Original Link :

http://www.actuariesindia.org/subMenu.aspx?id=88&val=Meena_Sidhwani_Awardees&AspxAutoDetectCookieSupport=1

IndiaFirst Life Insurance, a joint venture between Bank of Baroda, Andhra Bank and Legal & General (UK), announced the appointment of Peuli Das, as Appointed Actuary, today.

Peuli Das comes with a diverse experience in insurance and Investment Banking.

R M Vishakha, MD & CEO, IndiaFirst Life Insurance said, “Succession planning and providing equal opportunity has been an important focus for IndiaFirst Life Insurance. We pride ourselves in meritocracy based promotion of women leaders in the organisation. We are confident that Peuli will play a key role in the growth of IndiaFirst Life. ”

Educational Background

  • I majored in Economics and completed MS in Quantitative Economics from Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata. From there, I chose Actuarial Science as a career path and eventually cleared all the exams of IAI in 2007.

How did you get to being an actuary?

  • I grew up listening about actuaries from my father who worked with LIC throughout his career. That’s why, even though it used to be a road seldom taken in those days, I always had an eye towards having a career in this field. Eventually, opportunities presented themselves while I was studying at ISI Kolkata. It was the early 2000’s – the market was opening up to the private players and they were actively recruiting from the campuses. It was with one of them that I started my journey towards an actuarial career. Few years of hard work, perseverance and discipline ultimately led to the Fellowship.

Career Path so far

  • My career started as an actuarial trainee in HDFC Standard Life Insurance Company in Mumbai in 2003. After a year, I migrated to USA and started working with Deutsche bank as a Business Analyst for their investment team, helping them to set up platforms for calculating returns for different asset classes. Meanwhile I still kept alive the motivation and determination to write and clear actuarial exams from New York. It was during my days with Deutsche Bank that I completed my final exam with IAI and decided about switching back to core actuarial again with New York Life Insurance Company. My involvement was mostly with their JV partner Max New York Life doing US GAAP valuation, business planning and actuarial economic valuation.  After almost 7 years I returned back to India in early 2011 and since then have been working with ING Life Insurance in Bangalore heading the valuation team.

Pleasure of being an actuary

  • To me, the pleasure of having a life and career as an actuary is no better described than by the words of the poet Samuel Johnson: “Life affords no higher pleasure than that of surmounting difficulties, passing from one step of success to another, forming new wishes and seeing them gratified.”For an actuary, there are challenges in every step of the way – immense responsibilities, a continuous need to reinvent oneself and prove oneself worthy of a wonderful group of peers and colleagues. But all that pales in comparison to the satisfaction of providing solutions to everyday business problems that are rigorous, rational, practical and effective; solutions that have very real consequences for the business and the industry at large. In today’s world, there are probably not too many other career options that would provide that and I am glad that I chose to be on the right side of the fence.