We Are Actuaries

Hosted by Julia Lessing

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Oct 2026

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About the show

Welcome to the We Are Actuaries Podcast, where you’ll meet leaders who use their actuarial powers to solve a range of problems and make a real difference.

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October 20, 2026Episode 9524 min

Academic Actuaries with Simon Guthrie and Martin Mulcare

Tell us what you thought of this episode! What would you change in the actuarial syllabus? It’s the question that lands every time someone says the syllabus hasn’t changed much since they studied. Simon Guthrie’s answer is refreshingly honest - and it might change how you think about preparing the next generation. In this episode, guest host Martin Mulcare talks with Simon, Senior Lecturer at Macquarie University. Simon’s path wasn’t a straight line. He went from PwC consulting to the founding actuarial team at the NDIA, then to academia in 2018, a move he’d never planned. He explains what an academic actually does all day, why he feels the weight of being a gatekeeper to the profession, and how his PhD on the long-term costs of severe traumatic brain injury could shape insurance and disability policy. Key takeaways Understand the 40/40/20 split of what a balanced academic role involves: teaching, research and service Trust solid foundations over crystal balls - the actuaries who’ve pushed the profession forward all started with the same training Recognise the responsibility of the gatekeeper role, where a few marks can decide who earns an exemption Apply research to real problems, so good work doesn’t end up gathering dust on a report on a shelf Consider the move into academia if teaching and broader impact get you out of bed. For Simon, nothing beats watching former students return as qualified actuaries and share the great work they’re doing Simon’s tip for any actuary considering a move to academia? “Go for it.” Just expect quieter, closed-door offices instead of a bustling open-plan workplace. If you were designing the syllabus from scratch, what would you keep - and what would you dare to take out? This episode was guest-hosted by Martin Mulcare. Connect with Simon on LinkedIn. Connect with Martin on LinkedIn. Views and opinions expressed by guests on this podcast are their own and do not represent the views of their places of work. Read Julia’s leadership development books written especially for actuaries: For new and aspiring managers: " Aspiring Actuarial Leaders: The Modern Manager’s Toolkit " For new and aspiring senior leaders: "Senior Leadership: An Essential Guide for Actuaries" We are featured in the Top 21 Actuary Podcasts on Feedspot. Feedspot is an RSS Reader that lets you follow your favourite podcasts, blogs, and news in one place. Thank you for listening to the We Are Actuaries podcast. Connect with Julia and Guardian Actuarial on LinkedIn. For more interviews and articles, visit our website .

October 6, 2026Episode 9426 min

Academic Actuaries with Dr Fei Huang and Martin Mulcare

Tell us what you thought of this episode! This interview is part of the “Academic Actuaries” mini-series with guest host Martin Mulcare. You can also listen to the interview on the We Are Actuaries podcast episode number 94. Martin Mulcare asks Dr Fei Huang to share reflections from her experience as an actuary in academia. In this interview, Fei: Reframes the "AI will take entry-level jobs" narrative as a redefinition of what those jobs require, not their disappearance Introduces the idea of "cognitive surrender" — the risk of losing judgement skills by over-relying on AI outputs Describes her classroom as a "cognitive gym," built to keep students practising the muscles AI can't do for them Explains her filter for choosing research questions: real industry pain point, genuine academic novelty, or it doesn't get her time Reflects on translating public commentary (AFR, ABC, SBS) into better insurance literacy for everyday Australians Dr Fei Huang is an Associate Professor of Risk and Actuarial Studies at UNSW Business School and a leading researcher in responsible AI for insurance and financial services. Her work brings together machine learning, statistics, economics, and actuarial science to develop AI systems that are fair, transparent, and trustworthy. She works closely with industry, government, and regulators to advance the responsible use of AI in insurance and has received numerous awards for her research, teaching, and professional leadership. For more information, visit www.feihuang.org . Our guest host, Martin Mulcare, is a qualified actuary, experienced senior leader and a talented facilitator. He enjoys working with different types of people and he loves sharing ideas. Formerly the facilitator of the Professionalism Course, Martin is a member of both the Australian Institute of Company Directors and the Ethics Centre and is the Chairman of the Board of The Growth Project. - Connect with Fei on LinkedIn - Connect with Martin on LinkedIn Views and opinions expressed by guests on this podcast are their own and do not represent the views of their places of work. Read Julia’s leadership development books written especially for actuaries: For new and aspiring managers: " Aspiring Actuarial Leaders: The Modern Manager’s Toolkit " For new and aspiring senior leaders: "Senior Leadership: An Essential Guide for Actuaries" We are featured in the Top 21 Actuary Podcasts on Feedspot. Feedspot is an RSS Reader that lets you follow your favourite podcasts, blogs, and news in one place. Thank you for listening to the We Are Actuaries podcast. Connect with Julia and Guardian Actuarial on LinkedIn. For more interviews and articles, visit our website .

