Fireside Chat with Monserrat Guillen Estany
By Tianyang Wang
Expanding Horizons, April 2023
Following an international search, the Society of Actuaries (SOA) and North American Actuarial Journal (NAAJ) announced the appointment of a new editor-in-chief for the NAAJ: Montserrat Guillen Estany, PhD, MA, MSc.
Guillen Estany, who began her three-year term on January 1, 2023, is a distinguished scholar with an impressive international publishing record, including four books, 40 chapters in books, and more than 230 articles. She is a full professor in the Department of Econometrics, Statistics and Applied Economics; the ICREA Academia Distinguished Professor; and the director of the Riskcenter of the University of Barcelona, as well as an honorary visiting professor in the faculty of Actuarial Science and Insurance at City, University of London. She also serves as a member of the board of trustees of Fundación MAPFRE, a nonprofit institution created by the Spanish multinational insurer MAPFRE. The board of trustees is Fundación MAPFRE's highest governing body, with full powers of representation, decision-making, management and execution.
Guillen Estany stated, “It is an honor to accept this appointment. The NAAJ has a broad and expanding scope and is distinctive for disseminating research in actuarial science and discussing advances in actuarial practice. Its editorial board has been eager to publish new topics in many challenging areas of actuarial science, reaching beyond a narrow research field for a small group of scientists and into areas benefiting companies, regulators, policymakers and the professionals who underwrite insurance protection. It is well known all over the world for its quality, scientific standards and reputation.”
Guillen Estany joined the NAAJ editorial board in 2015 as a coeditor. She brings significant experience as an editor and associate editor with other major journals, having held appointments with ASTIN Bulletin: The Journal of the International Actuarial Association, Geneva Risk and Insurance Review, Insurance: Mathematics and Economics, Insurance Markets and Companies: Analyses and Actuarial Computations, SORT (Statistics and Operations Research Transactions), Anales del Instituto de Actuarios Españoles, Risks, Journal of Financial Risk Management and Insurance and Risk Management Journal.
It was an honor for Dr. Tianyang Wang, coeditor of Expanding Horizons, to have this Fireside Chat with Dr. Guillen Estany in January 2023, which resulted in a great conversation.
Tianyang Wang (TW): Congratulations on your new leadership role as editor-in-chief of NAAJ. Can you tell us about your background?
Monserrat Guillen Estany (MGE): Thank you! I am enthusiastic about the new role, and I also want to emphasize that NAAJ has a wonderful team of coeditors and publishing staff. I was born and raised in Barcelona. For those who have never been there, it is a European city on the Mediterranean coast. The location is unique. The sea is a different color of blue every day. The city is about a two-hour drive to a ski resort in winter, while one can still take the underground from home to the beach. I got my degrees in mathematics and economics at the University of Barcelona (UB), but as an undergraduate I also studied at the University of Cambridge in the UK. Thirty-five years ago, I joined the Department of Econometrics as a young intern undergraduate and I never left, except for some short periods of visiting positions abroad. I am proud to be part of the University of Barcelona, which is over 550 years old, one of the oldest in Spain. At UB one can discuss topics with colleagues in all domains of knowledge. That is absolutely precious in a world of ultraspecialized research; I am still an advocate of interdisciplinary collaboration.
TW: How did you get into the profession?
MGE: The earliest memory that I have is a course I attended on life insurance. I thought I could learn how to protect my own life, and that intrigued me, if you see what I mean. The blackboard was full of actuarial formulas, letters with arrows and little circles that made the whole experience feel like actuaries are detectives looking at old Egyptian hieroglyphs. It was really more of a course on probability theory than anything else, and I was a bit bored because I felt it was too slow. I remember that I was furious that so little was being said about data. I had always been keen on applied statistics, and I soon realized that insurance would need more focus on data in the 21st century. When I calmed down a bit, I understood that data analysts and mathematicians could help in the progress of insurance. I also loved this field of research because I find insurance to be a genuine form of solidarity.
TW: What are your research topics?
MGE: I love actuarial statistics, risk analysis and big data in insurance. I initiated a new research group in Barcelona in 1992, and I always wanted each person in the group to have their own topic. That gave me the opportunity to see how my former PhD students chose different areas, and I have eagerly followed their contributions. I would say that telematics insurance is currently the research topic that I want to be involved with myself, and my desire is to find how to transform part of the insurance essence into risk prevention.
TW: Did you receive any support that substantially helped you in your early career?
MGE: Yes, there are many details that can help a young lecturer. First, a personal circumstance, my husband and I started together with academic careers in different disciplines, and we both understood and took for granted that many sacrifices go with that. In Spain it means low salaries, a lot of pressure to complete a PhD, travelling abroad, maintaining international connections. Second, our private circle of friends and family was always enthusiastic about us both being in academia. Third and finally, I can say that I received a lot of qualitative support. But mostly I want to mention some insurance firms in Spain that were very helpful in providing our research group with real data sets to be able to test new modeling approaches. That was really a privilege, because those insurers also wanted us to publish papers and were proud of that. With their help, we could make a lot of applied actuarial science contributions.
TW: What challenge did you encounter as an actuarial researcher?
