CAS & NAWA Highlight Two Inspiring Female Actuaries
As we celebrate Women’s History Month in March, the Casualty Actuarial Society and the Network of Actuarial Women and Allies interviewed Julie Joyce, FCAS, senior vice president and chief corporate actuary at Travelers and Janet Lindstrom, FCAS, executive vice president and chief transformation officer for Arch Insurance North America. Thank you, Julie, and Janet, for the honor!
Interview with Julie Joyce, FCAS, MAAA
How did you get into the actuarial profession?
I loved math since high school and my parents had a couple of friends who were actuaries, so they directed me to the career. From there I went to Drake University (Iowa) where they had a big actuarial program. I majored in actuarial science, did some internships, and finally found out that I really liked the career.
Did being a woman impact your entry into the profession? If so, how?
I graduated about twenty years ago from college, which was a completely different time. There were instances when I met people that said, "Oh you're a girl and you like mathematics?" I never let that bother me because I found math interesting. But once I entered the work force and saw how male-dominated the actuarial science community is, it did surprise me. Although there have been a lot of cases in my career where I have been the only woman on my team or in a meeting, I learned that I still have a lot of allies.
Do you think the CAS prioritizes diversity?
Yes. I think they have especially focused a lot on it for the past couple of years, which is great! When I look at some of the infographics that the CAS has published recently, it is clear to me that within the industry we have some opportunities to attract more women to the career. It is difficult because there are so many careers that we compete against in the data analytics field. The question remains, how do we make actuarial science appealing and attract people to actuarial science, data analysis and other fields too? There is more that can be done in terms of diversifying the profession.
What does Women’s History Month mean to you? Do you have a personal tradition or any specific way you celebrate/recognize the month?
Travelers had an amazing line up of diversity activities in March for us. In fact, I am hosting an event at Travelers for Women’s History Month. In the past, on International Women's Day, I have gone out to dinner with a group of work colleagues (Pre-COVID). Post- COVID, we have done something small online for International Women's Day.
Do you have a relationship with/ or feel a sense of community with other female actuaries?
At Travelers, we have a professional network called “The Women in Actuarial Analytics” - a network solely focused on women that are in actuarial analytics careers. It is a chance for us to grow and connect with other females and allies in data analytics fields. I also mentor other female actuaries at the company, where I participate in one-on-one relationship building. I think as women, we need to encourage and help each other grow. There are a lot of opportunities with mentoring and spending time with other female actuaries. That is what is important to help the women in this field.
Interview with Janet Lindstrom, FCAS, MAAA
How did you get into the actuarial profession?
In high school when I began to narrow down my interest for a potential major, once I determined that it was Mathematics, I came to a temporary pause as I was not interested in teaching but really liked the courses. I did some research, learned about the actuarial field, and knew it was for me!
Did being a woman impact your entry into the profession? If so, how?
Not at all – I appreciated that actuarial exam progression paired with actuarial work was the route for advancement for anyone.
Do you think the CAS prioritizes diversity?
Yes, I do think the CAS prioritizes diversity, and that it continues to expand/increase a focus on diversity. As chair of the Member Advisory Panel, I can see in the surveys that we have run (or are planning to run) on behalf of many parts of the CAS, there is clear attention to and consideration for diversity.
What does Women’s History Month mean to you? Do you have a personal tradition or any specific way you celebrate/recognize the month?
I have always been an avid reader about women leaders, with curiosity about what led them to their role and how they navigate through challenges they encounter. During Women’s History Month, I especially appreciate the additional focus articles and spotlights provided so I and others can continue learning. I also am part of my company’s Women & Allies Employee Network with extra sessions highlighted during the month.
Do you have a relationship with/ or feel a sense of community with other female actuaries?
I am not part of a specific group of female actuaries that meets periodically, but I do enjoy trading notes with other female actuaries I have met throughout my career. We can always learn from and support each other.
Empower Hour with Kathryn Valentine
What do you typically think of when you hear the word “negotiation”? 70% of women associate negotiation with money - but negotiation can really cover a wide spectrum of options from money, to flexibility, benefits, or even additional support.
To celebrate Women’s History Month at NAWA, Kathryn Valentine of Worthmore Negotiations walked our group through an “empower hour” focused on negotiating successfully as a woman.