September 22, 2026Episode 9340 min

From Actuary to Serial AI Start-up Founder with Sam Zheng

Tell us what you thought of this episode! Here's what I've learned interviewing founders: the ones who eventually build something worthwhile rarely started with a five-year plan. Sam Zheng, my guest today, certainly didn't! He trained as a pricing actuary at Suncorp and Zurich, moved into consulting at Quantium and then, in his words, "for some reason," started building AI companies. Ten years and two start-ups later (plus a 2026 Actuary of the Year award), he's still not entirely sure what that "some reason" was. In this episode, Sam and I dig into what it actually takes to build a career (and a company) without the certainty most actuaries crave. We talk about why he never had a master plan, and why he's come to see that as a feature rather than a flaw. We unpack what it means to "become a friend of uncertainty" rather than trying to control it. And we get into the practical mechanics of becoming a generalist: how founders end up thinking like a product manager, a designer and an engineer all in the same week, and why the real skill isn't knowing everything - it's being comfortable saying "I don't know." What does this mean for actuaries weighing up a less traditional path? Sam's advice is grounded in his experience: be pragmatic about your runway, and get comfortable with not knowing how it ends. Key takeaways: Ditch the master plan. Sam built his first start-up without one, and he came to see the absence of a rigid plan as part of what made the work enjoyable. Reframe uncertainty as a relationship, not a threat. Analyse it and live with it, but don't try to control it. Start building before you launch. Sam argues that now may not be the best time to start a start-up, but it is the best time to start building something, anything, that solves a problem you actually care about. Let building make you a generalist. The process of building something forces you to think like a designer, an analyst and an engineer - and that's where the real skill compounds. Know your runway before you leap. Sam's first tip for anyone considering a non-traditional path: be honest about how long you can survive without income. If you've ever felt the pull to step off the traditional actuarial path but couldn't quite picture where it leads, what would it take for you to make friends with that uncertainty, instead of waiting until you've planned it all out? Connect with Sam on LinkedIn. Read Julia’s leadership development books written especially for actuaries: For new and aspiring managers: " Aspiring Actuarial Leaders: The Modern Manager’s Toolkit " For new and aspiring senior leaders: "Senior Leadership: An Essential Guide for Actuaries" We are featured in the Top 21 Actuary Podcasts on Feedspot. Feedspot is an RSS Reader that lets you follow your favourite podcasts, blogs, and news in one place. Thank you for listening to the We Are Actuaries podcast. Connect with Julia and Guardian Actuarial on LinkedIn. For more interviews and articles, visit our website .

