Description: Highlights of the 2012 initiatives and accomplishments of the Society of Actuaries.

Description: Highlights of the 2013 initiatives and accomplishments of the Society of Actuaries.

Description: Adaptive Risk Management harnesses social intelligence to identify emerging risks. We have entered an age of disruption where exponential technologies are transforming every industry. The ability to pivot in a rapidly evolving ecosystem is essential. Centralized “predict and control” paradigms will increasingly fail as complex interactions drive phase transitions. Successful organizations will harness social intelligence to “sense and respond” to giant waves of change. Maps amplify intelligence to help us navigate challenging terrain. Maps play a central role in all command centres, enabling rapid risk identification with a shared visual language. Interactive financial network maps allow analysts to explore and diagnose systemic fragilities, and mitigate critical vulnerabilities. Dynamic financial maps can also build visual intuition to detect escalating risk patterns. After observing early warning signals, analysts can apply network analytics to estimate likely second order effects. This allows organizations to proactively manage emerging risk before tipping points are crossed.

Description: The article makes reference to how the intervention by government agencies and institutions into the financial marketplace are creating distortions. This artificial tampering into market mechanisms will likely result in major financial dislocations down the road as natural economic forces (coined by the term "invisible hand") eventually are allowed to come into play.

Description: Many top-performing businesses aren’t just risk aware, but rather risk intelligent. Such a posture helps prepare companies for a major event and can demonstrate to a regulator or auditor that an appropriately strong control framework is in place. Better still, companies gain real strategic value from a “risk adjusted” understanding not only of their threats and vulnerabilities, but also the upside opportunities associated with various risks. It starts with having both qualitative and quantitative information to identify, assess and manage risks. Strategic risk management, at its core, is about creating value by increasing transparency and accountability, and quality of information. More than a mere compliance exercise, effective risk management enables more informed strategic decision making, increased accountability and transparency, a greater likelihood of organizational success, and – ultimately – competitive advantage, as borne out by many studies that correlate risk management and financial results.

Description: Risk management and capital budgeting are two critical components of the corporate decision process. They often need to be considered jointly at the corporate level because of their natural interaction through the dependent risk exposures and other synergetic relationships within an intricate corporate structure in a dynamic business environment. . This paper develops an integrated framework that aligns these two important corporate strategies across business divisions to optimize the streamlined enterprise strategic goal in a multi-period setting. The proposed integrated framework can serve as a practical guideline for corporate executives to optimally coordinate capital budgeting and risk management at the enterprise level.

Description: The paper discusses the arguments supporting the need for risk culture to transition into ERM culture to be embedded across financial organizations. Creating and maintaining strong ERM culture is paramount to a lasting and meaningful ERM program. It is essential for organizations to understand what ERM culture is, how it gets established and in what way affects the process of ERM implementation. Often, the implications of financial enterprises not focusing on the significance of ERM culture manifested in severely compromised ability to generate sustainable value and market competitive advantage. This paper calls for rethinking the role of ERM culture in the context of managing risks.

Description: To be financially "well" is unique to an individual. Following a hierarchy of needs is key, along with saving more than the talking heads tell you to.