Ernest graduated with a degree in Actuarial Science from the University of Cape Town and started his career at a leading analytics firm where they used data to guide strategy and drive business performance for clients in a range of industries. In particular, Ernest did a lot of work on loyalty programmes for banks, insurers and retail companies.
Thereafter, Ernest worked in a bank to help grow an in-house data analytics team with the aim of providing a more scientific approach to strategic decision-making within the bank, specifically in pricing, product development and value propositions.
Given the increased number of actuaries working in banking in recent years, the Actuarial Society of South Africa (ASSA) established the Fellowship exam in Banking Applications to better prepare actuaries planning to pursue a career in banking. The first exam was written in October 2015 with zero candidates passing. Ernest was one of only four candidates to pass the following session in May 2016, attaining both his FASSA and the CERA professional status. (Fellow of the Actuaries Society of South Africa, and the Chartered Enterprise Risk Actuary).
Globally, there is a definite trend towards acknowledging, refining and enhancing the role played by actuaries in banking. In support of this, the IAA (www.actuaries.org) has set up a Banking Working Group devoted to identifying and discussing opportunities and practices for actuaries working in the banking industry.
Shivash is a Fellow of both the Institute of Actuaries (UK) and the Actuarial Society of South Africa. Shivash started his career working in the Health insurance market with Alexander Forbes Financial Services. Working under the guidance of experienced Health Actuaries he gained valuable insight into the claims reserving, monitoring and pricing functions that form an integral part of this developed and mature insurance market.
Shivash supplements his Health Insurance knowledge with Life Insurance experience gained by working at QED Actuaries and Consultants, one of the largest Actuarial and Consulting Companies operating in Africa and also a division of the Aon Group. With experience working on Life Product Development, Pricing and Reserving he has knowledge of the specific technical differences between Life and General Insurance.
As a Consulting Actuary and Partner at Lux, Shivash has experience working in the General and Health insurance markets, including those based in the Kingdoms of Saudi Arabia and Bahrain, the UAE and Qatar. He consults to many companies in the Gulf, providing key technical underwriting support backed by experience consulting in the Health Insurance environment. Shivash also consults on the Motor insurance side to insurers looking to understand their claims experience in greater detail.
Shivash has led the expansion of the Lux Group into the UAE. With a growing breadth of expertise and experience, Shivash seeks to provide actuarial support to the strong Lux client base located across the region.
Darshan Ruparelia is a Fellow of the Institute & Faculty of Actuaries (UK), Fellow of the Actuarial Society of Kenya and Fellow of the Actuarial Society of Tanzania with over 16 years of experience in advising public and private sector employee benefits’ schemes in the UK and in Sub-Saharan Africa.
He has advised some of the largest public service pension schemes in the UK eg the Local Government Pension Schemes and has also advised occupational pension schemes in the UK, Middle EAst and East Africa. Wider, Darshan has advised the social security schemes in Rwanda, Zanzibar, Mauritius and Palau.
Darshan also has experience in advising both life and non-life insurance companies in East Africa.
Darshan is part of the Disciplinary Pool of the Institute & Faculty of Actuaries which is the UK’s only chartered professional body dedicated to educating, developing and regulating actuaries based both in the UK and internationally.
Joseph Birundu is an actuary with over 20 years’ experience in insurance both in the UK and Kenya. Joseph is currently responsible for growing the Lux Actuaries consultancy business and providing consultancy services to clients.
Previous experience includes the varied projects that comes with being a Consulting Actuary as well as the very particular focus as the Group Actuary at UAP Old Mutual where he was responsible for managing the East African Actuarial team. He has worked in large insurers and reinsurers in UK both as a senior member of staff or as consultant. In the UK he worked for companies like: Royal Sun alliance, AVIVA, Lloyds Banking Group, AXA, Legal and General, Scor RE and Pacific Life Re.
He is the Chair of the Life Insurance Working Party of The Actuarial Society of Kenya. He is also a member of the IFRS 17 Working Party of The Actuarial Society of Kenya.
Ruan van Rensburg is an experienced senior actuary. He has served as the appointed actuary to a number of insurance companies in the Middle East, in Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Oman and the UAE, preparing Financial Condition Reports (FCRs) and Motor and Medical Pricing Reports for comprehensive statutory reporting.
