Sharing Expertise: The Academy’s Speakers Bureau Gives Professionalism Outreach

Sharing the Academy’s professionalism message with our members where they “live” is part of our effort to put “Professionalism First.” Our speakers bureau brings our expert volunteers to actuarial clubs, large employers, and university venues to deepen the understanding of what “professionalism” means in our self-regulating profession. Promoting actuarial professionalism is essential to the Academy’s mission and the speakers bureau has had significant success in providing professionalism education across the U.S. For more information, please visit http://www.actuary.org/content/request-professionalism-speaker.

Last year, our speakers bureau volunteers presented at 31 events—up from 25 in 2017—reaching about 4,250 attendees, up from 3,500 the prior year. Presentations at actuarial clubs accounted for 18 of the events, while employer-sponsored events tallied eight and universities five. They included presentations by Academy presidents past and present, as well as other members of the Academy’s Board of Directors, the Council on Professionalism, the ASB, the ABCD, and knowledgeable volunteers whom the Academy prepares through our own rigorous media training and by providing them with presentations that have gone through our comprehensive internal policy reviews. This year, more than a dozen events are already lined up for various speakers provided by the speakers bureau.

“The turnout and audience attentiveness at these events are always impressive,” said David Driscoll, an ABCD member and frequent speakers bureau presenter. “This is perhaps to some degree the result of curiosity about some of the highly publicized cases the ABCD has dealt with, but mostly it seems to reflect genuine interest in learning more about the standards actuaries are expected to uphold in their work and the processes the ABCD uses to assess allegations that these standards have been materially violated.”

Driscoll said that in making presentations, he emphasizes “the ABCD expends far more effort on providing guidance and counseling than on discipline, as we strongly prefer prevention of violations to dealing with them after the fact. This emphasis may help to explain the steady increase we have seen in the numbers of requests for guidance that are directed each year to ABCD, which is a trend we would very much like to see continue.”

Actuarial Clubs

In the most recent outreach, Council on Professionalism member William Hines gave a presentation March 26 on “Professionalism and Ethical Challenges” to about 60 attendees of the inaugural meeting of the Northern New England Actuaries Club in Portland, Maine. Hines reviewed the basic structures and key elements of U.S. actuarial professionalism, identified tools and resources available to help actuaries keep up to date on professionalism, and examined case studies to stimulate discussion.

At the suggestion of the Academy’s members, in order to assist actuarial clubs, the Academy began compiling information on clubs, including their location, website, and frequency of meetings and when they are generally held. The listing, available on our website, currently has information for about 30 clubs—visit www.actuary.org/clubs to see club listings or to submit or update your club’s information. You may also email updates to Clubs@actuary.org.

2018 events, by the numbers

In 2018, the Academy’s professionalism speakers bureau placed speakers at 31 meetings, reaching approximately 4,250 meeting attendees—an increase from 25 meetings and 3,500 attendees in 2017.

Actuarial Clubs and Regional Conferences                             2,700

Employers and Employer Organizations                                  1,200

Students/Universities                                                                    350

Total                                                                                               4,250

Evaluation Results

The Academy asks organizations served by the bureau to complete speaker evaluations and return them to the Academy after the speaking engagement. From 17 returned evaluations, the results were:

(Actuarial Update, March 2019)