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graDuate Profiles
Yen Ni Tan
Current employer:
KPMG Actuaries
Yen Ni Tan completed
her Honours degree
in Actuarial Studies
at the University of
Melbourne in 2003 and
joined KPMG Actuaries
as an actuarial analyst
upon graduation. Yen has worked in the General
Insurance practice, assisting in insurance liabilities
valuations for workers compensation for a large
self-insurer and in audits of several Australian and
Singaporean insurers.
Involvement in outstanding claims valuations has
allowed Yen to put into practice the knowledge
she gained pursuing Honours at the University of
Melbourne. Yen’s role in the valuation of liabilities
includes building models and analysing the
experience of claims.
While insurance liabilities valuation gives Yen
the opportunity to develop technical skills, audit
assistance provides the opportunities to develop
a sense of business acumen.
Audit assistance requires Yen to provide actuarial
expertise to the KPMG’s Audit practice to deliver
independent assurance on the valuation of liabilities
conducted by other actuaries. This allows her to
understand the dynamics of the industry and how
social, economic and legal factors impact the claims
of the various lines of business including public
and product liability, professional indemnity,
CTP and a variety of short tail classes. As audit
assistance involves constant client contact Yen
has been able to develop good communication
and interpersonal skills.
Yen found Honours in Actuarial Studies an
intellectually stimulating and immensely rewarding
experience. It not only provided her with a number
of exemptions from the Institute of Actuaries of
Australia exams but also the necessary analytical
and diagnostic skills which form the basis of her
role as an analyst with KPMG Actuaries. Honours
presented Yen with the opportunity to undertake
independent, self motivated research especially
in writing her thesis on pricing Asian options and
helped build a strong foundation for her career.
Jim
Hennington
Current Employer:
PrismXpat,
Global Financial
Advisers
Jim Hennington is
an Australian actuary
who graduated from
the University of
Melbourne in 1993 with a Bachelor of Commerce
degree. Since then he has become a specialist in
the field of retirement funding for corporations and
individuals, especially when people move country.
He has worked in the UK for over eight years now
after transferring to London in 1997 when working
for superannuation consultants, Watson Wyatt.
Before that he worked in their Melbourne office,
which he joined in 1991 whilst at University.
Actuarial studies at the University of Melbourne
was very small in 1991, with many subjects being
done by correspondence with Macquarie University
in Sydney. It was tough going with the 50 or so
starters in first year whittling down to about 10 in
third year. However this training gave Jim a kick
start towards his actuarial career and was enough
to attract Watson Wyatt to provide
a scholarship and a job afterwards.
In the UK Jim worked in the international employee
benefits field, consulting to multi-national
companies with a particular emphasis on retirement
benefits. He also had jobs working on the UK’s
Pension Mis-selling review and was involved in
setting up a specialist pensions administration
office for Hazell Carr plc (the UK’s fastest growing
unlisted company in 2001). Here he was one of
a small group of actuaries responsible for training
250 plus staff to bring them up to speed with
the intricacies of UK pensions. He has also been
working closely with solicitors who have complex
issues with retirement assets on divorce or in
litigation cases.
As well as being a Fellow of the Institute of
Actuaries of Australia and an Affiliate of the UK
Institute of Actuaries, he has completed the UK’s
Financial Planning Certificate and holds the G60
qualification (required to advise on pension matters
that are restricted by the UK’s Financial Services
Authority). He established PrismXpat in 2002 with
Darion Pohl, another graduate of the University of
Melbourne actuarial program, and has never looked
back. He has a keen interest in the macroeconomic
and investment impacts of various government
retirement savings systems worldwide.
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