Graham Fulcher, Managing Director, Divisional Leader UK and Ireland, Risk Consulting and Software, Willis Towers Watson
Well known in actuarial circles alongside his twin brother Paul, Fulcher has participated in many groups that have advanced the thinking around risk management and Solvency II. He leads the P&C sales practice in Europe for Towers Watson, where he has been since 2008.
What do you enjoy most about your role?
As a consultant I enjoy working with the leading insurers across the world, and understanding the wide variety of risk management practices that different insurers employ. My own speciality market is the Lloyd's/Bermudan/reinsurance market. I love the way in which so much talent, expertise and capital is centred in two small clusters in EC3 and Bermuda and yet the business written there is global in reach and highly varied. The insurance and reinsurance written in this market forms a critical cog in the world economy, by assuming and diversifying the risks that would otherwise cause global commerce to cease.
What will be the next big development in risk management?
An education in risk management teaches you that the next big thing may be a black swan event that none of us can predict, but I can see two possible areas: 1) using the insights of behavioural economics (and the related findings from neurology and psychology) to adapt risk management to how people actually act rather than how a purely rational player would act, and 2) the integration of the masses of unstructured data that insurers already hold into risk management decisions, using the techniques under the "big data" banner.
Who or what has inspired your work?
The person of Jesus Christ inspires my life of which my work is but a small part.
Who do you most admire in the field of risk management?
I hesitate to name names for fear of offending the many worthies I would inevitably omit for reasons of space. However I always admire pioneers in their field – particularly those who build foundations but only really see the fruits of their efforts many years later. Some examples would be: the general insurance actuaries who bought their previously unrecognised skills into the Lloyd's market around the time of Equitas; those who developed the early capital models; those who first forged the convergence of the capital and insurance markets in the early 1990s.
What advice would you give to someone wanting to emulate your success?
Work in as many organisations as possible – you can learn from both good and bad practice, from success and failure. Read widely. Particularly in risk it is as (if not more) important to read current affairs magazines (Economist, Wired, Prospect) and to study history than to pore over technical journals.
What have you learnt about communicating risk?
The crucial importance of empathy in risk intelligence as well as in emotional intelligence. In other words put yourself in the shoes of those you are communicating to and really think through what your advice means for them in terms and concepts that make sense to them.
What are your other interests?
I am an active Christian and am involved in many related activities – children's work, small group leading, NED of a community coffee shop, advice to those in debt difficulties. I have four beautiful girls in my life – my wife Annette and three young daughters Mollie, Daisy and Esther. I also enjoy watching professional cycling, love to devour literary fiction and historical non-fiction, and am an Arsenal fan.
