Let our students of
philosophy enter the world with no favor shown them; they shall compete with
men of brawn and men of cunning; in the mart of strife they shall learn from the
book of life itself; they shall hurt their fingers and scratch their
philosophic shins on the crude realities of the world; they shall earn their
bread and butter by the sweat of their brows.
This last and sharpest test shall go on ruthlessly for fifteen long
years. Those that survive, scarred and
fifty, sobered and self-reliant, shorn of scholastic vanity by the merciless
friction of life, and armed now with all the wisdom that tradition and
experience, culture and conflict, can cooperate to give—these men at last shall
become our leaders.
—Will Durant
Christopher Bek is a
mathematician, actuary, philosopher, scientist and writer—and is a superior
spreadsheet, database and riskmodeling craftsman. He has consulted to the top executives of one
of the largest companies in Canada—and has made presentations relating to the
philosophy and science of risk management in Houston and New York. Chris founded Risk Management Services in
1995 dedicated to helping executives develop scientific management practices
that allow organizations to properly serve the shareholders, the stakeholders
and society in the community.
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Excellent
analytical, mathematical modeling and writing skills.
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International
experience in the United States and the Caribbean.
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Wide-ranging
actuarial valuation experience including corporate, casualty and pensions.
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Software
applications and programming languages include Excel, Visual Basic, Access
database, PowerPoint, FrontPage, Word and RoboHelp.
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Broad experience
modeling risk factors including commodity price risk, foreign exchange risk, interest
rate risk, oil and gas reservoir risk, workers compensation risk, property
damage risk, business interruption risk, liability risk, earthquake risk,
hurricane risk and other weather-related risks.
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Founded Risk
Management Services Corporation in 1995 dedicated to helping create
organizational value and holistic risk management practices
·
Developed
simulation-based risk models for clients including Canadian Pacific Limited and
TransCanada Pipelines for the purpose of estimating risk exposure
·
Carried forward
the essential ideas of modeling risk to the next step—which is finding ways of
making optimal decisions subject to risk exposure constraints
·
Conducted an
insurable risk retention valuation for CXY Energy for the purpose of properly
aligning realized risk exposure with corporate values and risk tolerance
levels.
·
Formulated and
administered Delphi questionnaires for the senior management of Canadian
Pacific Limited and CXY Energy for establishing organizational values and risk
exposure limits
·
Developed The
Bernoulli Model—an advanced Excel-based, risk management, forecasting and
decisionmaking methodology that is mathematically accessible to
executives—while presenting the same consistent storyboard for all
organizational risk factors
·
Developed the
world’s first four-moment distribution (ie. mean, standard deviation, skewness
and kurtosis)—the Camus distribution—using simulation-based optimization with
genetic algorithms—ie. genetically engineered
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Developed
simplified micro-versions of different risk models such as value-at-risk and
the efficient frontier model to allow managers to see basic concepts in action
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Made
presentations to various groups relating to the philosophy and science of risk
management including appearances in Houston and New York
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Researched, wrote
and published thirty-four issues of the Risk Management Review since the
inaugural issue in January 1996
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Clients include
Canadian Pacific Limited, TransCanada Pipelines, Nexen Petroleum, CXY Energy,
Petro-Canada, TransEnergy Management, NovaGas Energy, NovaGas International,
Pan-Alberta Gas and Agrafibre Industries
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Conducted
actuarial valuations of loss funding pools for clients including Trizec
Properties covering loss types including property, liability and workers
compensation.
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Developed a
state-of-the-art Monte Carlo simulation model for analyzing insurable risk
retention arrangements for Petro-Canada
·
Conducted Monte
Carlo simulation analysis of hurricane and earthquake risk exposure for a variety
of Caribbean clients including Sandals Resorts
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Designed,
developed and implemented risk management database information systems for
Mobile Oil, Bow Valley Industries and the Port Authority of Jamaica
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Provided
actuarial and technical expertise in the areas of group benefits, executive
compensation, salary and benefits surveys, and organizational research and
development
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Responsible for
data management, reporting, software development, evaluation and training
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Conducted
casualty actuarial valuations for various self-insured public entities covering
loss types including property, liability and workers compensation
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Conducted pension
valuations for various clients including Amoco
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Designed and
implemented a time management system for the office
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Researched,
designed and implemented a local area network and was responsible for software
development and training
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Conducted pension
valuations for clients including General Electric, General Motors and Famous
Players
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Was instrumental
in developing data management standards and systems for the other seventy-five
actuarial analysts in the office
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Associateship
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Actuarial
Exams—Calculus and Linear Algebra, Probability and Statistics, Applied
Statistical Methods, Operations Research, Numerical Analysis, Mathematics of
Interest, Actuarial Mathematics, Risk Theory, Survival Models, Mathematics of
Graduation, and Credibility Theory and Loss Distributions
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Bachelor of
Science, Applied Mathematics
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Specializing in
Numerical Analysis