September 8, 2026Episode 9234 min

High Performance, Human Leadership with Michael Lin

Tell us what you thought of this episode! When Michael Lin was promoted from senior pricing manager to the Head of Pricing, his instinct was to stay deeply involved in the work as a Pricing Actuary alongside his new leadership role. Over time, he learned effective leadership is more about creating clarity, empowering others and focusing on strategic impact. In this episode, Michael takes us through the leadership lessons he's picked up over ten years at TAL – not the polished, highlight-reel version, but the ones that came from the gap between what a role needed and where he actually was at the time. We talk about why staying quiet as a senior leader isn't neutral (it reads as agreement), why feedback that ticks every box in the leadership textbook can still land badly, and how a piece of direct feedback from his own team – that he'd become "the messenger, not the strategic leader" – changed how often he talks to his team and how much he chooses to share. What does this mean for anyone stepping into a leadership role for the first time? Michael's stories suggest it's less about mastering new technical skills and more about communication: listening more than you speak, repeating the why long after you think people have got it, and being genuinely comfortable being the bridge between strategy and execution. Key takeaways: · Help your team prioritise activities by focusing on the “big rocks”, · Speak up on strategy even when you think you've only got a 10% chance of shifting the outcome, but then back the final decision 100%, · Hire for capability, not for who's easiest to get along with, · Timely feedback doesn't mean immediate feedback, and remember to ask permission before you give feedback, and · Overcommunicate the why , not just the what , especially when a team is used to setting its own strategy and suddenly needs to execute someone else's. What would change for your team if you overcommunicated the why, just once this week? Connect with Michael on LinkedIn. Read Julia’s leadership development books written especially for actuaries: For new and aspiring managers: " Aspiring Actuarial Leaders: The Modern Manager’s Toolkit " For new and aspiring senior leaders: "Senior Leadership: An Essential Guide for Actuaries" We are featured in the Top 21 Actuary Podcasts on Feedspot. Feedspot is an RSS Reader that lets you follow your favourite podcasts, blogs, and news in one place. Thank you for listening to the We Are Actuaries podcast. Connect with Julia and Guardian Actuarial on LinkedIn. For more interviews and articles, visit our website .

August 25, 2026Episode 9127 min

The Journey of Becoming with Liting Chen

Tell us what you thought of this episode! What's next? It's a question that can sit quietly in the back of your mind for years. For Liting Chen, it was the question that ended one chapter and started another. After 17 years building a successful actuarial career across AXA, AMP and AIA Australia, Liting walked away, not because anything had gone wrong, but because she couldn't stop asking herself "what's next?" In this episode, she talks candidly about starting a business from scratch, the loneliness of entrepreneurship nobody warns you about, and how training for her first marathon taught her more about limiting beliefs than about running. It's an honest, generous conversation about identity, uncertainty and what Liting calls "Becoming", the idea that while we might be made from the same clay, our shape doesn't have to stay the same. Key takeaways: - Recognise that actuarial skills travel with you. Liting's superpower was more than her technical knowledge, it was the problem-solving, risk-thinking and discipline that transfer to almost any path. - Expect the loss of expertise to sting. Going from answering everyone's questions to needing the answers herself was, in Liting's words, like going from the smartest person in the room to the dumbest. - Be prepared for the loneliness. Entrepreneurship is sold as freedom, but Liting found the everyday human connection of corporate life - the coffees, the gossip - was what she missed most. - Reframe "impossible" as "unfamiliar." Every new running distance felt impossible until Liting did it, and this is a lesson she now applies well beyond the pavement. - Hold onto "different shapes, same clay." However your work roles and identity might change, Liting argues the person underneath stays the same. If you've ever wondered what else might be possible for you, inside your career or well outside it, what shape might you be curious to try on? Liting Chen is an actuary and entrepreneur with 17 years of actuarial experience across life insurance and wealth management. During her actuarial career, Liting held roles across AXA, AMP and AIA Australia, progressing from actuarial analyst to management and leadership roles, with a specialty in pricing life insurance and wealth management products. In 2023, Liting decided to leave her actuarial career and explore a different path. Today, she is the founder of Plenitude Financial, working in mortgage broking with a focus on developing partnerships with organisations and communities that share an aligned value of enhancing wellbeing. Over the three years since leaving her actuarial career, Liting has continued to explore what else might be possible. She began writing and sharing more openly about her experiences, took up running despite never seeing herself as a runner and, within a year of starting, completed her first half marathon and began training for her first marathon. These experiences have shaped an idea she calls “Becoming”, remaining curious about who we are, what we are capable of, and the versions of ourselves we may not have discovered yet. Connect with Liting on LinkedIn. Visit Plenitude Financial . Read Julia’s leadership development books written especially for actuaries: For new and aspiring managers: " Aspiring Actuarial Leaders: The Modern Manager’s Toolkit " For new and aspiring senior leaders: "Senior Leadership: An Essential Guide for Actuaries" We are featured in the Top 21 Actuary Podcasts on Feedspot. Feedspot is an RSS Reader that lets you follow your favourite podcasts, blogs, and news in one place. Thank you for listening to the We Are Actuaries podcast. Connect with Julia and Guardian Actuarial on LinkedIn. For more interviews and articles, visit our website .

