“Reinsurance broking for a long time was known as a bit of an ‘old boys’ network’ and it is great that it has changed so much in that respect.”
Name: Victoria Jenkins Company: Guy Carpenter Job:
Head of technical innovation in EMEA
Timeline: 2014—Head of technical innovation, EMEA, Guy Carpenter 2012—Head of analytics UK, Guy Carpenter 2012—Head of actuarial UK, Guy Carpenter 2013—Managing director, Guy Carpenter 2011—Head of actuarial Services, Guy Carpenter 2010—Regional director, Willis Re 2009—Co-Head of retail analytics, Willis Retail 2006—Broker actuary, Willis Re 2004—Reinsurance manager, Aviva 1999—Actuarial trainee, Aviva
Victoria Jenkins joined Guy Carpenter in August 2011 as head of actuarial services and was quickly promoted to managing director. From there she was promoted from head of actuarial UK to head of analytics UK, managing a large team of actuaries and catastrophe modellers. At Guy Carpenter, she has already led many successful consulting projects and was most recently involved in the successful Flood Re appointment. As a recognised expert in the actuarial world, Jenkins has
given presentations at many conferences for Guy Carpenter. She has also written numerous articles on industry topics ranging from the hidden value of reinsurance for long-tail business to catastrophe modelling in the Middle East and North Africa to the link between behavioural economics and annuity payments. Last year, she was named head of the newly launched Technical Innovation unit for EMEA, established to deliver state-of-the-art and groundbreaking solutions that change and challenge historic distribution and analytics models in support of clients’ rapidly evolving needs. Prior to her career at Guy Carpenter, Jenkins worked at Willis Re as a broker actuary and rose to regional director—one of the youngest ever.
www.intelligentinsurer.com
Why did you choose to work in this industry initially? In terms of deciding to work in the insurance industry I guess I knew that was what I wanted to do right from school. I made sure my academic track prepared me for the actuarial exams. I wanted to work in an industry where I could make good use of my mathematical skillset in a practical yet creative way and get involved in a job that would be constantly evolving with new techniques and new technology. I basically hounded Norwich Union at careers fairs until they gave in and put me on the graduate recruitment programme. I came across reinsurance fairly early on in my career and
from that moment on I was hooked. Reinsurance has additional dimensions adding in the diverse product set, negotiation skills, catastrophe modelling to name a few, all of which really stimulated my intellectual curiosity. Not to mention there are a few colourful characters particularly in the London Market that make life just that little bit more interesting.
What has been the highlight of your career so far? Leading analytics for Guy Carpenter in London really broadened my horizons and I really enjoyed the people development side of things. The real highlight has been heading innovation as that has allowed me to explore cutting-edge solutions to old problems like the development of GCReBID, Guy Carpenter’s online reinsurance auction platform which is the perfect solution to balancing supply and demand and is really in the sweet spot for public entity clients.
What has been the biggest challenge you have
encountered? Reinsurance broking for a long time was known as a bit of an ‘old boys’ network’ and it is great that it has changed so much in that respect. In the early days getting taken seriously as a young woman was a challenge. Often the assumption was that I was just there to ‘take the notes’. However, I quickly learned to store up and then ask some really smart questions in meetings and that tended to quickly dispel any such notions.
If you had chosen a different profession/career path, what would it have been? That is a tough one. I did a few odd jobs before university such as catwalk modelling, farm work and even brick-laying but none of those really held my attention. Maybe Guy Carpenter headquarters would have been an option as I loved number theory, cryptography and computing.
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