2022 President-Elect and Vice Chair Candidate
Christine Hofbeck, FSA 2000-present, MAAA 1999-2019, EA 1998-2005
On sabbatical from full-time employment
New Jersey
Election Message:
I’ve always been vocal about deeply believing in our great profession. I want to continue to champion SOA actuaries to remain at the forefront of the most important business decisions and acutely relevant in the marketplace.
As SOA President-Elect, my focus can reasonably be digested into one over-arching goal: increasing our value. Each of our individual initiatives are parts of a system (the SOA overall) that affect other parts of the system, so we must consider the reinforcing and balancing feedback loops of each of our actions with a goal of escalating our collective value.
“Value” can be measured many ways: higher salaries, more positions, permeation into more industries and roles, greater influence within organizations, more students coming into the pipeline, higher career rankings, increased member engagement and satisfaction, reputation, and more. Value is felt by members, employers, students, and societies.
There is opportunity. Let’s embrace it.
Many years of deep volunteerism have provided me a rich understanding of policies, governance, issues, and opportunities of the SOA. I’ve previously served on the SOA Board, SOA Leadership Team, and served as Secretary/Treasurer (if you earned your FSA, ASA or CERA during 2019-2020, I probably signed your diploma). I co-led the launch of the SOA Long Term Growth Strategy and believe in our strategy and support it. I’ve Chaired many committees, helped develop the SOA’s first Certificate Program (Predictive Analytics), and volunteered in countless other capacities.
I lead with energy and charisma. When making decisions, I seek out multiple and diverse perspectives, engage in thoughtful discussion around possibilities, and build consensus among decision makers to positive outcome. I believe in partnering and collaboration. I want to hear your ideas, your side of the story, and your aspirations. I want to hear theirs, too.
I celebrate actuaries and our profession, and believe we create better solutions when we can bring our best selves to work. We are each unique and multi-dimensional and have much to offer the world. I believe that solving the diversity issue in the US is critical to our full membership collectively achieving its highest potential.
Brief description of current work:
I’m currently on sabbatical from full-time employment while continuing to present as keynote speaker on professionalism topics for organizations within and beyond the actuarial space. Before heading back into my next full-time position, I’m pausing to give back and make a difference.
Primary Area(s) of Practice:
I’ve worked in multiple practice areas in both insurance and consulting for large companies and small, providing me a unique view of multiple member experiences:
12 yrs Retirement / Employee Benefits consulting
3 yrs General Insurance
3 yrs Group Insurance
3 yrs Life consulting and Corporate insurance roles
I have listed “Life” in the Actuarial Directory as the catchall for the above, even though that’s not exactly the right fit. I would love to move toward us celebrating a fluid expertise of our deep actuarial skillset without requiring division by Practice Area if it doesn’t necessarily make sense.
Bio:
I'm a credentialed actuary with a passion for optimizing strategy and building competitive edge through superior analytics, multi-disciplinary collaboration, motivating leadership and talent management. My actuarial work has been featured across numerous magazines and media outlets through the years.
I launched my career in the retirement space / employee benefits consulting (shout-out to my Kwasha Lipton pals!). After around a dozen years, I left the paid workforce to be a stay-at-home-mom, re-emerging several years later into the area of predictive analytics in insurance. I built the predictive analytics capabilities from the ground up for both AIG Consumer Lines and Prudential Group Insurance. I’ve served as “fixer” in various executive roles due to my ability to listen, understand, synthesize, strategize and communicate highly technical information to broad and diverse audiences.
I enjoyed consulting with The Terry Group in highly innovative areas for actuaries like using facial analytics in the life insurance space and optimizing the flow of patients through the emergency room. I also served as engagement lead at The Standard for a complete actuarial transformation, shaping and leading the strategy, organization design and change management efforts to optimize how a high-performing actuarial team best delivers value to an organization.
I believe that actuaries can do anything. We think about risk and financial impacts in a way that can be translated across practice areas, organizations, and industries. My diverse background and creative application of the actuarial skillset has proven this out.
I earned a BA in Mathematics with honors from the University of Pennsylvania and an MBA from MIT Sloan School of Management. I’m an FSA and former EA (retired the credential after leaving the retirement space) and a member of American MENSA.
While an actuary, I launched a side-gig of keynote speaking that has been an absolute joy. I've spoken to rooms of thousands for countless industry meetings, corporate events, associations and universities. My TEDx talk “Surviving and Thriving: Living Beyond a Distracted Life” was the featured talk at the largest university TEDx event in the US (it’s available on TED.com).
In 2020 I released my first nonfiction business book "WINNING CONDITIONS: How To Achieve the Professional Success You Deserve by Managing the Details That Matter" (Simon & Schuster). It was quickly named an Amazon best-seller and is available in three formats on four continents and soon two languages (Penguin Random House will release the Spanish edition in October 2022).
In 2017, I was cast on CBS's hit reality television show Survivor as a member of the ‘Heroes’ tribe for "breaking the glass ceiling for women in STEM” and being a “supermom," per executive producer and host Jeff Probst. (Stop reading now if you don’t want spoilers!) I ultimately placed 2nd in the game and was named “Player of the Season" in a landslide vote by Survivor fans. This experience was undeniably the greatest adventure of my lifetime and I would gladly play again.
I've been married to my high-school sweetheart Keith for 25 years (he is amazing and I am blessed) and together we have three incredible children, Andrew (23), Mike (21), and Elise (19). We love to travel and create experiences together. I am fully aware that my actuarial career has enabled this beautiful life.
Currently I’m pausing full-time work that I love, to give back to this profession and society that has enabled me an unbelievably rewarding three decades of a career. Given my education and deep experience, I feel well positioned to BUILD our value and SHARE our value. We are actuaries!
Additional Info:
I am a petition candidate. When I announced that I was petitioning for placement on the ballot, there was an immediate, widespread and positive embrace of my candidacy. I am beyond grateful to the many actuaries who mobilized, shared the message with their colleagues and networks, and quickly submitted their petition ballots, earning my placement well before the petition cycle ended. I appreciate the many messages of encouragement and support that you’ve been sending me throughout this petition and election cycle. Our SOA actuaries are an outstanding group.
I ask for your vote in the election but above all else, I ask you to please vote. It’s a strong ballot and there are only excellent candidate choices. Typically only around 20% of eligible voters cast their vote—I would love for us to push that much higher. You are a valuable member of the SOA and your vote is important.
On August 22 you’ll receive your ballot from DirectVote, just like you did during the petition process. If you don’t see it, check your junk and spam folders. There will also be a link to request your ballot just like we did in the petition process. Voting is fast, easy and anonymous and will remain open during August 22—September 9.
Thank you for taking the time to become acquainted with my candidacy. If you’d like more information or would like to share your ideas with me, please email me at christine.hofbeck.soa@gmail.com or message me on LinkedIn.
Now go be awesome.