July 21, 2026Episode 9036 min

High Performance, Human Leadership with Claire Greenwell

Tell us what you thought of this episode! Imagine finding out you're having twins — no history of them in the family, completely out of the blue — and deciding, right there in the ultrasound room, that your family needs to move states. That's exactly what happened to Claire Greenwell, and it kicked off a stretch of her life that would completely reshape how she leads. In this episode, Claire Greenwell joins me to talk honestly about work/life balance, burnout, and what parenthood has taught her about being a better leader. She shares the story of stepping into an acting branch manager role too soon after returning from parental leave, the burnout that followed, and the boundaries she had to set to come back from it. We also dig into how letting go of perfectionism — with her kids and with her team — made her a more trusting, more effective leader. This is a conversation for anyone who's wondered whether "having it all" is really the right question to be asking. Claire shares how she: - Treats flexibility as essential, not a nice-to-have — remote work and a nine-day fortnight aren't just what makes her job possible; they're what keeps her present as a leader and a parent. - Learned boundaries the hard way — after burning out in an acting role, Claire had to call her manager and ask to step back, and rebuild her confidence from there. - Redefined success around her team, not her own output — shifting the spotlight to her people's growth instead of her own visibility. - Let go of perfectionism with her kids first — and found that trusting her own intuition transferred directly into trusting her judgement as a leader. - Leans on outside perspective for people issues — a partner with an organisational psychology background helps her reframe problems objectively instead of reactively. What would change for you — as a leader, or as a parent — if you let go of needing to have all the answers? Claire Greenwell is a portfolio director at the National Disability Insurance Agency, leading a team of 16 people (including actuaries and non-actuaries) that specialise in providing critical analysis and advice on Scheme sustainability and reform outcomes to senior leadership, Board and government departments. Claire has worked at the NDIA for eight years and previously worked in life insurance pricing for six years. She holds a Master of Public Health specialising in research methods, as well as her actuarial fellowship. Claire is based in Brisbane where she has three young children, working part-time and primarily from home to balance her work and family commitments. Claire’s passion is building relationships and collaborating with cross-functional teams, such as frontline services, policy and other operational areas, to ensure that actuarial insights at the NDIA are meaningful and can be put into action. Connect with Claire on LinkedIn. Connect with Julia on LinkedIn. Read Julia’s leadership development books written especially for actuaries: For new and aspiring managers: " Aspiring Actuarial Leaders: The Modern Manager’s Toolkit " For new and aspiring senior leaders: "Senior Leadership: An Essential Guide for Actuaries" We are featured in the Top 21 Actuary Podcasts on Feedspot. Feedspot is an RSS Reader that lets you follow your favourite podcasts, blogs, and news in one place. Thank you for listening to the We Are Actuaries podcast. Connect with Julia and Guardian Actuarial on LinkedIn. For more interviews and articles, visit our website .

