Long story cut short...I am qualified Actuary with experience in Life Insurance, Consulting and Banking. I have recently been hired by the CEO of a company in distress. I am very excited since it is very very hard, for a life insurance company to be under distress. I have had a look and I see most of the problems at the company can be solved by two things:
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Repricing existing products to increase Value of New Business (VNB, a term specific to Life Insurance for future profits of newly acquired policyholders)
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Introducing a new product that is highly profitable. This is a product I have implemented at the company I worked for in the same market and is a tried and tested funeral/burial product with negative liabilities.
The two things above will decrease year on year losses and ultimately turn the company around. But given the amount of work that needs to be done here, I don't see why I can't be given the CEO job if this plan works. The CEO is a sales guy and I am more than excited to make his job easier, but I feel the eyes are going to turn towards me since I'm an Actuary especially if I implement the above strategies; I will have to be pulled into Exco for example and of-course I want the CEO job (at the end)...
Any tips of what to do and not do? PS: I am 29, please rip me apart..
Is this a two person insurance firm?
Dick say your point maybe?
You say you want to be CEO and the other guy is a good salesperson. Are you and the salesperson the only two people at the firm? Or, are you working at Prudential and think that you are competent enough as a 29 year old to run the entire firm?
Dick there are many people at the firm...that's a given. I am definitely competent to run the entire firm by my training as an Actuary and by being hired for the role. I am being hired to help turn around the company. Why can't I run the whole company? Turning the company around is running it...?
Going to be blunt: your abilities as an actuary do not qualify your ability to be a value added CEO at a life insurance company. I have covered insurance for years and I can't recall a single time I saw a mid market life insurance CEO with an actuary background, nevermind one that was 29 years old (in fact that would be a huge red flag for a financial buyer). The value chain in insurance from a high level: win business (sales), price the business (actuary), manage claims (operations). The downstream value chain can be outsourced, but the business depends on sales, guys with commercial relationships and a Rolodex of distributors that will maintain and grow the business.
Right now it sounds like the insurer you work for had a major hiccup in policy pricing that resulted in unsustainable loss ratios - you've been brought in to correct this hiccup for future business (congrats by the way, most mm life co's don't get a second chance when there is a pricing event, hence why very few mm life co's exist). Once this issue is solved, your job is no longer a value add (properly priced policies ought to be business as usual). On the other hand, replace the sales guy and there will be no future business.
TLDR: Sales is the value add in a healthy life insurance company.
The CEO will be appointed by the board. They will want someone that can effectively run every department. You sound like you are highly confident in your ability on the product side, but what cross functional experience do you have? What is your relationship with the company's board?
The way this post is written doesn't signal self awareness and emotional intelligence to me. "I feel the eyes are going to turn towards me since I'm an actuary" is wild. Doesn't this company employ actuaries already? It sounds like you think you're going to walk in and the staff are going to launch a coup for you because you're good at pricing and they despise the sales guy CEO.
Thanks Leon...very helpful. I think you are reading out of context...the guys are going to turn to the person who has an anwer
Why do they need to promote you to CEO to get that answer from you?
Lets assume you really are this actuarial whiz. The actuarial team may turn to you. But why would the sales, HR, IT, finance, accounting, claims, etc people? The CEO hired you, which for the company as a whole is "an answer".
What is your experience managing people outside of your discipline? What is the largest P&L you have led?
if you feel so strongly about it why don't you bring it up to the board and see what happens (you will get laughed out of the room -- actually the conversation wouldn't even make it past your initial email to communicate)
You mean vring my CEO ambitions to the board?
Again speaking in principle...why would I get laughet out of the room? My age?
You came here looking for input, even said 'please rip me apart' and then proceeded to dismiss nearly all of the input you received with bumptious remarks?
It's seems to me like you already know what you need to do and only came here seeking validation. So go out and do that, kick ass, turn around the company and let your merits prove to the board why you deserve to be the chief executive. It won't happen over night though - my tip is to approach the matter with less disdain.
You are losing it...I appreciate all the comment here but I disagree where I don't share an opinion that should be right by all means. Thanks I.Am.Liquid, if you could say something that can make it easier please do so
Bad trolling or autism. Can't tell.
I think you are falling into the trap that many engineers and operators fall into - which is that you feel that since you make sure the operations of the firm work, you could keep everything moving. But that is not the way CEOs think - you need to be thinking about growth, and not just that you implemented a new product in the past so that the old company could price the risk correctly, but whether that product actually makes sense for your company to offer. Does it fit with your current customer base and would it be cost effective to divert sales effort to ? How are you going to fund all this, do you know how your company currently finances its day-to-day, what's your cost of capital? How could you change this for the better? I have a feeling you don't really know the answers to these questions.
Operations - which is what you specialize in - is just one piece of a CEOs job.
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