​Sumit Ramani is an independent consultant with a strong focus on InsurTechs and non-traditional areas. Based in India, he has actively stepped out from his comfort zone from childhood, through graduating as an engineer and later switching professions and qualifying as an actuary, to starting on his own as an actuarial consultant as well as recently launching another venture that aims at helping customers identify their insurance needs. In his personal journey, Sumit shares the four key ingredients that have worked for him so far:

​“I realised at a very young age that I have a thing for numbers and puzzles. I can vividly remember the morning walk when I was 6 and my dad, who is a medical doctor, introduced me to the concept of the time value of money. Since the earliest moments I can recall, he has been pushing the envelope. Hence, I believe that moving out of one’s comfort zone is possibly something that I have inherited. It also happens to one of the key ingredients of my success. 

The second ingredient is taking charge of one’s life (and of course career!), which I first learnt the hard way during my formative years. Up until age 8, I was everything but meticulous. Every day after school, I would throw down my school bag and go out to play with my friends without even changing from my school uniform. Doing homework was out of the question and hence the mornings were the most painful part of my day. I would beg my mother to do my homework and she would agree after a lot of persuasion and my false promises to do better next time. But one particular day, she chose to turn down my request... Naturally, I was reprimanded at school. However, since then I have been taking care of my own work and have never blamed anyone else for anything that was my responsibility!

Perseverance and Personal Branding are the remaining two ingredients that have been helpful in my career. Let me talk about these and the first two ingredients as I share my life journey.

​Another strong article by Annmarie Geddes Baribeau which fits well with Protagion’s enthusiasm for active career management. Focused on consulting, particularly actuarial consulting, and the skills needed, it originally appeared in Spring 2018. It formed part of a supplement to the Contingencies magazine of the American Academy of Actuaries, called Actuarial Job Seeker.

We particularly appreciate the style of personal stories and views Annmarie uses, and the insights of those who’ve experienced consulting underlie its authenticity. While this post concentrates on her discussions with consulting actuaries, readers may recall we previously shared our takeaways from 8 wider-fields General Insurance actuaries who spoke with Annmarie about their experiences.

Consulting is a topic we at Protagion have written about before, although those articles have been broader than one profession. They include:

• Discussion on depth vs breadth as a career strategy for consultants
• Lessons from consulting on performing while learning i.e. learning at the same time as demonstrating expertise, competence and self-confidence
• Aspiring to partner level as a consultant, including the appeal and drawbacks, the importance of generating fee income, and suggestions for those who aim to become a partner / principal

For her article, Annmarie spoke with a range of actuaries:

• Jeffrey Zilahy, an actuarial consultant for Korn Ferry Hay Group
• Roosevelt Mosley, a principal with Pinnacle Actuarial Resources
• Pauline Reimer, a recruiter for Pryor Associates Executive Search
• Claudine Modlin, lead of pricing, product management, claims analytics, and underwriting for the Americas for Willis Towers Watson
• Stephanie Gould Rabin, head of corporate strategy and senior vice president of Holborn, a reinsurance broker
• Thomas A. Campbell, senior consulting actuary for Actuarial Resources Corp
• Don Mango, adjunct professor at Columbia University who began his own consulting firm, Innovensure Advisory Solutions

As the pace of change increases, we find ourselves, more and more, in unfamiliar situations. Different forces can push us into uncharted waters at different times in our lives. Yet at Protagion we urge our members to practise doing things they’ve never done in order to feel at home with the unknown. For us, elements of this are staying curious, consciously pushing ourselves, and embracing new experiences.

In the context of this belief, the focus of this post is on how to learn at the same time as demonstrating expertise. The risk of feeling insecure is high in new situations, but we must learn to embrace this feeling in order to keep learning and growing. Also, as we become more senior, we are less likely to have breathing space to learn and become experts before needing to demonstrate our understanding. The speed at which things evolve means that time out to build expertise is more of a luxury than a reality. Often too, learning is a result of interaction with others, and in order to be accepted into the group, we need to demonstrate some credibility first.

In previous posts, we found that successful people often have some consulting experience in their careers (e.g. Routes to the Top – Investment Management). So, we looked at what we could learn from management consultants, who find themselves in new situations regularly. At a high-level, the mindset of a consultant can be described as a problem-solving one, where they gather data about the specific problem, formulate solutions, test these with their clients, and then repeat the cycle many times to refine their proposals. This cyclical approach means that consultants learn a lot about their industry and the players within the industry within a short period of time.

But, this post is not only relevant to consultants. Others who need to learn and deliver at the same time include:
- contractors (IT, programme management, actuarial, marketing etc)
- existing team members allocated to a project
- analysts and professional advisors
- freelancers and
- others trying to learn something new on-the-job. 
Like consultants, these types of workers have to adapt to a different setting with each new project or client and rise to dynamic challenges from the start. They also have to prepare carefully, signal their competence, understand the environment they’re in, and cultivate acceptance from others.