Election Messages
Christine Hofbeck, FSA 2000 (by petition)
On sabbatical from full-time employment
New Jersey
Questionnaire | Candidate Page | Video Message
Message One
It’s a pleasure to meet you if we don’t already know each other. I am Christine Hofbeck and I’m a candidate for President-Elect and Vice-Chair of the SOA.
About me
Some aspects of my background are quite traditional for a P-E candidate. I’ve served as an SOA Board member, was named to Leadership Team, and served as Secretary/Treasurer (if you earned your FSA, ASA or CERA during 2019-2020, I probably signed your diploma). I co-led the launch of our Long Term Growth Strategy. I believe in our strategy and support it. I’ve Chaired many committees and volunteered in countless and varied roles across many years, providing me a rich understanding of policies, governance, issues, and opportunities of the SOA.
Some aspects of my background are less traditional. I’ve worked across multiple practice areas in both insurance and consulting and for large companies and small, providing a unique view of many member experiences. After earning my FSA and EA, I went on to earn an MBA. I’m a frequent keynote speaker across industries and stages, spent time on primetime television playing a game for a million dollars, and wrote a mainstream nonfiction business book that quickly became a best seller and is sold on four continents in three formats and soon two languages.
I lead with energy and charisma. When making decisions, I seek to hear multiple and diverse perspectives, engage in thoughtful discussion around possibilities, and build consensus among decision makers to positive outcome. I believe in partnering and collaboration. I want to hear your ideas, your side of the story, and your aspirations. I want to hear theirs, too.
I celebrate actuaries and our profession, and believe we can create better solutions when we can bring our best selves to work. We are each unique and multi-dimensional and have much to offer the world. I believe that solving the diversity issue is critical to our full membership collectively achieving our highest potential.
Increasing our value
As SOA President-Elect, my focus can reasonably be digested into one over-arching goal: increasing our value. Each of our individual initiatives are parts of a system (the SOA overall) that affect other parts of the system, so we must consider the reinforcing and balancing feedback loops of each of our actions with a goal of escalating our collective value.
“Value” can be measured many ways: higher salaries, permeation into more industries and roles, greater influence within organizations, more students coming into the pipeline, higher career rankings, increased member engagement and satisfaction, reputation and more. Value is felt by members, employers, students, and societies.
My current opinions on increasing value? Briefly, I believe diversity equity and inclusion adds value, and global collaboration and partnership adds value. I think that stepping out collaboratively with data scientists such that actuaries form the judgments and high-level business decisions around the predictions that we co-develop adds value. I have a concern that our current lengthy exam process could, in the long run, detract value. I think sharing our value more widely and frequently builds value—I’d love to see an actuary on every news channel sharing perspectives on emerging risk. I’d love to see actuaries daily quoted in news articles on covid and other timely trends impacting society. Blue sky? Maybe this is not far off.
There is opportunity. Let’s embrace it.
Our future
I’ll close with this—please vote. I ask you to vote for me, Christine Hofbeck, but mostly I’d love to see voter participation increased regardless of which candidate you support. If you’ve already promised your vote to another candidate, I’d appreciate your 2nd choice vote (there are multiple candidates so you will rank vote).
Thank you for reading this message. Now go be great. We are great! We are actuaries!
Email me your ideas: Christine.hofbeck.soa@gmail.com
Let’s connect on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/christinehofbeck
My SOA candidate page: 2022 President-Elect Candidate | SOA
My personal website: www.christinehofbeck.com
Message Two
Hello SOA Actuaries! In the past several weeks I’ve received a few questions from members about why I decided to petition for SOA President-Elect and Vice-Chair. I’ve been asked specifically if my petition run reflects my views of the endorsed candidates, or if I have an unapproved agenda for change. I’ve decided to address these questions here in case others are also wondering.
I come to this election with the greatest respect and admiration for our profession, our members, and our SOA. I am grateful for the many opportunities that have been available to me as an actuary, and I seek to pay it forward through Board service to others. My running as a petition candidate for P-E is definitely not to bulldoze through an unapproved agenda! I have strong positive feelings around the endorsed candidates, have greatly enjoyed working with both previously, and highly respect them. I respect Nominating Committee and its decisions.
I also respect our SOA Bylaws, which offer members a voice on the ballot through the petition process. The election process is a great opportunity to learn from, and engage with, members. When a petition candidate comes to the table in the spirit of positive collaboration, then I think it’s a benefit for us all. It allows members the opportunity to truly direct the future of our organization.
Here’s where my candidacy fits in.
We often look for traditional candidates to lead us forward. Our deep traditions are necessary to uphold our actuarial reputation for excellence: a strong educational and credentialing background; a commitment to our profession, our members, employers and communities; a demonstration of high ethical values, intelligence and dedication. These should and must continue, and I have demonstrated each (please see my candidate webpage for details).
But I also represent a pushing of the boundaries a bit on what we actuaries are capable of. I was building predictive analytics capabilities for insurers well before it emerged in a more mainstream way for SOA actuaries. I’ve switched practice areas a few times, demonstrating that actuaries can use our thoughtful scientific approaches and training to creatively solve problems outside of our traditional swim lanes. My thought leadership is sought by a wide professional audience as evidenced by the success of my mainstream nonfiction business book Winning Conditions. And I have fun-factor appeal, spending 14 weeks on primetime television playing one of the most popular reality TV games of all time.
We actuaries can do many great things. We are brilliant and multi-dimensional and dynamic and varied and ethically strong. If we nurture it, then our future is bright. A bright future of course rests on the foundation of excellence and tradition for which we are known. But we also must grow and develop. My candidacy represents our strong past AND also a strong and dynamic future.
Petition candidates almost always have an uphill battle, probably because NomCom does a great job of endorsing candidates onto the ballot! But I do believe that a petition candidate who comes to the table with a spirit of positivity and leadership offers members yet another excellent option.
Thank you for reading this message, and thank you for your support. I appreciate that you are thoughtfully approaching the Board election to help drive whatever YOU believe is our best future. I ask you to vote for me, but the truth is, however you vote will be a great vote. Please vote. And go be great. We are great! We are actuaries!