Senior Actuarial Advisor

at  OPTrust

Senior Actuarial Advisor
Department: Actuarial Services and Plan Policy (ASPP)
Type: Permanent
Location: Toronto
Posting Date: March 15, 2024
At OPTrust, paying pensions today, preserving pensions for tomorrow is our mission and business.
When you choose OPTrust, you join a team of smart, talented people who fuel our success and have a passion for pensions. Everyone at OPTrust – from London, Toronto, and Sydney – makes a meaningful impact, our environment is fast paced, but we find time to have fun and give back to the community as well. Our strength resides in our team members with different backgrounds and perspectives creating an inclusive and fulfilling place to work for everyone.

What OPTrust Offers You

• Unique culture rooted in our core values – collaboration and teamwork, integrity, respect, flexibility, and excellence and continuous improvement – reflected across the team.
• Dedicated business strategy for inclusion, diversity and equity with multiple, meaningful opportunities to participate.
• Flexible, hybrid work model being implemented to balance the benefits of working from home and the collaborative teamwork experience in the office.
• Membership in our world-class defined benefit pension plan.
• A purpose-driven environment, including the opportunity to contribute to OPTrust’s climate change and responsible investing programs.
• Professional development opportunities and learning initiatives including access to LinkedIn Learning, in-house speaker series, tuition reimbursement program and professional association memberships.
• Comprehensive benefits package focused on your health and wellness, including dental, vision and extended health benefits.
• Opportunity to take parental and adoptions leaves to spend time with family.
• Competitive vacation package and time away from work such as work-life balance days.

If you strive for excellence and continuous improvement, value a collaborative and flexible team culture, and approach everything with integrity and respect, then we invite you to apply to join our team!
About the Role
In this role, you will provide senior-level actuarial and technical data advice and support to Actuarial Services and Plan Policy (ASPP), Member Experience and Pension Operations (MExPO), along with other internal teams. In addition to conducting internal actuarial valuations and performing complex pension administration calculations, you will be involved in joint research projects with the Investment Division for purposes of scenario analysis and actuarial forecasting. You will provide project leadership for routine and complex projects including training junior staff and respond to any ad hoc requests on actuarial matters from senior management.

What You’ll Do

• Conduct internal funding, solvency, windup and accounting valuations for the OPSEU Pension Plan.
• Provide technical review and analysis on data and administration system related issues.
• Liaise with business partners and stakeholders on routine matters.
• Perform funding and accounting valuations for the Supplemental Pension Plan.
• Perform gain and loss analysis on all funding valuations.
• Provide coaching, training, mentoring and direction to actuarial analysts and others as it relates actuarial valuation activities.
• Collaborate with immediate manager on experience studies, deterministic and stochastic actuarial forecasting projects.
• Assist in the development and presentation of findings to senior management.
• Evaluate costing analysis requests by internal and external stakeholders for valuation assumption changes or costings for contract negotiations.
• Develop independent calculators or spreadsheets to assist and/or expedite the administration process for Member Experience and Pension Operations, including a final review of calculations required under various transfer agreements and other needs.
• Employ effective strategies to proactively identify calculation issues, facilitates resolutions to mitigate impact and risks, and communicate to senior management.
• Responsible for providing final review of actuarial buybacks, commuted values and pension entitlements for terminations, transfers, deaths, unique/complicated cases, and marriage breakdown.
• Work with other business areas to develop business requirements, data analysis and system specifications.
• Provide employee training on system changes and leverage programming skills, database knowledge and actuarial science to communicate with external consultants and vendors to approve system testing.
• Provide project leadership and guidance for OPTrust’s actuarial valuation process, including the technical development of the actuarial valuation extract application, testing criteria, system implementation, data delivery, guidance to data analysts and liaison with developers and Plan actuaries as follows:
• Review actuarial system/data and provide recommended changes to the extract application.
• Develop and define actuarial data requirements in conjunction with the Plan actuaries.
• Make recommendations on actuarial matters as they relate to member data.
• Represent OPTrust in discussions with actuarial consultants on technical matters.
• Support the analysis and cleanup of member data.
• Conduct research, develop standards and methodologies for valuations and other annual activities based on industry standards and best practices.
• Assist in the development and presentation of actuarial data and findings to OPTrust employees, senior leadership, and the Board of Trustees.
• Provide follow-up data analysis, review, and support for Plan actuaries.
• Review and formulate recommendations for system and procedural changes as they pertain to the actuarial valuation and annual information processes.
• Represent Actuarial Services and Plan Policy in special project work related to the design, testing and implementation of new systems. Key tasks include:
• Provide project leadership under the guidance of immediate manager and other organizational leaders in order to ensure key development and implementation deliverables are allocated and met.
• Contribute and analyze business requirements for new application development and design.
• Review system functionality/design specifications for multiple stakeholders and/or vendors to ensure they meet requirements while ensuring changes are accurate.
• Perform data analysis, data tests and prepares documentation for audit purposes.
• Participate in system design walkthroughs and evaluations.
• Develop user acceptance test plans including test strategy, criteria and data identification, resources, and time estimates; implementing and controlling user acceptance test projects, identifying issues with other departments as needed.
• Develop research plans for new application development. Collaborate with others to develop and recommend alternative options/methods where functionality does not exist.
• Provide ad hoc technical review and analysis on issues for external projects.

