Name: Stewart Gray
Company: Standard Life Assurance
Job Title: Head of Product Operations
Year qualified: 1998

Summarise your role in fewer than 30 words.
Leading a team to deliver IT systems to develop new products and manage the performance of existing products.

What attracted you to a career as an actuary?
The opportunity to apply mathematics in a practical environment and to find out if the exams were as hard as people made out – ouch!

What do you think is the biggest challenge for a new trainee now compared to when you started?
Striking a good balance between work, study and social. When I started studying there were 5 mathematical papers which could be taken in two diets of exams each year and then 3 non-mathematical papers (two of which required 3 half day exams over two days) which could only be taken in April. This meant that having progressed to the later exams the summer was yours to enjoy.

However, today’s students appear to be under a lot pressure to qualify quickly – something I would advise against. Life is for living and there’s a lot of scope in the office to gain valuable work experience before qualification renders you too expensive to be given such opportunities.

In which area did you have your first actuarial role?
Triennial valuations of group defined benefit schemes. Part of my training in this role required me to value a group pension scheme using commutation functions a scientific calculator and a pencil. An insightful but not enjoyable experience.

What was the best piece of advice you were given as an actuarial student?
To apply for an operational management vacancy before I qualified. I was successful with the application and the experience I gained has subsequently been extremely valuable as my career has developed.

What was the worst piece of advice you were given as an actuarial student?
To try 3 exams in one sitting.

What, in your opinion, is the key to being successful in exams?
Study hard, both the syllabus and the course materials, and don’t assume you have good exam technique just because you’ve never failed an exam to date.

In my experience all students are bright and most are committed to working hard. Where people tend to get stuck is in the interpretation of the questions being asked and identifying which part of the syllabus the examiner wants to see you demonstrate knowledge and understanding.

How often have you reviewed a model answer to identify that you missed the point of the question and could have provided the model answer if only you had known that was what the examiner was looking for? This, to me, is a sign of poor exam technique and insufficient familiarity with the course syllabus.

What is the best piece of advice you could give to actuarial students?
To get a good study, work and social balance and not to be in a hurry to qualify. There are enjoyable and valuable experiences to be gained prior to qualification which you can build on post qualification.

What would you say has been your biggest achievement since qualifying?
Being told that I’m cool by my teenage daughter – evidence to me that my work life balance is in the right zone.

If you were not an actuary (and already living the dream) what would be your dream career, and why?
To be an engineer in a Moto GP racing team. I love the sport and the travel perks are considerable.

Do you know any good actuary-related jokes you would like to share?
It’s the one about the plumber who presents an invoice to the wife of an actuary.

She is stunned at the hourly rate the plumber is charging and states that even her husband (who is an actuary) doesn’t charge that much to which the plumber responds “neither did I when I was an actuary”.