So, why negotiate? There are numerous benefits to negotiation. When we negotiate, we can improve our financial futures, advance our careers, but also increase our value and lessen stress, along with many other benefits. Turns out, employers gain from this as well, because as employee satisfaction increases, they are more likely to stay - increasing employee retention along with it.
Kathryn shared 2 principles for negotiating successfully as a woman:
Take a Collaborative Approach
This isn’t us versus them - and doesn’t need to be approached competitively. In your ask, focus on the problem at hand, and how coming up with this solution together can help to benefit the team, company, client, etc.
Ask Communally
Start with your Past Accomplishments and demonstrate how they contribute to the Future Vision (Big Goal). Then, tie in your specific Ask, and Stop to hear their feedback.
Negotiating this way eliminates risk, and often feels more authentic to us as women. It gives us the support we need to continue to achieve and deliver in a way that benefits everyone.
Want to learn more?
Sign up for Worthmore’s Monthly Tip Sheet and get access to their 50+ negotiable items list.
Meet Kathryn Valentine
Kathryn is the Founder of Worthmore Strategies, a consulting firm focused on achieving gender parity in the workplace by empowering women to ask for what they need to be happy, productive, and successful in their careers. Her work has been featured in Fast Company, Adweek, Working Mother and Forbes.
Kathryn graduated from the University of Virginia, where she was a Jefferson Scholar, and started her career at McKinsey. She has an MBA from the Kellogg School of Management. While in business school, she researched how to negotiate specifically as a woman; that work is the foundation of her research-based approach to women’s leadership development.
Kathryn currently lives in Atlanta with her husband and their two sons. She enjoys running, reading and burns everything she tries to cook.
Launch Event Recap
The Network of Actuarial Women and Allies (NAWA) hosted it’s official launch event on October 7th, led by its cofounders: Sandy Lowe (FCAS), Adrienne Ostroff (FSA, CERA, EA, MAAA, FCA), and Amber Rohde (FCAS). Our goal was to introduce the newly formed group, gather feedback from followers, and to host a diverse panel. The panel, led by Rae Warner, focused on a topic close to our hearts and one we feel can have a real impact – “Active Allyship: Why it’s important for an inclusive workplace.” Our panelists were Mallika Bender (FCAS, MAAA), Tonya Manning (FSA, FCA, MAAA, EA), Ari Moskowitz (ACAS, MAAA), and Yvonne Palm (FCAS, MAAA). An interesting takeaway for some was that even though the panel was diverse across many dimensions, the sentiment and responses were all very well aligned when it came to the importance and impact allies have had on their personal and professional lives – experiences being an ally, having allies, and times they’ve needed an ally but didn’t have the support. So much vulnerability shared from everyone, including many of our attendees who continued the engagement with the panel well past Rae’s prepared questions.
Video Highlights
Meeting Highlights
In regards to attendance, over 368 people registered for the free event, spanning across 20 countries and 33 states (of those who disclosed). 232 attended on the day of from well over 60 companies across industries, locations, and much more. A large group with vast diversity led to wonderful engagement during the event. For a kick off event, many were satisfied that it was successful in quantity and quality – however more so in connecting so many of us in a way we haven’t yet been and igniting a passion for what we can all do together.
In addition to the event, the community was surveyed during the meeting on what they’d like to see from NAWA. The results have inspired both us at NAWA and the newly forming Impact Committees on what we can all do together. Please see our word cloud which we will be bringing with us to our Impact Committee planning sessions. Hopefully you as well are as inspired by what you see!
We at NAWA - our volunteers, our new members, our followers, and others – are all excited about what we can do, now that we are united. We’re looking forward to the impact we can all have together!
Interested in the full meeting? Visit our YouTube Channel for a recording of the full meeting and click here for slides.
Get Involved
Unconscious Gender Bias and How to Combat It
Disclaimer: the opinions expressed by the author of this article don't necessarily represent the opinions of NAWA as an organization.
Unconscious bias has a real impact in the actuarial profession. We are not immune. It can be seen in concrete numbers around the prevalence of women in higher level roles as well as intangible attitudes and treatment of women on the job. It can even be seen in performance appraisals where men may be penalized for seeking help because it does not fit a “male” stereotype.