What You Bring

• A designation from the Society of Actuaries (ASA).
• Extensive experience and applied knowledge of actuarial mathematics, processes, practices, and technical requirements gained through post-secondary education and work experience.
• Strong research and analytical, written communication and report writing, and verbal communication skills.
• Knowledge of systems development lifecycle and business analysis principles and methods.
• Interpersonal skills, tact and discretion and strong client service orientation to deal effectively with a range of stakeholders (i.e., OPTrust senior leadership and employees, Plan sponsors and external service providers).
• Experience in pension management/administration field and knowledge of legislation, including the Pension Benefits Act, and the Income Tax Act.
• Excellent time management and leadership skills along with demonstrated project planning experience.
• Organizational skills and ability to establish priorities and meet deadlines.
• Ability to work with minimal direct supervision and to conceptualize and think creatively, critical thinking ability.
• Proficient with Microsoft Office Suite of products, including advanced Excel skills.
• Experience with ProVal and Ortec GLASS is beneficial.
• Exemplify OPTrust’s values: collaboration and teamwork, integrity, respect, flexibility, excellence, and continuous improvement.

Please submit your application via Workday by March 29, 2024.
Serving a membership as diverse as ours and investing in a global market means cultivating an environment that embraces inclusion, diversity and equity in everything we do. We know a diversity of backgrounds, cultures and perspectives are critical to creating long-term value. OPTrust is an organization engaged in building on our unique and diverse strengths. If you require an accommodation at any time during the recruitment process, or have preferred pronouns, please send a message to
careers@optrust.com
, or discuss your needs with the Recruitment Consultant during the telephone screen. We will do our best to work with you and provide appropriate accommodation.
We thank all interested applicants, however only those under consideration will be contacted

• Conduct internal funding, solvency, windup and accounting valuations for the OPSEU Pension Plan.
• Provide technical review and analysis on data and administration system related issues.
• Liaise with business partners and stakeholders on routine matters.
• Perform funding and accounting valuations for the Supplemental Pension Plan.
• Perform gain and loss analysis on all funding valuations.
• Provide coaching, training, mentoring and direction to actuarial analysts and others as it relates actuarial valuation activities.
• Collaborate with immediate manager on experience studies, deterministic and stochastic actuarial forecasting projects.
• Assist in the development and presentation of findings to senior management.
• Evaluate costing analysis requests by internal and external stakeholders for valuation assumption changes or costings for contract negotiations.
• Develop independent calculators or spreadsheets to assist and/or expedite the administration process for Member Experience and Pension Operations, including a final review of calculations required under various transfer agreements and other needs.
• Employ effective strategies to proactively identify calculation issues, facilitates resolutions to mitigate impact and risks, and communicate to senior management.
• Responsible for providing final review of actuarial buybacks, commuted values and pension entitlements for terminations, transfers, deaths, unique/complicated cases, and marriage breakdown.
• Work with other business areas to develop business requirements, data analysis and system specifications.
• Provide employee training on system changes and leverage programming skills, database knowledge and actuarial science to communicate with external consultants and vendors to approve system testing.
• Provide project leadership and guidance for OPTrust’s actuarial valuation process, including the technical development of the actuarial valuation extract application, testing criteria, system implementation, data delivery, guidance to data analysts and liaison with developers and Plan actuaries as follows:
• Review actuarial system/data and provide recommended changes to the extract application.
• Develop and define actuarial data requirements in conjunction with the Plan actuaries.
• Make recommendations on actuarial matters as they relate to member data.
• Represent OPTrust in discussions with actuarial consultants on technical matters.
• Support the analysis and cleanup of member data.
• Conduct research, develop standards and methodologies for valuations and other annual activities based on industry standards and best practices.
• Assist in the development and presentation of actuarial data and findings to OPTrust employees, senior leadership, and the Board of Trustees.
• Provide follow-up data analysis, review, and support for Plan actuaries.
• Review and formulate recommendations for system and procedural changes as they pertain to the actuarial valuation and annual information processes.
• Represent Actuarial Services and Plan Policy in special project work related to the design, testing and implementation of new systems. Key tasks include:
• Provide project leadership under the guidance of immediate manager and other organizational leaders in order to ensure key development and implementation deliverables are allocated and met.
• Contribute and analyze business requirements for new application development and design.
• Review system functionality/design specifications for multiple stakeholders and/or vendors to ensure they meet requirements while ensuring changes are accurate.
• Perform data analysis, data tests and prepares documentation for audit purposes.
• Participate in system design walkthroughs and evaluations.
• Develop user acceptance test plans including test strategy, criteria and data identification, resources, and time estimates; implementing and controlling user acceptance test projects, identifying issues with other departments as needed.
• Develop research plans for new application development. Collaborate with others to develop and recommend alternative options/methods where functionality does not exist.
• Provide ad hoc technical review and analysis on issues for external projects