The President (Mr N. J. H. Salter, F.I.A.): Each year the Institute and Faculty considers whether there is anybody whom we would like to invite to become Honorary Fellows. We do not necessarily do it every year: we make sure that there are people whom we really value and whom we would like to have in that position.
This year the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries elected Thomas Béhar, Karel Goossens, Dave Pelletier and Andrew D. Smith as our Honorary Fellows. Thomas, unfortunately, cannot join us on this occasion. We will find another occasion to award him his certificate.
The citation, first, for Karel Goossens. Karel joins us today from Belgium, where he was President of the Institute of Actuaries from 2003 to 2007. As part of a sustained contribution to European actuarial activities, he was Chairman of the Actuarial Association of Europe (AAE) – formerly known as the Groupe Consultatif – from 2012 to 2013. He has previously chaired the AAE’s insurance committee and is currently leading an AAE task force on the roles of actuaries.
He is currently General Manager of the Institute of Actuaries in Belgium, a position he has held since October 2014.
As a senior volunteer with the AAE, on behalf of the actuarial associations in all EU member states, over many years Karel took a leading role in discussions with CEIOPS, subsequently EIOPA, and the European Commission on matters relating to Solvency II. His contribution to this work helped to influence the final shape of the regulations.
Karel’s area of expertise includes the control and regulation of insurance companies as well as providing assistance on technical, strategic, risk management and value management matters. His professional work has included the implementation of market-consistent embedded values, risk modelling and ALM methods.
Karel began his career as an academic research assistant before entering the corporate sector specialising in life and pensions. Having previously worked at PwC, Karel was latterly a director at Towers Watson. He is a non-executive board member of an insurance company and a pension fund. He has a Master’s degree in economics, statistics, operations research, and econometrics and actuarial science.
He is a regular speaker at seminars and contributes to professional magazines and books. Karel is also a member of the Association Luxembourgeoise des Actuaires.
So, Karel, I should like you to join me on stage to receive your Honorary Fellowship of the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries.
Mr K. Goossens, H.F.I.A.: I would like to thank the Institute and Faculty, its Council and its members, for nominating me to become an Honorary Fellow. It is really a pleasure to be an Honorary Fellow.
I have had the opportunity to have contact with many UK actuaries in the past during my professional career. As you know, I have worked for Towers Watson and PwC, and I have been here many times. That has given me the opportunity to appreciate the way you have lifted up the standards of the profession in your country. This can serve as an example for the world and, in particular, for Europe, because we want to have the same standards in Europe as you have in the UK.
I am also pleased to be in the company of Andrew, Dave and Thomas, three distinguished colleagues. And also of another Belgian who has been appointed as an Honorary Fellow, namely Karel Van Hulle. You will all know that he was instrumental in the Solvency II Directive.
I suppose that I have received this nomination in recognition of my efforts on the European scene. But, I would like to underline that this would not have been possible without the support of the UK actuaries representing the Institute and Faculty in the offices, the committees, the working groups and the delegations of the AAE. It is thanks to their constructive contribution that we are able to show, on a daily basis, that we can work together in Europe and make progress for the actuarial profession.
It is my intention to continue to help to face our challenges for the future, which are: a continuous professionalisation, especially in Europe; and the integration of risk management into our environment.
I should like to thank you all again for this honour, and wish you all a lot of success in the future. Thank you very much.
The President: Thank you. The next in alphabetical order is Dave Pelletier. Dave joins us today from Canada. I am delighted that he has made the trip over for this occasion.
Dave has recently completed his term as the first chair of the Actuarial Standards Committee of the International Actuarial Association (IAA). He is also a past President of the Canadian Institute of Actuaries. He is a leading figure in the development of actuarial standards and has actively promoted the role of international model standards, while seeking to ensure that the associated governance is practical.
His contribution to actuarial standards has also been as a past chair of the Canadian Actuarial Standards Board. It is evident that the work of the Actuarial Standards Committee has had a significant influence on the FRC’s new framework for technical actuarial standards here in the UK. The IFoA recognise the value of Dave’s expertise to the wider actuarial community. This has also been demonstrated through his role as an adviser to South Korea’s financial supervisory service.
Over Dave’s career he has spoken at conferences in over 25 countries on five continents in four languages, truly embracing the international nature of the actuarial profession. This is also reflected in his professional career, which has included roles in insurance and consulting in Canada, Brazil and Italy.
Prior to his retirement from full-time employment, Dave had been CEO of RGA Life Reinsurance Company of Canada, where he still holds a board position as a non-executive director. He is also a non-executive director of Equitable Life of Canada, serves on the board of the Global Risk Institute and co-chairs the advisory board of McGill University Faculty of Science. Dave, please join me to receive your Honorary Fellowship.
