Chairperson’s Corner
By Sandee Schuster
Risk Management, December 2022
The Section Council year came to a close at the 2022 SOA Impact Conference in Orlando and with that we have new members joining the JRMS Council and a few of us wrapping up our terms. I would like to thank David Paul, Kailan Shang, Gerald Adamski, and Vy Le for their time, energy, dedication, and significant contributions while serving as members of the Joint Risk Management Section (JRMS) Council. I am also excited to welcome our new Section Council members Marc Altschull, Emily Li, Eric Chen, Aly Moosa and Tiffany Hodge. I see an exciting year in front of you!
Along with the beginning of the new Section Council term, we also have new Section Council leadership. Ariel Weis is the new JRMS Council chair and Daniel Klein is the new vice-chair. Daniel just finished up the year as a fabulous Section Council secretary where he used his organization and people management skills to transform the notes for each call into a clear list of to dos and who will do, along with anticipated completion dates. Ariel is in his third year with the Section Council and initiated the JRMS podcast program. Maggie Ma held the role of treasurer for the past two council years and has done a fantastic job at keeping the Section Council on top of budgets and available funds for research projects. I look forward to moving into the role of friend of the council and watching what this year’s Section Council will accomplish.
In addition to the Section Council members, there are many others who brought their knowledge, background, and expertise to help make a successful year, including Association Liaisons and SOA Staff, and all the friends of the council.
I would like to thank Dee Berger for being such an incredible SOA engagement specialist for most of my three years on the Council. Dee—I couldn’t have done it without you. Katelyn Kramer has recently taken on the role of engagement specialist for the JRMS Council and I think she will be a wonderful help for the upcoming years. David Schraub has played several roles with the JRMS Council, most recently as the SOA Risk Management research actuary. David has been a strong advocate for JRMS research and this was much appreciated by myself and the Section Council as a whole.
Brian Fannin, CAS staff liaison, and Hélène Baril, CIA board liaison, were key participants in Section Council activities, ensuring we had solid connections to the associations that make up the Joint aspect of the JRMS.
The following are some of the benefits provided by the Section Council in the last year.
Continuing Education: Bringing strong continuing education offerings to section members is always top of the list for the JRMS Council. That goal became even more important during a time when in-person opportunities were no longer available or very limited.
Webinars: During the past Section Council year, much planning, energy, and time went into delivering a risk management webinar program. A list of possible continuing education and research topics was initially prepared at the Section Council planning session in February and throughout the year this list was fine-tuned as we began to design the webinars. Chet Szczepanski organized a well-received webinar “Pandemics & Paradigm Shifts: ERM in an Intensely Dynamic World Webcast,” which had over 400 viewers. David Paul organized a professionalism in risk management webinar with help from fellow Section Council member Jing Fritz, who stepped in at the last minute when one of the committed speakers was unable to participate. I hope many of you were able to take advantage of these great risk management focused webinars. If not, they will be available as recorded sessions.
To help balance out the year with valuable continuing education through the webinar channel, the JRMS Section Council has taken steps to ensure that webinars are planned for the “gap” season—that time after one council year comes to an end and the new council year takes up speed.
Conferences: As we continue to adapt our continuing education offerings to incorporate both virtual and in-person learning, we are also adapting to the changes introduced by the SOA to offer fewer but larger, formal conference offerings. This change has brought with it some additional hurdles for the smaller sections, such as the JRMS, where members have traditionally found the smaller more focused seminars better suited for their educational needs. As a practical point, it can be difficult for smaller sections to compete for spots on the agenda at these larger one-stop shopping conferences.
To help ensure that the educational needs of our members are represented within this new larger conference landscape, Gerald Adamski noted some lessons learned as he navigated the submission process for the SOA Annual Impact meeting. Going forward, coordinating proposals around a consistent theme, such as a current hot topic in risk management, may increase the likelihood of risk management topics being included on the agenda. Recruiting speakers for both webinars and conferences has been difficult, with conferences having the additional travel related concerns and budget restrictions.
Newsletter: The Risk Management newsletter was published five times during the last 12 months. Articles spanned risk management topics around indexed annuities, exposure modeling, climate risk modeling, deep learning, and rational adaptability. This successful endeavor is a result of a very dedicated newsletter chair and chief editor—Kailan Shang. Kailan has been an incredible leader of the newsletter for two years, all during our COVID adventure, and he has never let it drop. Jing Fritz has been a remarkable addition to the newsletter editorial team and is the upcoming chair and chief editor. The newsletter will be in great hands under her leadership. Our third editor, Ribhi Alam, is a prior JRMS Council member, forever friend of the council, and a fantastic member of the newsletter team. It takes a great deal of work and dedication to prepare each newsletter and I thank each of our editors for making that happen. Check out the current newsletter and those from prior years—all available as links on the JRMS website.
Research: A significant amount of council time and effort goes toward supporting research in the risk management space by providing funding and oversight for risk management research projects. The council worked closely with the Joint Risk Management Research Committee (JRMRC) to draft and publish a Request for Proposal on “Adapting to the ‘New’ Normal.” After reviewing the proposals, section funding was committed to the project.
The Section Council also supported the 15th Emerging Risk Survey through funding and Section Council participation on design and report review. The survey results and key findings, along with a users guide, podcast and video, can all be found here. Funding was also committed toward research projects being driven by other Section Councils and the Actuarial Research Conference.
The CRISIL research project kicked off in 2021 was published late in 2022 as three separate regional reports—India, China, and North America (US & Canada)—as well as a compendium on risk management framework components.
Audiobooks: Vy Le has been managing the JRMS e-library for the past several years, continually adding risk management publications, books, and resources each year. This year, Vy took a new approach to stocking our library in response to the growing trends in listening to audiobooks and podcasts. To provide more opportunities for our members to obtain continuing education, or research a risk management subject, Vy is expanding our library by adding audio versions of resources already available. Access the library here.
Webpage: The JRMS website has been in place for many years, and it contains links to the newsletter, the current Section Council members, and past research. The Section Council began an effort to refresh the website to bring the most benefit to our membership. Some great ideas for linking to resources throughout our community were brought forth and plans are underway to start refreshing the website and links during the upcoming council year.
The COVID-19 crisis brought with it additional stressors for our volunteers as they balanced work, home, and volunteer commitments. Despite that stress, the JRMS Council brought valuable continuing education offerings, newsletters, research, and risk management resources to our membership. I thank every one of our Section Council members and volunteers for continuing to be there for the JRMS members!
Statements of fact and opinions expressed herein are those of the individual authors and are not necessarily those of the Society of Actuaries, the newsletter editors, or the respective authors’ employers.
Sandee Schuster, FSA, MAAA, is past chair of the Joint Risk Management Section Council and a director at The Standard. She can be reached at sandeeactuary@gmail.com.