July 7, 2026Episode 8931 min

High Performance, Human Leadership with Melinda Howes

Tell us what you thought of this episode! What if the most valuable thing you could do for your team today was to stop doing things for them? In this episode, I sit down with Melinda Howes, Fellow of the Institute of Actuaries of Australia, former CEO of the Actuaries Institute, and current Group Executive, Superannuation & Investments at AMP, to talk about what three decades in the industry has really taught her about leadership. Melinda is someone who has led through some of the most complex environments in Australian financial services, and she's refreshingly honest about what she got wrong along the way, and what finally changed. We cover three leadership lessons that will resonate with any actuary navigating the shift from technical expert to senior leader. Key takeaways: · Step off the dance floor and onto the balcony. Your job as a senior leader is to see the whole picture, not to be the best dancer in the room. · Allocate a third of your time to leading your people. Coaching, developing and clearing the way for your team isn't a nice-to-have, it's the job. · Colour-code your diary. If you're honest about how much time is genuinely dead time, the picture might be sobering. · Invest in external relationships before you need them. Melinda's CEO had to give her a direct goal to get out there, and it changed everything. · Don't wait until you're ready to lead. Nobody has all the boxes ticked before they step up. Go for it anyway. Thirty years in, still being coached, still learning. What would it look like to take your own leadership development as seriously as you once took your actuarial exams? Connect with Melinda on LinkedIn. Connect with Julia on LinkedIn. Read Julia’s leadership development books written especially for actuaries: For new and aspiring managers: " Aspiring Actuarial Leaders: The Modern Manager’s Toolkit " For new and aspiring senior leaders: "Senior Leadership: An Essential Guide for Actuaries" We are featured in the Top 21 Actuary Podcasts on Feedspot. Feedspot is an RSS Reader that lets you follow your favourite podcasts, blogs, and news in one place. Thank you for listening to the We Are Actuaries podcast. Connect with Julia and Guardian Actuarial on LinkedIn. For more interviews and articles, visit our website .

June 23, 2026Episode 8823 min

High Performance, Human Leadership with Kriti Khullar

Tell us what you thought of this episode! What if the biggest obstacle standing between your team and great work isn't the work itself, it's uncertainty? Kriti Khullar shares this view and more leadership gems in this interview. Kriti is the Risk Intelligence Insights Lead at IAG, a recent graduate of the Guardian Actuarial Senior Leadership Program, and a working mum navigating all the complexity that comes with that. In this episode, we get into what genuinely effective actuarial leadership looks like - not the theoretical kind, but the kind you build through real mistakes and hard-won lessons. We cover trust and delegation, stakeholder management, removing obstacles for your team, and why providing context might be the most underrated leadership skill there is. Kriti is warm, honest, and specific, as she shares moments she's actually lived through. Key takeaways: Reframe delegation. Your team will deliver 80% of what you'd do plus their own X factor, and that combination is often better than what you'd have produced alone. Slow down before sharing work in progress. Be deliberate about who comes along the journey and when, because context sits in your head unless you deliberately share it. Plan more. Build a year-ahead planner to map governance milestones and create buffers, so your team spends less time firefighting and more time doing quality work. Share context. Shift from having the right answer to explaining the "why". Once people understand the broader objective and constraints, they make better decisions independently. Over-communicate. Especially when rebuilding a relationship after a period of change, because alignment gaps are almost always context gaps. Here's the question I'd leave you with: where in your work right now is someone doing a task without really understanding why it matters, and what would change if they did? - Connect with Kriti on LinkedIn. Connect with Julia on LinkedIn. Read Julia’s leadership development books written especially for actuaries: For new and aspiring managers: " Aspiring Actuarial Leaders: The Modern Manager’s Toolkit " For new and aspiring senior leaders: "Senior Leadership: An Essential Guide for Actuaries" We are featured in the Top 21 Actuary Podcasts on Feedspot. Feedspot is an RSS Reader that lets you follow your favourite podcasts, blogs, and news in one place. Thank you for listening to the We Are Actuaries podcast. Connect with Julia and Guardian Actuarial on LinkedIn. For more interviews and articles, visit our website .

