 Hi everyone, it's MJ the fellow act tree and in today's video. I've got a special guest I was going through LinkedIn and I saw that Amon from Zimbabwe had passed his fellowship exam so I reached out to him with a series of questions and asked him to film himself and Send me the recordings and so we can make this this type of interview video And what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna put the timestamps on all the different questions to the right of me So you can pick exactly which question you want to jump to or you can just sit back and relax And yeah, listen to the entire thing. Anyway, let me pass it over to him and I hope you guys enjoy this video. Cheers Hi Micah Thank you for having me. My name is Amon from Zimbabwe So yeah, I did pass my last actual fellowship exam in July of 2021 I was quite excited It was a phenomenal feeling to have finally completed all the examination requirements for the qualification of Fellowship of the Institute in faculty of actuaries So this was after many years of hard work focus and determination Well before I hit about the actual profession I had wanted to become a mathematician because I was quite good with numbers Then when I was in high school That's when I first heard about the actual profession and the work that actuaries do and I must say it really Fascinated me and from that time I've always wanted to become an actuary So actuaries are known for their great mathematical and statistical abilities They work with large amounts of data They use past data current data and apply judgment to predict future risk events They price risk Actuaries are problem solvers and strategic thinkers So the work that actuaries do is quite important to society at large You may want to think of your motor insurance your life insurance Pensions or that is very important to society. So we have seen in recent times The work of actuaries becoming more pronounced. For example during this pandemic We have seen governments acting on recommendations from actuaries and actuaries also have that great ability to analyze very complex Assignments, but more importantly, they're able to communicate the results in a simple and clear way So actuaries are very good communicators I started off my career with the moonlight funeral before moving to Zimbabwe actual consultants Which is one of the leading actual consulting films in Zimbabwe It is a subsidiary of the delete life assurance Then I was seconded to Malawi to be with Vanguard life assurance Which is also a subsidiary of the delete life. So over these years I've gained substantial experience in a number of areas. So these have included product development and pricing Where basically you are looking to identify customer needs then designing a product to meet those customer needs then You want to place a value on that product Which is the price that the customer then pays to the to the company I've also been involved in several actual evaluations for patients life in short term So that your evaluations you are basically trying to place a value on the assets of the company and the liabilities As well as determining the capital requirements so there's a great deal of actual skills That is required to place a value on the liabilities So this is where those Mathematical and statistical skills come into play. So at the end of the day what you are looking to To see is whether the assets are sufficient to cover the liabilities as well as the capital requirements So all this work is done within a regulatory framework and also taking into account professional standards I've also been involved in capital modeling exercises to be specific this way economic capital modeling exercises where you are looking to Determining the amount of capital that a company should hold so that it can meet its risk exposures and feature business aspirations We've also been involved in asset liability modeling exercises where basically you are looking to Determining an asset allocation That to ensure that the company will be able to meet its liabilities And we've also done embedded value calculations and at the moment one of the biggest project that we are doing is a 317 implementation And here in Malawi. I'm also a technical member of the Malawi mortality development committee So Michael, I think you'd agree with me That the terms that we are living in are quite unprecedented Technology is moving fast So I see most of the work that we are doing is actually becoming automated in the next 10 years So there are also quite a number of opportunities for actuaries that I think will prop up Like in the next five to ten years. So I see more and more actuaries Moving into wider fields like banking and finance climate change and technology So the actual profession needs to respond and scale up its capabilities to deal with these changes I think the biggest threat to the actual profession is inaction Not responding to the changes that we are seeing and not scaling up its abilities To be relevant in the future that we are facing a future that I think is confusing complicated and challenging so I believe in One of the greatest quotes from our very own Reading done that the actual who is only an actuary is not an actuary. So I think the future That we are going to be facing Requires actuaries who are not just actuaries My advice to someone who is considering a career in natural science is to say if you have those great mathematical abilities You are a problem solver then this might be a career for you So I would say actual science is quite interesting Even from a working perspective you would be meeting new things new stuff From time to time. So there's that scope and space to be innovative to be creative To really think outside the box. So this makes actual science quite interesting But well before in back month agenda becoming actually I would suggest that you carry out some bit of research to really understand the work that actuaries do and also The qualification requirements Which is to do with the exams and stuff So that you find if it is something that you that you can do then to Those students who are already writing exams, but maybe struggling to finish all the exams My biggest advice is to say keep focused so If you've been failing an exam, it may be an issue of an exam technique So be bold to ask for advice ask for exam techniques ask for what worked for others and Hopefully that may improve your chances of passing in future exams. Thank you