Mr D. Pelletier, H.F.I.A.: Fellow members of the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries – it is great to be able to say that, and to be with you as a member, a fellow member, of your very well-regarded Institute and Faculty, especially here in Staple Inn. I was actually here for the first time back in the late 1980s, when I was with Towers Perrin, and I was at a meeting in the UK. I took the opportunity to visit Staple Inn. I was just blown away with the beauty and the history of this place. It is fantastic. I never dreamt that, some day, I would become an Honorary Fellow in this very place.
Around about the same time, perhaps in the early 1990s, I did come across someone throwing out volumes 8–12 of the Journal of the Institute. Those covered the years from 1858 to 1866. I was delighted to take the opportunity to obtain them. They include a letter from Gompertz, a paper by Makeham, some contributions by Sprague and papers by many others, and hence my delight. One of my actuarial friends in Canada, upon hearing this, said that my own actuarial knowledge really had not progressed much from what was in those old papers!
Then my friend John Instance of the FRC warned me that as I was becoming an Honorary Fellow, I should really abide by the standards of the IFoA, which means, I think, I have to catch up on 149 years of reading!
It has been great to see here some of the members of the IFoA I have known over the years. The contributions of members of the IFoA over the years to the IAA have been terrific, and likewise to the international actuarial profession. I have enjoyed working with many of them. I am tempted not to mention any names for fear of omitting others, but ones that have had a personal impact, and in fact in many ways the reason I am here today, are as follows: the first is Paul Thornton. In the year that he was President of the IAA, the IAA took a huge leap forward in becoming a much more action-oriented body. It was he that put together the Executive Committee which has made it a much more effective body. He also put together the Interim Actuarial Standards Subcommittee which he asked me to chair. That really started us down the route of International Standards of Actuarial Practice.
The second was Mike Pomery, who was chair of the IAA Professionalism Committee at that time, who strongly supported this initiative along with Paul.
The third is Andrew Chamberlain, one of my colleagues on the Actuarial Standards Committee. Andrew, as I am sure all of you know, is quite “picky”, which is a good quality to have when you are on a standards committee. He is a real master of the English language and this has helped to form a much better body of standards as a result. It is really the work along the way of those three people, and of the whole Actuarial Standards Committee, which has contributed to those standards, and to my being here today.
So, thanks very much to those three, and to all of you and to the Institute and Faculty for the contributions made to the profession over the years. Thank you very much.
The President: The third of our Honorary Fellows this evening is Andrew Smith. Andrew is regarded by many as one of the most eminent actuarial mathematicians in the world and is well known to many of us in the room this evening.
For many years the IFoA has benefited significantly from Andrew’s expertise through his volunteering on a range of IFoA working parties, presenting at conferences and events worldwide and producing numerous research papers.
He has authored around 40 research papers, including a number of IFoA sessional meeting papers. Many of his research papers have won prizes, including the 2014 Peter Clark prize for his work with the Extreme Events Working Party and the 2009 Brian Hey prize, for his work with the Winner’s Curse Working Party.
He has also been the recipient of a prize from the Casualty Actuarial Society, for a research paper on charging for diversifiable risk. In 1997, Andrew co-authored a paper on the Financial Theory of Defined Benefit Pension Schemes with John Exley and Shyam Mehta, which is recognised as one of his most influential papers.
In 2006, the Institute of Actuaries awarded a Finlaison Medal to Andrew in recognition of his work for the profession. As an example of Andrew’s thought leadership, his methodology for constructing risk-free yield curves has been adopted for the published yield curves under Solvency II.
His research has been used extensively in industry and by other actuarial associations around the world, where he has presented at the annual meetings of many international actuarial societies.
Andrew’s other international activities have included teaching a financial economics course on a voluntary basis to actuarial students in Armenia, Albania and Ghana.
Andrew is currently a Partner at Deloitte, where he has consulted with clients in a diverse range of subject areas. He holds a first-class degree in mathematics from the University of Cambridge. Andrew, many congratulations. Please come up and receive your Honorary Fellowship.
Mr A. D. Smith, H.F.I.A.: I should like to thank Council for nominating me. I should like to thank the many actuaries who have supported me down the years. And, I should like to thank all of you who voted. It is a great honour to receive this award and I am deeply grateful.
You may feel that you have heard enough words from me from this podium cumulatively over the last 20 years so I shall not add to them save to acknowledge the fellow members of working parties.
Working party papers are not written by one person alone. I have been one of many contributors to most of the papers which the President mentioned. I would particularly like to thank fellow members of working parties who have worked alongside me, put up with all my foibles and who recommended me to be here today.
Thank you.
The President: Thank you, Andrew. I should just like to say that it is wonderful to be able to give out these Honorary Fellow certificates. I hope that you realise what you have just received. It is a commitment to help the IFoA whenever we ask! Perhaps I should have mentioned that earlier!