Currently he spends his time in the Employee Benefits consulting field, working on IAS 19 valuations, and helping with the development of the Lux Actuaries Banking consulting offering.
Priyank is a Fellow of the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries (IFoA), Institute of Actuaries of India (IAI) and Insurance Institute of India (III). He has extensive experience in the GCC and the Indian markets, where he has been working in statutory and consulting capacities, including for some of the regulatory bodies. As a senior consulting actuary, he is involved in growing our appointed actuary services as well as diversifying our offerings to clients in the GCC.
Priyank’s experience includes managing reserving projects, preparing Financial Condition Reports (FCRs), pricing, monitoring rate adequacy and portfolio performances, developing frameworks for asset liability modelling, capital management, business planning and developing ERM framework for non-life insurance companies. He also has CERA (Chartered Enterprise Risk Actuary) qualification from the IFoA.
Susan holds a BSc First Class Degree in Mathematics from a leading UK University and is a Fellow of the Pensions Management Institute. Her career in the financial services sector started some 20 years ago and during that time she has worked for some of the largest Employee Benefit Consultancies in the world.
Susan is responsible for providing technical consultancy and advisory services, relating to all types of employee benefit provision. She is also charged with the sales and marketing of these services and the ongoing design, development and implementation of new, innovative service propositions to maintain Lux’s market leading position.
She works on a number of client accounts, predominantly based in Saudi and the UAE.
Since 2008 her work has been in the field of Employee Benefits Consultancy, specialising in corporate pensions and other group benefits. Before that she spent several years in the pensions management and pensions administration arena.
In her free time, Susan is an avid supporter of the England rugby union team and, following her relocation from the UK to the UAE, is now a die-hard Dubai 7’s fan. Strenuous gym workouts and marathon-long swims are also a key part of Susan’s leisure time.
Vasilis heads the Greek practice and accumulates more than 18 years of professional experience in the Greek Insurance industry serving various roles such as CRO for ING Greece, Chief Bancassurance Officer for National Insurance Company and Head of Actuarial Services for Deloitte Greece. He has extensive experience in various areas relevant to Actuarial and Risk Management both from an insurance as well as from a consultancy perspective. He also led numerous actuarial audit engagements.
Vasilis is a Mathematician and a Fellow of the Hellenic Actuarial Society.
Sahib Singh Khosla is an actuary with over a decade of experience in both public and private sector institutions spanning all the facets of Financial Services including Industry, Regulatory, Consulting and Academics – managing reserving projects, preparing Financial Condition Reports (FCRs), pricing, developing frameworks for asset liability modelling in the pensions field, capital management, business planning and developing ERM frameworks.
Currently he focuses on the IFRS 17 consulting field and helping with the development of the Lux Actuaries’ Africa consulting offerings, and gladly involves himself in long-term risk management on several fronts in his free time.
In his pro-bono capacity, he is currently the Board General Secretary & Chair of the Education Working Party of the Actuarial Society of Kenya (TASK) and Board General Secretary of Khalsa Schools.
Yogesh is a Fellow of both the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries and the Institute of Actuaries of India. He started his actuarial career as an Actuarial Consultant with KPMG, where he worked with global (re) insurance companies on projects involving capital modelling, business planning, pricing and reserving.
After KPMG, Yogesh held the roles of Appointed Actuary and Chief Risk Officer in a top-tier general insurance company in India, leading teams of Actuarial and Risk Management staff, and reporting to the Board of the Company.
Before finding his true calling in the actuarial profession, Yogesh was a practising Chartered Accountant and worked as a Statutory Auditor with Ernst & Young.
Yogesh is now the Managing Partner of Lux India and, in addition to consulting work, is tasked with building Lux India’s outsourcing capabilities.
Certificate of Practice
Raghav started his career in Lux in Dubai, UAE in 2012. He has worked on Non-Life and Health Pricing, Statutory Reserving, Analytics and Product Development for a number of regional and international insurers, reinsurers and TPAs. He has developed a keen understanding of data and has streamlined much of the process driven capabilities at Lux.
