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This series is something special. John Robinson served as President of the Society of Actuaries in 2023, the SOA's first Black president, but his path there was anything but conventional: from teaching high school math in Jamaica, to failing more Fellowship exams than he passed, to reinventing himself in an entirely new practice area after being fired at 55.

Over the next three weeks, John will share his story in his own words, the exam struggles, the ethical dilemmas, the career pivots, and the networking philosophy that carried him to the profession's highest office. Whether you're a student grinding through exams or a seasoned actuary contemplating your next chapter, there's something in here for you.

Here's Part 1. Part 2 continues next week.

— Syed

John W. Robinson FSA (1994), MAAA (1991)

I was born in Cambridge, England on March 12, 1954, the first child of a brilliant Afro- Jamaican mathematical physicist Rudolph “Ruddy” Robinson (Jamaica Schoolar 1948, University of Cambridge PhD 1955) and his accomplished Afro-Jamaican wife Pancilla “Pansy” McPherson. I inherited some mathematics, but no physics, from my Ruddy, and a love and some talent for music from both. At the end of 1954, we moved to Toronto, Canada, where Ruddy lectured at the University of Toronto.

In 1960, the marriage fell apart and Pansy took my two sisters and me to Jamaica. Most people now know me as Jamaican. In Jamaica, I completed high school then and the famous Special Degree in Mathematics at the University of the West Indies, graduating in 1976. My degree included Statistics, but the presentation was rather theoretical and did not effectively convey how this subject might apply in practice. My most challenging subject was Topology, which required the most rigorous application of logic that I have ever experienced; I got an A.

My first job after graduation required teaching advanced high school Pure Mathematics and Applied Mathematics. For Applied Mathematics, I chose to teach the Statistics option. I had to re-educate myself on the role of Statistical Inference, so I could be an effective teacher.

After teaching for 3 years, I was awarded a Teaching Assistantship to do an M.S. in Statistics at the University of Delaware, seeing a possible career path in Statistics. After that, I was awarded a Teaching Assistantship for a PhD in Statistics at Florida State University, just in case I might consider an academic career. The research bug never bit; so, thinking that a MS in Statistics from FSU would look good on my resume, I accumulated enough credits for a second MS in Statistics. I had been aware of the actuarial profession and a job possibility in Jamaica; so I sat SOA Exam 2, Statistics, in Jacksonville, FL in May, 1982 and got a 10.

My decision to return to Jamaica had two motivations: a career possibility in the actuarial profession and a Jamaican Honey.

On my return to Jamaica in 1982, thanks to a recommendation from two senior actuarial students who knew me, I landed my first actuarial job at R. Watson and Sons, who had opened an office there in 1970. This was the first instance of valuable support from my professional network.

If you have worked for R. Watson and Sons, Watson Wyatt, Watson Wyatt Worldwide, Towers Watson or Willis Towers Watson, anywhere in the world, then you are my “Watsons brethren” or “Watsons sistren”.

I married my Jamaican Honey, Bernice, on May 21, 1983. Our first daughter came along the following year.

Newsletter continues after job posts…

Starting my first actuarial role without any knowledge of the Theory of Life Contingencies made me less useful than I would have liked. So, my first education was in pension valuation data management. I was taught to be thorough and make sure all t’s were crossed and all i’s dotted. The experience I remember most was the case of a large bank, with about 1,000 employees. We had to account for every employee who was in the prior valuation census and then account for new hires and terminations since then; the “movement of membership” had to tie out with 100% accuracy. However, there was a problem: employees had no unique identifier; and Mary Brown might have got married and changed her name to Mary Green. We did, however, have dates of birth and dates of hire. This was a major manual exercise with lots of educated guessing. This lesson of thoroughness stuck with me throughout my career.

I was scheduled to sit Exam 5 in November, 1984. Bernice was also working full-time. Here is one way I accommodated family needs in my study schedule.

