies. In additional, I have invited international actuarial professionals from SOA, IAA and IFA, to discuss the local mortality tables building and other technical issues. During my service in CAA, my creativity, innovation, and contribution in industry researches, international communications, and promoting influence of local actuaries have been widely acknowledged by the Chinese insurance industry. I was further humbled by the commentary received from the CAA’s staffs saying, everything were smooth and efficient under my leadership. Curiosity, creativity and not afraid of failing are my inner characters. These kinds of experiences led me to start up my own company after leaving CAA.

Motivating/Influencing

Describe a difficult situation or disagreement that you had in a professional setting during which opinions varied and you worked through the issues that led to a successful result.

First year into my current start-up company, many people are not familiar with the capability of a life actuary. In fact, many people approached us to help with different insurance problems. For example, there was a request from a truck transportation company asking us to perform a study on the data collected. The data collected are driving records either from driving sensor devices or cameras. The goal of the study was to develop a new interactive general insurance for these trucks, and it comes with a substantial consulting fee. At the time, there were 2 life actuaries with 2 actuarial students in the company, the situation presented us with substantial revenue, interesting data, but it’s not our professional / expertise area. The key consideration here is to avoid the destruction of the image being an actuary. We went to the client and described the differences between actuaries, and share the ethics of being actuaries with them. Subsequently, I referred this project to a friend of mine with general insurance experiences. As a results, the client company have an interactive insurance program for these trucks, with the help of general insurance actuaries. We missed the consulting fees but gained several friends. In return, we also received their references for other businesses by holding our professional standards.

Diversity

What additional actions do you think the Board should take regarding diversity, equity and inclusion?

I think SOA is doing quite good in terms of diversity, equity, and inclusion. As an international professional entity, once there are enough members, SOA is investing resources on it. I witnessed the opening of SOA China office. There are lots of local actions taking on these days. The only thing I could think about is how to provide a bridge or channel for the actuaries to connect around the world. I found most of the actuaries are pretty much focus on local issues, may not quite understand what’s going on for internationally. However, some fundamental things, like mortality experiences, market updates, Covid updates etc., are somehow common languages for all the actuaries. We would like to know what’s going on in US, Canada, where there are lots of intensive studies on different topics. By sharing this information, SOA can promote similar study in other regions. And then feedback can be circle back to US and Canada. I found most of the actuaries in north American have no idea what’s going on in other places as well, especially non-English speaking countries.

International

What can the SOA Board do to balance the needs of our global membership? How will your experience help the Board accomplish this?

US still have the biggest number of members, while Canada is the second. Asia is growing bigger. From my experiences, I found it was useful to study the FSA tracks of US, then at least I have some ideas of what’s going on in US, which made me feel comfortable when I moved to Canada. However, I didn’t quite understand the details when I took the exams which might be a problem for most students without US experiences. I would like to see if there are some local laws or rules covered in the exams. Perhaps just 2 or 3 questions which can be attractive to local members. I would suggest to evaluate the cost and benefit of including some local material into the exam. Maybe when the local actuaries reach a certain number to cover the cost, then can think about and provide it.

Emerging

Recently, the number of new candidates for actuarial exams has been declining. What additional actions should the Board take on this topic in relation to keeping the SOA successful?

It might be a problem for all kinds of membership or credentials. Looks like the new generation would like to learn by themselves through internet. And they usually build strong skills on the things they really care. Compare to the coders, actuaries might not be that attractive than before, and people are judged mainly by their abilities not by the credentials. I think SOA is already doing something wonderful, like Affiliate Membership, online training of data analysis and other micro credentials. I noticed some students are complaining actuarial exams are costly, hard and time consuming, especially when they graduate from school and start working. To give more exposure and create more attraction to the new candidates, maybe SOA can provide some low cost, easy way of training using new media, or other forms of advertisement. Or even consider to provide some small credentials with gaming experience, divide the whole track to different levels, which can be achieved by watching or clicking on the internet using fractional time.