Professionalism seminar in Malaysia, 16 August 2012
In August, following a successful Joint Professionalism Course in Singapore, Staff Actuary Neil Hilary travelled to Kuala Lumpur, at the invitation of the Actuarial Society of Malaysia, to lead a professionalism event there. This is Neil's report.
It was the morning of the second stage of my eastern odyssey. I took the lift from my bedroom on the 24th floor of the Prince Hotel to the capacious room where the Actuarial Society of Malaysia (ASM) seminar was to take place. Long before I reached the welcoming logo of the hosting actuarial society, the smell of wonderful local cuisine hit my nostrils. My sworn intention, to watch my waistline until lunchtime, fell under the delete button and two platefuls of fried bean noodles quickly began to challenge the robustness of my belt.
I strode into the seminar room, fortified and nourished, ready to face whatever the Malaysians would throw at me. I had been invited by Melissa Chong on behalf of the ASM, to make the small detour, across the Straits to KL, and run a seminar – though I was still hoping that I might be operating as a bit player. Unfortunately that was not they had in mind! I plugged in my laptop, turned the volume up to max and stared at my audience down the barrel of the microphone; I had the material – now to give it a bit of exercise.
The delegates
There were some forty delegates, of whom a handful were Associates and one a student. After a round room introduction, I sallied forth with a few slides on impact of the 2011 strategy on wider member inclusion.
The Auditor in Court
With the audience now warming up and the timetable only of historical relevance, I launched the Auditor in Court, a tale of the misdeeds of a fellow professional, on whose tombstone the word “complacent” will be written in large bold font. This was a direct hit with the actuaries around the room and nearly sparked infighting between the consultants and the insurers.
Professionalism value-checks!
The morning interval was transformed into a working session around the coffee pots, as four of my favourite generic case studies were hotly debated by randomly-generated teams of ten. Silencing the ongoing debate with all the authority I could muster, I drew proceedings to a close, summarising the main issues covered and reminding delegates to perform an occasional professionalism value-check, however busy the deadlines.
I rushed back then to power-down my laptop, keen to avoid that “difficult question” that inevitably arrives on these occasions, if a speaker remains too long in the firing line. “Quit while you are winning”, my father had always told me. And so I did.
View a small gallery of photographs of Neil's seminar here.
Neil Hilary FIA