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The University of Southampton
Mathematical Sciences

Worshipful Company of Actuaries Lecture - Wednesday 4th May

Published: 4 May 2022
Stuart McDonald
Our speaker, Stuart McDonald (head of Demographic Assumptions & Methodology at Lloyds Banking Group

The School of Mathematical Sciences was delighted to host our annual Worshipful Company of Actuaries lecture on 4 May 2022. This year, our speaker was Stuart McDonald, head of Demographic Assumptions and Methodology at Lloyds Banking Group.

We were pleased to welcome local actuaries from firms such as HSBC, Lane Clark & Peacock LLP, Deloitte, Quilter and JP Morgan, in addition to our representative from the Worshipful Company of Actuaries Mr. Jay Stewart.

In his first in-person talk since the start of the pandemic, Stuart delivered an interesting and wide-ranging overview about the risk analysis and communication of statistics in a pandemic. He started his talk with an analysis of the life expectancy and mortality in the UK and their principal causes and then analysed the effects of Covid-19 pandemic on life expectancy and future mortality.

As an actuary and co-founder of the Covid-19 Actuaries Response Group, Stuart McDonald emphasized on the role played by actuaries during the pandemic to crack down on the spread of misinformation and misleadings.

There was a good attendance by students on our undergraduate and master’s programmes in Actuarial Science, as well as those on our other Mathematical Sciences programmes who are interested in pursuing actuarial careers. Students found the lecture interesting and motivating. The reception following the lecture afforded our students the opportunity to network with the attending actuaries in an informal setting and to learn more about the profession and actuarial careers.

Two of our current third year students were also awarded prizes for their performance in their second year by Jay Stewart of the Worshipful Company of Actuaries: 

  • Xiang Qian for top performance in second year of the BSc Mathematics with Actuarial Science programme
  • Minyan Wu for top performance in second year of the BSc Economics and Actuarial Science programme

Stuart's talk is available to view here:

 

Notes for editors

About Stuart McDonald

Stuart is Head of Demographic Assumptions and Methodology for Lloyds Banking Group, where his multi-disciplinary team are responsible for the assumptions about policyholder health and behaviour used for pricing, risk management and valuation of life insurance, pensions and annuity policies. Stuart joined Lloyds in 2014 and built the longevity team which supported Scottish Widows' launch into the Bulk Annuity market. Previously he held a variety of commercial and technical roles with insurers and reinsurers. Stuart is a Fellow of the Institute of Actuaries and a Chartered Enterprise Risk Actuary. He plays an active role within the actuarial profession, currently serving on the Executive Committee of the Continuous Mortality Investigation. Early in 2020 he founded and co-chairs the COVID-19 Actuaries Response Group. Stuart was awarded an MBE for services to Public Health in the 2022 New Year Honours.

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