The good news is that we have the power to take on this challenge headfirst. We can raise our own awareness of what it is, where it comes from, and then take the first steps toward keeping it from impacting all of our careers.
What is Unconscious Bias?
Unconscious, or implicit, gender bias is defined as unintentional and automatic mental associations based on gender. These associations impact decisions and actions of individuals, and thus the cultures and bottom line results of organizations.
They can be categorized into some common tendencies that you may recognize.
Affinity bias is the tendency to want to be around people that we see as similar to ourselves.
The halo effect is a tendency to believe that everything about a person is good simply because you like that person.
Perception bias is the tendency to form stereotypes about specific groups that reduce your ability to make objective judgements about individual members of that group.
And confirmation bias is the tendency to seek out information that will confirm pre-existing assumptions. It puts subconscious blinders on with regard to information that conflicts with our initial assumptions.
As part of the research for this article, and out of curiosity, I took the Implicit Association Test (IAT) through Project Implicit. The goal of the test is to measure the strength of your associations between concepts such as gender and stereotypes.
I admit that I went in assuming - no, expecting - that I would be one of the proud few that has no implicit bias. After all, I am from a family where my brother and I were raised exactly the same. Getting your drivers license? You will learn to change a tire and check the oil. Eating dinner with the family? You will be part of the cooking and the cleaning up afterwards. Enjoy math? Pursue it with a passion. There was no such thing as a gender role in my family. Yet the results of the IAT were telling me that I do have a good amount of unconscious gender bias. After a short internal deliberation about how the test could be structured differently so that it would be more accurate, I decided that the result was actually unimportant.
The fact is that unconscious bias does exist. The most productive assumption that I, as a part of the actuarial profession, and global community, can have is to assume that I am influenced by it as well. Then I can actively seek out manifestations of the bias in my own and others’ actions and words, and in the environment around me. I can more completely commit to creating a career that is not as influenced by it. I can become more aware of times when I am showing this bias, and look for opportunities to combat it every day.
“Implicit biases come from culture. I think of them as the thumbprint of the culture on our minds. Human beings have the ability to learn to associate two things together very quickly - that is innate. What we teach ourselves, what we choose to associate is up to us,” - Dr. Mahzarin R. Banaji
As actuaries, we are trained to take in a wide array of information and then to make informed decisions based on that information. Our brains are extremely good at that.
Unconscious biases are formed through the norms that we are exposed to. Everything that we experience and view in culture, society, and our environment may be creating unconscious biases. It was in our upbringing, and in every hour of our current day. It seeps in through media, language, and experiences.
Our brains are merely trying to simplify things. We automatically use these stereotypes to make quick decisions and move onto “more important” tasks. It happens more often when we are multi-tasking or working under pressure.
What impact does it have on actuaries?
As an actuary, everyone has to jump through the same exam hoops in order to earn the associate or fellow designation. Your candidate number when taking an exam does not come in pink or blue. So how are actuaries impacted by unconscious gender bias? Let's look at some of the numbers.
Women make up between 31% and 33% of the membership in the CAS and the SOA. Yet in the financial sector women make up only 5% of CEO, 8% of CFO, and 25% of CIO/CTO roles.
The recent pandemic has been having an outsized impact on women in the workforce, so these numbers may already be dropping. More than one in four women are contemplating downshifting their careers or leaving the workforce completely.
A Yale University study in 2014 found that both male and female scientists were more likely to hire men, rank them higher in competency than women, and pay them $4,000 more per year than women. Scientists are trained to be objective, like actuaries. Perhaps actuaries are suffering the same results?
The above numbers indicate that there are implications in hiring, promotions, and pay. Yet the impact goes beyond the numbers. These biases can affect an individual’s sense of inclusion, respect, work/life balance, willingness to contribute according to their unique strengths and skills, and general comfort level at work.
Unconscious biases can lead to impaired performances as a result of increased stress, decrease in motivation, negative moods, and even monitoring and adjusting of one’s own behavior to try and offset the bias. This can create a self-fulfilling prophecy when the bias begins to negatively impact performance. Allowing unconscious bias to go unchecked has a negative impact on productivity and performance, and thus the business’s bottom line.
