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Numbers man sums it up
The following article appeared in the Western Mail on 1 September 2001.
NEW HORIZONS: Huw Wynne-Griffith explains how he came to spend his professional life as an actuary, and his plan for a more artistically-inclined future.
To the uninitiated or the simply baffled the arcane world of the actuary can seem a truly strange and complex place. Like that of ancient soothsayers or alchemists, the actuary's art is, for most of us, shrouded in the half-light of mystery.
And as far as the men and women who choose to spend their lives reading the financial tea-leaves and wrestling with the mind-stretching formulae needed to interpret them are concerned, most of us are probably equally clueless.
If there is a public perception of what an actuary is and does it is probably of a dull grey man, who eternally toils away, Bob Cratchit-like, as he completes endless, difficult calculations.
Or an actuary is, as one wag had it, "a person who can pursue a straight-line from an unwarranted assumption to a foregone conclusion".
The reality, Huw Wynne-Griffith, one of the founding members of the Barnett Waddingham actuarial and consulting business insists, is rather different.
To Huw, born and raised on Anglesey, educated in pure mathematics at Aberystwyth University, the actuarial industry has provided a successful career, the chance to travel the globe and a constantly changing series of intellectual and business challenges.
The son of a civil servant, Huw excelled at mathematics at school but he says he had little idea of what he wanted to do with his life when he headed off to university.
"Maths was something I really enjoyed and wanted to do more of," he explains. "But I think like a lot of people of that age I really was not sure what I wanted to do.
"I had a marvellous time at Aber, it was and still is, a fantastic place to study. Unfortunately the extent to which I enjoyed myself rather showed itself in my degree."
But, despite his slightly wobbly final marks he graduated in statistics in 1966 and 1967 had completed his MA.
It was only then, after four years as a student that Huw took the decision to apply for a job with the Liverpool offices of actuaries Duncan and Fraser.
"Like a lot of people I knew nothing about the job," he admits.
"During my time at Aber we had a careers talk about the industry and the man who came to speak to us ended up being my first boss.
"I applied with another friend from university but initially didn't really think it was for me - I left after about nine months and worked for Lever Brothers selling soap in the south of England."
But the initial charms of the soap business quickly wore off and within a year he was back with Duncan and Fraser - this time in their London office.
Huw took more exams and in 1973 qualified as an actuary having first dealt with the more important business of marrying Helen Sandover, a nurse from Hampshire, the previous year.
"My mother was very pleased," he recalls. "She had got me into a sensible career and I had finally settled down and married."
With his career taking off Huw was offered what he says was one of the opportunities of his lifetime.
"I was asked to go and set up our office in the Far East so myself and Helen went out to live in Kuala Lumpur in 1977. That was a fantastic opportunity, I absolutely loved the place and what had started off as a one-year posting ended up with me staying until 1981.
"The weather, the food, the place itself was great, a very convivial place to live and work."
"Also, although I was based in KL I was able to travel all over the region, to Singapore, Hong Kong and Thailand. There was also the St David's society in Malaysia, which I was president of for a year and enjoyed immensely.
"There is this strange thing when you go away from Wales but then end up talking to people who may have grown up in the next village to you - it gives a very secure feeling and the group was very friendly."
Not quite the image of the dull suit with a dull job then, although Huw does admit the world of actuary has gone through revolutionary changes during his career.
"When I started we had manual calculators with an arm you pulled, the office was always full of the clatter of them.
"Then we went to electric calculators and all of a sudden the place went quiet - you didn't have to shout to be heard on the phone.
"What really changed things though was the introduction of computers into the workplace - they now handle 90% of the donkey work actuaries used to have to deal with leaving us free to set the parameters.
"It has also made it easier to explain what you are doing to the lay person. That, more often than not is a company chief executive or finance director who may not understand how we have done our calculations but can now talk about the details of our recommendations rather than getting bogged down in the sums."
It was to that changing world that Huw returned in 1981 when he came back to the London office of Duncan and Fraser. He stayed there for another eight years before deciding to strike out on his own.
After a US take-over of the firm he had worked with for so long he decided to start Barnett Waddingham with a handful of colleagues. The company has grown so that it now employs more than 200 people and has 18 partners. Huw puts its success down to simple business virtues.
"We have never put all our eggs in one basket, no one company represents more than about 3% of our turn-over," he explains.
"Also I take the attitude that you have to be focused at work. I tend to start the day with three goals in mind, if I get them all done I have done very well, if I get two done that is fair enough, but if it is just the one then I have a good think about why."
You get the impression from Huw that there is never a day when his count of completed tasks drops below one. He is also Vice-President of Aberystwyth University and regularly travels back to his alma mater to attend meetings of the court and council. He is also on the board of S4C and is deeply involved with the Institute of Actuaries.
But despite having behind him the successes from a career he admits he fell into, Huw still feels there are many things he wants to do. An early retirement beckons, which he wants to spend learning how to paint properly and translating two Welsh children's books written by his grandfather into English, and of course he longs to one day return to his spiritual home on Anglesey.
"What I would like now is more time. There are so many things I would still like to do and I really don't want to get to 65 or 66 and think I am a bit too old for some of them. So I would say my ambition now is to spend some time doing those things I have not been able to do."
After a lifetime of sums he has probably earned it.
This article appeared in the Western Mail on 1 September 2001.
Barnett Waddingham, September 2003.