Every workday evening, I had dinner around 7pm; then napped until 10pm. By this time, both wife and baby were asleep. I studied for exactly 2 hours, because baby woke at midnight – like clockwork. I changed her diaper, fed her, put her back to sleep and continued studying for another 2-3 hours. I passed the exam, the final one for my ASA.

I completed my ASA (5 exams) in 1984 having scored four 10s and one 8. (I failed Exam 4 once.) For Fellowship, I decided that it would go better if I were in the culture on which I was being examined. My resume, which reflected my exam scores, was attractive to a company willing to file for my immigration. Thanks to a recruiter named Leon Mirbach, and thanks to a shortage of designated actuaries in the US, that turned out to be Nationwide Financial in Columbus, OH. I moved with my young family to Columbus. It may interest you to know that in 1985, my H-1 visa (now called “H-1B”) was very easy to get at the US Embassy in Kingston. Bernice and I walked into the US Embassy with the required immigration application forms signed by my prospective employer, and we walked out with the visas stamped in our passports.

My ASA is dated 1984 and my Fellowship is dated 1994. Why did it take so long?

Initially, my preparation techniques for Fellowship exams were ineffective. I did not have an appropriate set of study notes, and I was not doing the amount of memorization that was required. Here is what changed:

I didn’t care for ACTEX; so I wrote my own notes to say exactly what I would write in an exam. No sentence exceeded one line. I was “vicious” with unnecessary words, particularly verbs. Then I memorized these customized notes and tested my memory. If I got 8 items right for a 10-item list, that was sufficient.

I have graded Fellowship exams almost every year starting in 1995; and no matter what they tell you, some memorization is required. Once I changed my study approach, in 1991, passes became more predictable. My highest Fellowship exam grade was 8, and I learned to celebrate 6 or more.

In 1989, SOA changed the system to what I would call a “college credit” system, in which each exam was worth a specified number of credits (10,15, 25), and exams were either required or elective. As a result, the number of exams that I needed for Fellowship increased. From 1986 to 1994 (I skipped 1985), I sat 20 exams and passed 9. So, I failed more exams than I passed! I tell this story whenever I meet a discouraged Fellowship candidate.

In elementary school, I joined the cub pack, what would be called “cub scouts” in the US. The pack was divided into teams of six, called “sixes”. My first leadership role was to captain my “six”. I was about 8 years old. As a teenager, I served as president of my church youth group. This experience taught me the fundamentals of the roles of president, vice-president, secretary and treasurer. In high school, I was never the captain of our class soccer team, but I was a respected player. I played multiple positions, but never goalkeeper.

I think I was Nationwide’s first black actuary, and I was treated as an equal by everyone. I became captain of the “Mean Reserves”, the actuaries’ (not exclusively) soccer team in Nationwide’s coed soccer league. We won three trophies between 1986 and 1995 and every year we had one of the best teams. My passion for and abilities in soccer earned me the respect of team-mates and opponents alike. It also expanded my network and gave me a long list of valuable contacts outside the Actuarial Department.

My first job was pricing terminal funding (group annuity) cases. This was a natural application of what I had learned in Jamaica. It involved data management and a Basic program, later Visual Basic. For three years, I revised and enhanced the program considerably. I worked with IT to convert the census files into something Basic could read. The process we built enabled us to bid on large cases. After a while, we found we could not compete with Executive Life on price. (It should be noted that Executive Life bit the dust in 1991.)

But this was all I did, and I needed to gain more exposure. In 1988, I moved to the life insurance actuarial department, where I was assigned quarterly reporting responsibilities for Traditional Life. (Other actuaries did Universal Life and Variable Life, respectively). I learned about life insurance reserves and dividend scale calculations. Although Universal Life was not in my portfolio, I had the good fortune of being asked to write our first FAS 97 application. This knowledge would play a role after Nationwide.

John Robinson served as President of the Society of Actuaries in 2023, the SOA's first Black president, but his path there was anything but conventional: from teaching high school math in Jamaica, to failing more Fellowship exams than he passed, to reinventing himself in an entirely new practice area after being fired at 55.