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Partner
NAME: Danny Wilding
JOB TITLE: Partner
UNIVERSITY: Churchill College, Cambridge
DEGREE: Mathematics
The Beginning
I remember deciding that an actuarial career would suit my analytical skills, provide a good balance between ongoing study for professional exams and exposure to the commercial world, and good career prospects. After a few interviews I chose Barnett Waddingham as a firm where I felt I could make an impact and, crucially, because they seemed like they would be good people to work with.
Work and Responsibility
After some 16 years my work has naturally changed significantly. For example, I am now the partner and actuary responsible for Barnett Waddingham’s services to a number of pension schemes on which I first started work on as a junior trainee. Many of the people I first met at Barnett Waddingham are also still colleagues today. This means I have built some excellent working relationships and friendships with both colleagues and clients.
Very little of my time is now spent on technical actuarial work. My time is spent on client management, including a lot of time actually meeting with clients, and delegating work down through the team. I also spend a lot of time on the management of Barnett Waddingham as a firm, both within my immediate team and for the firm as a whole. I sit on the firm’s Management Board, and chair the Professional Board. I have been involved in decisions about budgets, recruitment, setting professional standards, new business lines, opening new offices, acquisitions and many other interesting (but not particularly actuarial) aspects of running a business.
The Exams
The actuarial qualification is extremely well respected, and I place great value on the high professional standards that are perceived of the profession. Of course there is a responsibility to live up to those standards as well. I have certainly never regretted the investment of effort in to obtaining the qualification.
I have also made good friends elsewhere within the actuarial community, and have enjoyed serving on committees within the wider profession as well.
Barnett Waddingham LLP
I chose Barnett Waddingham because I thought I would enjoy the working environment. After 16 years I do still look forward to the challenges that the working day brings, and find my colleagues and clients are still great people to work with. Indeed, with three young sons now at home the office is sometimes a welcome escape!
I was pleased to obtain the professional qualification relatively quickly (although many others have done even better), and I did not expect to become invited to the partnership and subsequently the Management Board quite so early on, but those events have made the journey even more challenging and rewarding.
It has been exciting to be part of a firm which has grown steadily and continuously – indeed it is now around ten times the size of the firm I joined.