Who will lead the SOA? You decide.

Candidate Questionnaire

Timothy Rozar, FSA 2004, MAAA 2001, CERA 2008
RGA Reinsurance Company
Senior Vice President and Chief of Staff to the CEO
Chesterfield, MO

Brief description of current work:

I am Chief of Staff at RGA, serving as a member of the Executive Committee with responsibility for enterprise strategy, corporate communications, and Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG). I previously served as founder and CEO of RGAX, RGA’s insurtech/innovation accelerator, and previously as RGA’s Global Head of Research & Data Analytics.

Primary Area of Practice:

Life, Reinsurance

Other Areas of Practice

Strategy, Predictive Analytics, Communications, Climate and Environment, Corporate Social Responsibility, Mortality Research, Pricing and Product Development

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.

From my service as an SOA board member, my executive and leadership roles at RGA, and board and volunteer experience with the SOA and 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 oversight of strategy, including implementation of the strategic plan, and prioritization and oversight of strategic initiatives as approved by the board 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 execution. 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 must also serve as an ambassador for the organization and build relationships 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, 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 urgently 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 key principles of strategic governance and allowed me to build my skills as leader. As an MBA, I have studied strategy development and organizational governance. In my current professional role, I have responsibility for board engagement on strategic and governance issues.

As a volunteer, I have actively participated in strategy development, implementation, and oversight. My volunteer roles relevant to service as SOA President in these areas include:

• 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)
• United Way of Greater St. Louis, Board of Directors (2018-Present)
• Junior Achievement of Greater St. Louis, Board of Directors (2018-2021)
• Maryville University, National Leadership Council (2017-Present)
• Longer Life Foundation, Advisory Board (2009-Present)
• St. Louis Actuaries Club, President (2006-2009)

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.

As is likely the case for most people reading this, the biggest change with which I’ve been involved in my career was the transition to remote work during the pandemic, as well as the ongoing response to the business implications brought on by the pandemic. At a global life reinsurance company, pandemic risk is an ever-present consideration requiring ongoing scenario modeling and preparation; but as important as contingency planning is to build a resilient strategy, it is equally important to have the awareness, humility, and flexibility to recognize when that plan needs to be adjusted.

Our advance planning worked well as we had the technology infrastructure and workforce agility to quickly adapt to a work-from-home environment. The primary challenge then, in the midst of a crisis, was to quickly identify, triage, and respond to the most immediate threats. It took an all-hands-on-deck approach and required leaders to muster resources and inspire action from their teams. We quickly prioritized the safety and wellbeing of our employees and we launched programs to address the challenges triggered by uncertainty and social isolation. However, even during a crisis, we could not ignore other strategic priorities. Throughout the past two years, we have been advancing our long-term enterprise strategy while also increasing our focus on social responsibility and diversity, equity, and inclusion. This balance between addressing the immediate challenge while also keeping your eyes on the longer-term horizon is critical to building lasting change.

The one area where there is almost always room for improvement in any change management effort is communication. In the midst of great uncertainty, it is almost impossible to over-communicate and frequent open and transparent communication is critical to building lasting trust.

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.

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. An example of this is the long-term strategic planning process which I oversaw at RGA in 2021.

One of the most important aspects of such an effort 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 their thoughts carefully considered. Without this trust, the process can be contentious or lead to sub-optimal decision-making by failing to incorporate the collective wisdom of the group.

It is also important to remember that while people have different opinions or priorities, they all have the best interest of the organization in mind. A good leader uses this shared desire for success to bridge the gap between differing opinions. When someone sees objective data that is contrary to their opinion, or when they are exposed to the opinions of others whom they respect, then disagreements can be broken down and consensus can be reached.

However, such a process can run the risk of dragging out if people start asking for 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.

Diversity

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

Because the barriers to meaningful diversity in the actuarial profession have existed for generations and because the pipeline for candidates into the profession is so long, it is difficult to quickly move the needle. Despite this, we must continue to work to make meaningful progress. I support efforts directed at promoting the profession through targeted outreach to high schools and universities with large, underrepresented populations, as well as sponsoring mentor programs, internships, online educational resources, exam fees, or other programs. Such initiatives can expand the awareness of the profession and increase accessibility to the advice and resources one needs to launch a career in actuarial science. Beyond the candidate pipeline, the SOA must partner with employers of actuaries to help advance toward our shared DEI aspirations.

To be clear, the rationale for DEI efforts is not just to have a more representative membership distribution —it is because a diverse and inclusive profession will better respond 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. Diverse organizations 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. As a member of 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 with consumers and society.

International

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

Today’s SOA is a global organization with much of our recent and future growth coming from China, Greater Asia, and other international markets. This global footprint creates opportunities for all SOA members, regardless of their location. Many membership needs, such as professionalism, research, and continuing education, transcend geographic borders; however, the specific approaches for delivering value need to be targeted and relevant. Even within North America, we tailor research and educational offerings by practice area and target our engagement efforts to different segments of our membership, including younger members. A similar approach reflecting the context and culture of each unique market must be applied internationally.

To best serve members outside of North America, we must engage, listen, and respond. 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.

When determining how best to deploy limited organization resources, it is important to focus on scale and impact, in both the near term and 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

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?

Having built and led research, data science, and innovation/insurtech teams, my 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.

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 embody actuarial training. This work is underway, although we must monitor for unintended consequences such as 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. We must work in partnership with universities and other actuarial organizations to 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 was previously 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.