MGE: The toughest challenge that I have encountered as an actuarial researcher is that some specific topics that seem to be very fashionable in the academic journals and conferences are not really relevant for practitioners. Making a stable connection between a research center focus and a relevant open question in the insurance industry has always been my priority.
TW: What are your most important academic achievements?
MGE: If I look at it from a local perspective, I became a full professor at my own alma mater when I was well under forty. In Barcelona, that was quite remarkable and gave me stability, but it also created the need to search for further personal objectives. This is why the Riskcenter at UB was created. If I look at the achievements from a broader international perspective, then I can find many of them that I am especially proud of. I was the first woman president of the European Group of Risk and Insurance Economists and the first woman editor-in-chief of SORT (Statistics and Operations Research Transactions), I also became a member of the board of trustees of Fundacion MAPFRE, where I can foster actuarial research and fund young researchers in actuarial science, insurance and risk analysis. Finally, I am proud of being highly cited in the field of actuarial science, and my utmost satisfaction comes from having a lot of wonderful colleagues around the world, which I really love.
TW: Any personal philosophy with regard to actuarial teaching?
MGE: I do recommend that anyone who is a teacher be generous. Students need time to learn, and also preparing good lectures requires a lot of time. I like to treat students with professionalism, telling them how a constructive critique can be done, and a destructive attitude is never rewarding. I am always happy when I arrive in the classroom, as if it were my first time in class and my first time to discover that subject. I want students to learn as much as possible and to learn how to make new discoveries that are still to come.
TW: Do you have any advice for young academic researchers?
MGE: Have patience, look into things deeply, never read fast because complex ideas are difficult to grasp, be a hard worker, interact with the best colleagues, be generous and write papers that can be understood by others. I also tell my colleagues at the Riskcenter that we follow what we call the 3-10 methodology. Every week, each of us revises what we want to be done in the next 10 days, what is on the scene 10 months from now and 10 years from now. If we cannot say more than what is needed in the next 10 hours, something is wrong, because urgent matters are not equivalent to important matters.
TW: What is your vision about the future of actuarial research?
MGE: I am highly optimistic. Some weeks ago I was talking to a member of our Spanish royal family, and without her asking me, I noticed that she wanted to know something about what I do for living. Delicate situation, I thought. I could not start a speech on our actuarial profession, so I just said, “Well, we all want zero risks.” I see the actuarial profession as being much more central than finance research if we work with the combination of claims compensation and risk prevention. That is giving us the opportunity to expand our classic approach to new frontiers.
TW: What is your goal as the new editor-in-chief of NAAJ?
MGE: My vision for the North American Actuarial Journal has three main pillars: quality, scientific standards and reputation. These three qualities are already part of NAAJ, but I believe that a chief editor should be extremely careful about preserving and consolidating all of them in the future. The editor-in-chief is a sort of gatekeeper. In addition, research evaluation is shifting from measuring the reputation of an author by the reputation of the journal where their paper is published to the actual impact of the article itself. This is now happening all over the world, and a fast change is expected in the way we currently estimate journal performance. NAAJ should gain positions in the lists of journals and ranks of good-quality publications, but simultaneously it should win the race in the new way research is going to be assessed in the years to come. I want to express my gratitude to Dr. Patrick Brockett, who has been an amazing leader of NAAJ for so many years and to all former editors and coeditors. Dr. Brockett has already helped me in bridging the gap between European and US actuaries when the two communities were working apart many years ago in the 90s. Creating an international community requires effort for authors writing papers, because they cannot assume that insurance regulation is homogeneous all over the world, and for readers who must expand their horizons.
TW: What do you see as the biggest challenge of the actuarial profession?
MGE: Actuaries should work together with risk managers, data scientists, sensor technology, artificial intelligence and robotics. Cross-border connections are never easy, but they are definitely an enormous opportunity. Actuaries are experts in unusual events, while many other professionals just top up their data and do not look at the extremes. At the same time, we need to accept that robots and sensor technology will generate new scenarios and data where losses can still occur. That is very different from traditional insurance. We should be able to contribute to that field, and NAAJ is certainly willing to lead the expansion of the profession in all these new dimensions.
TW: Why and how do you think the insurance industry should support academic actuarial research?
MGE: Collaboration between research centers and the insurance industry is essential. Funded chairs are a great opportunity to boost research and win on both sides. I also believe that mutual recognition is necessary. Academic research creates new perspectives, and those in academia usually train young actuaries who later become part of the companies or regulators. Those perspectives need to be aligned. We even see an interest of companies in all sectors to recruit actuaries as chief risk officers.
TW: Do you have any hobbies?
MGE: Before I graduated, I really enjoyed learning languages and all the culture around a new language. Unfortunately, time is limited now, and I cannot do this anymore. My husband and I enjoy peaceful walks in the woods. Now I see that all my life I have enjoyed helping other people, and this is what I enjoy doing most.
Statements of fact and opinions expressed herein are those of the individual authors and are not necessarily those of the Society of Actuaries, the editors, or the respective authors’ employers.
Tianyang Wang, Ph.D., ASA, CFA, FRM, is an associate professor in the Finance and Real Estate Academic Department at Colorado State University and is currently the editor of Expanding Horizons. Tian can be reached at tianyang.wang@colostate.edu.