CERA and the challenge to the Risk Profession

Very reassuring article in the Actuary magazine regarding one aspect of the inevitable land grab between risk and actuarial professionals (which I have blogged on several times), this one covering the thoughts of a few CERA students as to whether this qualification was likely to enhance their career prospects.

Judging by the responses of those students likely to be CERA-qualified in the near future, I suspect that the Risk profession will still be gainfully employed for some years to come - particularly liked the reponse about selling the qualification in one sentence "It counts as verifiable CPD!"

PS The score on CRO hires moved to 4-0 to the Actuaries this month with Aviva UK's new guy - however, the hunter has become the hunted, with the new top man at the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries being a chartered accountant!

Solvency II and CRO jobs - speech from president elect of the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries

Some very intriguing words spoken by the incoming president of the IFA regarding the challenges and opportunities for the Actuarial profession in Asia (summarised at the Actuary Magazine). As you know I keep a watching brief on the likely collision at C-suite level between the Risk and Actuarial professions, and so I pulled the following out from the "opportunities" themes in Mr Scott's speech. They were;

• The skills of actuaries helped keep the insurance industry out of the headlines during the "enormous economic storms" (pulling a rabbit out of an empty hat for an encore I guess...)
• Acknowledges that Solvency II does not require an actuarial function to be run by an actuary
• "...Many [actuaries] will expect to be able to find employment in the risk function
• Lines up a few soft skills which will need to be enhanced in this regard (improved comms and decision making understanding, as well as "becoming more risk focused")
• Skills from the CERA qualification "should open up a whole range of career opportunities for those who take up the challenge"
• Looking to define (with CERA) "the distinctive contribution that actuaries provide as practical, mathematically skilled, rigorous and regulated risk professionals"

I guess it is the last statement that would perhaps put one or two IRM/FERMA/GARP noses out of joint* - is the Risk profession itself so disregarded that the Actuarial profession can usurp the established offerings with CERA?

* I say this somewhat reluctantly as someone who, thanks to a rugby players errant knee, literally has his nose out of joint currently!