June 9, 2026Episode 8731 min

High Performance, Human Leadership with Cosimo Maiolo

Tell us what you thought of this episode! What does it take to step into your first leadership role when the safety net disappears almost immediately? In this episode, I'm joined by Cosimo Maiolo, a qualified actuary whose career has taken him from Sydney to London to Dublin, and through just about every leadership challenge you can imagine along the way. Cos was nominated as one of our greatest actuarial leaders of 2026, and it's easy to see why. He's someone who's thought deeply about what it means to lead people well, and he's generous enough to share the moments that tested him most. We cover a lot of ground. Cos shares what it was like to step into his first management role, only to have his own manager leave two weeks later. He talks about what moving overseas taught him about humility and influence, including how building a simple tool for a client in Ireland became the foundation for real credibility. And he opens up about a performance management experience that reshaped the way he gives feedback, including a lesson that many of us in the profession need to hear. Key takeaways: - Say yes, even when you're not ready. Leadership opportunities don't come around often, and feeling uncomfortable is usually a sign you're about to grow. - - Your success as a leader is tied to the success of your team. Getting to know what motivates your people isn't a nice-to-have, it's the job. - Humility is a leadership skill. The willingness to step back, listen, and earn credibility from scratch (especially in unfamiliar territory) can separate good leaders from great ones. - Direct feedback is a kindness. The "compliment sandwich" sounds nice but often means the message gets lost. Clear, unequivocal feedback (delivered with care) is what actually helps people grow. - Unaddressed performance issues affect the whole team, because your other direct reports are watching! Kicking the conversation down the road is rarely the neutral choice it feels like. What's the feedback conversation you've been putting off, and what's it actually costing your team? Cosimo is the Chief Actuary & Product Officer at Teachers Health, an Australian-based not-for-profit private health insurer. His team oversees Actuarial, Pricing, Business Intelligence, Product, and emerging member health initiatives, with a focus on delivering meaningful, sustainable value for Teachers Health members. A Fellow of the Institute of Actuaries of Australia, Cosimo brings over 15 years of experience across life insurance, superannuation, and health insurance. He has more than a decade of leadership experience, having led diverse teams across Australia, the UK, and Ireland. Connect with Cos on LinkedIn. Connect with Julia on LinkedIn. Read Julia’s leadership development books written especially for actuaries: For new and aspiring managers: " Aspiring Actuarial Leaders: The Modern Manager’s Toolkit " For new and aspiring senior leaders: "Senior Leadership: An Essential Guide for Actuaries" We are featured in the Top 21 Actuary Podcasts on Feedspot. Feedspot is an RSS Reader that lets you follow your favourite podcasts, blogs, and news in one place. Thank you for listening to the We Are Actuaries podcast. Connect with Julia and Guardian Actuarial on LinkedIn. For more interviews and articles, visit our website .

May 26, 2026Episode 8629 min

High Performance, Human Leadership with Jessica Lilley

Tell us what you thought of this episode! Experienced actuary and senior leader Jessica Lilley shares her leadership lessons. Jessica Lilley is a Senior Actuary at the National Disability Insurance Agency, where she leads a team of more than 75 actuaries and analysts providing advice to the NDIA Board, senior leaders and government. She has almost 20 years’ experience across general insurance and the disability sector, and has been involved with the National Disability Insurance Scheme since its establishment — first at PwC, and then at the NDIA, where she’s worked since 2014. In her current role, her focus is on understanding how reform is shaping the long‑term sustainability of the Scheme. In this interview, Jessica shares: - Why genuine recognition, modelled by the great leaders she's worked for, became a cornerstone of the culture she's built with her own team, - How an unconventional communication experiment during a period of organisational change became a permanent and central part of how her team connects, and - What it really takes to build a culture where people feel safe to fail, and how she measures whether it's actually working. - Connect with Jess on LinkedIn. - Connect with Julia on LinkedIn. Read Julia’s leadership development books written especially for actuaries: For new and aspiring managers: " Aspiring Actuarial Leaders: The Modern Manager’s Toolkit " For new and aspiring senior leaders: "Senior Leadership: An Essential Guide for Actuaries" We are featured in the Top 21 Actuary Podcasts on Feedspot. Feedspot is an RSS Reader that lets you follow your favourite podcasts, blogs, and news in one place. Thank you for listening to the We Are Actuaries podcast. Connect with Julia and Guardian Actuarial on LinkedIn. For more interviews and articles, visit our website .