On the other hand, increased diversity and inclusiveness have been shown to have tangible impacts on both revenue and profit. Companies with above average diversity in management report higher levels of innovation revenue. And companies with more than 30% women executives were more likely to outperform companies with fewer women executives.
What can be done?
Recognize that unconscious bias is a habit of the mind. Actively seek to break the simplifying cycle of stereotypes. We, as actuaries, are trained to look at both averages and outliers. When it comes to working with others, we should be looking for the outliers and understanding the variability in our data.
Slow down. We fall back on biases when we don’t have the time to take a more critical view. Ensure that you are building in enough time for critical activities around hiring, promoting, and assigning projects.
Talk about the issue. Unconscious bias is a real thing in your interactions and relationships. Talk about what the stereotypes are. Just noting that there is a stereotype has been shown to offset some of the stereotype’s negative impact. If you are unsure whether there might be a stereotype at play, you can always approach it from a position of curiosity and seek to understand why processes or specific words are being used.
Create structures around hiring and promotion processes. Use consistent and unbiased language and questions. This can reduce the chance that unconscious bias will cause you to ask different questions of different candidates, or set a different measurement bar for each person.
Offer specific training to individuals at all levels. Not only will this provide information to be used to combat unconscious bias, everyone will see the focus on the issue and be more inclined to speak up when they notice something. It creates a more open environment. There are some great resources available from organizations such as Lean In.
Speak up when you see something in your organization that might be causing or contributing to unconscious bias. Be an ally to those around you. Recognize what influence you may have in your current position and use that to help those who may not have as much power.
Now is an optimal time to take steps to create new processes, habits, and awareness to fight the negative impact of unconscious bias. We can use the disruption from COVID to create a new status quo. Many aspects of how and where we work are being reassessed and restructured. What better time to make improvements?
There is no one silver bullet that will conquer unconscious bias. It will continue to be a part of our culture for a long time. But the more that we can bring it into the light and identify how it shows up and the impact that it has, the more able we will be to counter it. Only then can we truly start reaping the rewards of an actuarial profession in which the contributions of everyone are valued, recognized, and optimized.
Meet Aree Bly
Aree is an alignment coach and speaker. She came to coaching after 25 years in an actuarial career where, in addition to the technical work, she developed mentoring and coaching programs to support cross-functional teams.
Now, through her experience and training, she works with analytically minded professionals to identify and navigate their unique values, strengths, and skills, in order to enjoy the freedom of sustainable success.
Her speaking career has taken her to the TEDx stage where she speaks about the Four “Fs” and delivers workshops on using alignment to create sustainable success.
Breaking barriers: Unconscious gender bias in the workplace, August 2017, International Labour Organization
Spotlight on Diversity 2020 Infographic Detailing Membership Demographics Over Time, March 3, 2021, Casualty Actuarial Society. Retrieved from https://www.casact.org/article/cas-releases-new-spotlight-diversity-2020-infographic-detailing-membership-demographics
SOA Diversity Report, Society of Actuaries. Retrieved from https://www.soa.org/globalassets/assets/files/static-pages/about/diversity-inclusion/diversity-report.pdf
Women C-Suite Ranks Nudge up - A Tad. Korn Ferry. Retrieved from https://www.kornferry.com/insights/this-week-in-leadership/women-in-leadership-2019-statistics, 2018 data
Women in the Workplace 2020. McKinsey and Lean In. Retrieved from https://www.mckinsey.com/featured-insights/diversity-and-inclusion/women-in-the-workplace
Rooting out hidden bias. SHRM. Retrieved from http://www.shrm.org/publications/hrmagazine/editorialcontent/2014/1214/pages/1214-hidden-bias.aspx
How Diverse Leadership Teams Boost Innovation, BCG, January 23, 2018. Retrieved from https://www.bcg.com/en-us/publications/2018/how-diverse-leadership-teams-boost-innovation
Diversity wins: How inclusion matters, Mckinsey & Company, May 19, 2020. Retrieved from https://www.mckinsey.com/featured-insights/diversity-and-inclusion/diversity-wins-how-inclusion-matters
Johns M, Schmader T, Martens A. Knowing is half the battle: teaching stereotype threat as a means of improving women's math performance. Psychol Sci. 2005 Mar;16(3):175-9. doi: 10.1111/j.0956-7976.2005.00799.x. PMID: 15733195