Arab Actuarial Society AAS

AAS

About us

The Arab Actuarial Society is open to all actuaries and actuarial students, particularly Arab and Arabic-speaking actuarial candidates. The Society's main aim is to utilize the expertise of the Arab actuarial expats to help in developing and enhancing the actuarial resources and capacity in the Middle East (MENA and GCC).

Objectives

  • To provide a networking platform for Arab actuaries based both in the UK and internationally.
  • To act as a communication channel between UK-based Arab actuaries and other Arab actuarial associations/networks around the world.
  • To bring actuaries together at professional, educational, and social events.
  • To organise technical and social events at which qualified members can give support and advice to actuarial students.
  • To provide opportunities for qualified members to meet other talented and dynamic minds in the actuarial profession in order to fulfill CPD requirements.

Who's Who in the Society

Mayank Goyal, PresidentMohamed Aly Soliman – Chairman: Lead Policy Actuary at Bank of England (UK)

Mohamed is a British Egyptian qualified actuary (‘FIA”) with more than 18 years of experience in the UK financial industry. Currently, he is a member of the Crypto and Digital Money team at the Bank of England. Soliman was among the first cohort to complete the “Certificate in Data Science” – which was introduced by the IFoA in 2019.

Throughout his career, Soliman has held various managerial positions at the top five insurers in the UK and the EU. He started his career as a Senior Actuarial Analyst at the Phoenix Group in 2007 before joining Aviva Group, where he served as an Asset & Liability Manager (ALM) and a Strategic Capital Manager. After Aviva Group, Soliman worked as a Financial Risk Manager at Ageas Group and then as a Strategy Manager at L&G.

Arpit Surana, Vice PresidentMohamed Elsheemy – Vice President: Senior Consulting Manager, NECS healthcare consulting (UK)

A little bit about Mohamed’s career to date…long story in short: Risk management in government and academia, switch to health/social care in academia followed by working in healthcare data and analytics in NHS England and Bupa.

Then moved to medicine negotiations working with a team securing good pharma deals for cancers and rare diseases … and here now in NECS healthcare consultancy London team

 

Rishabh Surana, CoordinatorMohamed Rady – Vice president: Pricing Actuary MLC Life Insurance (Australia)

An FIA with over 14 years of experience in life insurance business, covered various areas of pricing and product development of retail and group business, actuarial valuation of life insurance business under Solvency II, MoS, and IFRS17. Currently based in Australia where he has worked with different life insurance/reinsurance companies and with experience covering areas such as retirement solutions, group pricing, valuation -retail business, reinsurance review, and UCTs.

www.linkedin.com/in/mzrady

Board and Key Members

Mahidhara Davangere, Mentor

Mohamed Afify - Head of Reserving - UK & EMEA at AIG (UK)

Mohamed is an experienced actuary with more than 21 years of experience. He has won Brian Hey prize from the Institute of Actuaries (2016, Analysing the disconnect between the reinsurance submission and global underwriter’s needs and 2007, Reinsurance counterparty credit risk).

Mohamed Afify is AIG’s Head of reserving for UK & EMEA where he is responsible for setting up the reserves for the regions he looks after. He has been with AIG for three years. Prior to joining AIG, he was the head of International reserving for StarStone International (UK Entity, Lloyd’s Syndicate and European Entity), where he built the reserving function and brought it back inhouse. He has changed the perception of the actuaries within the company to be a business partner and feed into the decision making rather than a regulatory function. Prior to StarStone, he was a Senior Manager in the PwC’s Actuarial team in the UK.

www.linkedin.com/in/mohamed-afify-0b9472a/

Shivang Gumber, CoordinatorSarah Mazhar – CRO and Board member AXA Egypt:

Sarah Mazhar is AXA Egypt Chief Risk Officer and Board Member with over thirteen years of experience in the same company (previously Commercial International Life (CIL)).
Mazhar experience covers all lines of business including Life, Health and Property, and Casualty. She held various roles within the Actuarial team covering pricing, valuation, and reinsurance before moving to build the first Insurance Risk Management team in the Egyptian Market.

Her experience includes part-time teaching at the American University in Cairo as well as short-term assignments in Legal and General in London and AXA Madrid International Hub.

Academically, Mazhar holds a master’s degree in actuarial management from Bayes Business School (previously CASS) as well as being a Certified Corporate Director, a Chartered Enterprise Risk Actuary (CERA), and a qualified Fellow of the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries (IFoA), becoming the first home-grown Egyptian female to acquire this qualification.

Shivang Gumber, CoordinatorHany Farag – Valuation Actuary at PartnerRe (UK).

Hany has over fifteen years’ experience with various reinsurers and consultancy firms in the UK. His experience is predominantly in the Life and Health (re)insurance valuation covering a number of reporting metrics e.g. IFRS 4, IFRS 17, FAS 60, LDTI, Solvency II and VIF.

He is an experienced actuarial modeller with advanced modelling experience in Prophet, Moses and AXIS software. He has successfully led a wide range of actuarial assignments.

Academically, Hany holds a master’s degree in actuarial management from Bayes Business School (previously CASS) and is a nearly qualified actuary.

Manal Leach FIA

Manal is a qualified Fellow of the Institute of Actuaries (FIA) and a CFA Charterholder, with extensive experience in life insurance/reinsurance and investments. She is currently Head of Investments Solutions at Legal & General Reinsurance, in Bermuda. Over the past 5 years, she worked on developing the company’s external Pension Risk Transfer (PRT) reinsurance business and leads reinsurance contracts negotiations focusing on collateral solutions and investment strategy.

Manal is originally Lebanese and started her actuarial career in the UK at Towers Watson where she worked for more than 10 years as a Consultant/Senior Consultant supporting life companies in many areas including Solvency II (SII) internal model development, financial reporting, M&A, risk modelling, and asset and liability management (ALM). She then worked with leading UK insurance companies delivering on strategic projects including capital optimisation and SII applications.