He obtained his Fellowship of the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries (FIA) designation in 2018 (Non-Life Specialisation), following his Associateship of the Society of Actuaries (ASA) in 2016.
He rows crew, reads literature and budget backpacks when he can.
Mamata Pandey is a Fellow of the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries in London (FIA), as well as the Institute of Actuaries of India (FIAI). She is also a Fellow of the Insurance Institute of India (FIII). She completed her post-graduation in Economics and graduation in Economics (Hons) and Mathematics.
Mamata was the Appointed Actuary and Actuarial Head at Future Generali India Life Insurance Company. In that role, she was responsible for statutory valuation and solvency, statutory and shareholder reporting, Financial Condition Reporting, product design & pricing, reinsurance arrangements & management, experience monitoring and all other actuarial aspects at Future Generali. Before that she held roles as General Manager (Actuarial), in charge of Valuation and also AVP (Actuarial) in charge of Products.
Starting her career as a direct recruit officer in the Life Insurance Corporation of India, she had gained extensive experience of working in various aspects of life office operations – policy services, new business administration, underwriting, claims, IT, market research & training and actuarial.
Noman is a Fellow of the Society of Actuaries (FSA – life insurance track) and joined Lux in early 2019. He has over 10 years’ experience in the insurance industry. Before joining Luix Noman worked for a leading composite Insurer in Dubai as head of Actuarial, ERM, and Life Operations. Prior to his UAE experience, he worked in Pakistan for one of the largest life insurers as well as gaining exposure to Retirement Benefits, Group Life, and Health valuations at the largest actuarial consultancy in Pakistan.
Noman enjoys cricket and swimming in his free time and loves to experiment with flavors from around the globe.
Salman is an Associate of the Society of Actuaries (ASA) designated in 2014. He is pursuing General Insurance track for Fellowship of the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries.
Salman joined Lux UAE in early 2017. He used to work in a leading general insurer in Oman. His prior work experience includes retirement benefits in Pakistan and gaining experience in Life Insurance and Takaful.
He is also a graduate in telecommunication.
If work and study allows, Salman enjoys reading on diverse topics and practice yoga.
Kaloust has a BSc in mathematics from Aleppo University and qualified as an Associate of the Society of Actuaries (ASA) in 2019. He started his actuarial career at Lux Bahrain in 2015 and moved to Lux UAE in 2016. He worked on several GCC Motor and Health insurance pricing and reserving projects. He actively participates in model and workflow development and optimization processes at Lux. He is studying to become a Fellow of the Society of Actuaries.
Kaloust is a polyglot and a technophile. In his free time he enjoys reading and playing basketball.
Eric Ndoria is an associate actuary with 5 years’ experience in the insurance industry in Kenya. He is currently helping to build the Lux Actuaries brand in Kenya and Africa.
With his keen insight and expertise in the sciences of big data and machine learning, Eric is passionate about disrupting the “traditional” insurance playing field with today’s innovative technologies.
Eric is an Associate of the UK’s Institute and Faculty of Actuaries (IFoA) and has passed his Fellowship exam specialized in Life Insurance.
Eric is an experienced programmer. His post-graduate studies focused on machine learning and its application in unlocking new opportunities within financial sector.
He has previously worked at the Insurance Regulatory Authority (IRA) in life insurance supervision and Britam Holdings Plc in Kenya in the general insurance actuarial team. His experience includes actuarial valuation, pricing, capital modeling, budgeting, and regulatory compliance.
Eric enjoys playing and watching tennis in his spare time.
Kathya holds a B.Sc. in Actuarial Sciences from the National Autonomous University of Mexico, she was Associate Director of Risk Models and Collection strategies for Retail Credit Risk in Mexico and Hong Kong and was guest Auditor in Argentina, appointed to review the development of risk models and the collection process for a global firm.
She is a professional with over 16 years’ experience, starting her career in statistical analysis for marketing research and demographics, followed by 11+ years in the financial services industry with deep expertise developing risk models and collection analytics for Retail, Mortgage and Small Business. Her experience is complemented by a master’s degree in Systems with Operation Research at one of the top universities in Latin America.
In her free time Kathya enjoys visiting Mexican restaurants, believing that Mexican food is an intangible heritage of humanity. She also loves swimming and reading books.