Reinsurance Group of America (RGA) is one of the largest global life and health reinsurance companies. With operations in 26 countries, we support our clients and partners around the world with innovative approaches and customized solutions.

Chief Behavioral Scientist - Summary

The newly created position of Chief Behavioral Scientist will own RGA’s strategy on Behavioral Economics (BE). In collaboration with the local RGA business units, the role-holder will establish and deliver a range of relevant projects to enhance the commercial value generated by RGA and its clients around the world.
The Chief Behavioral Scientist will regularly interact with senior management as RGA’s lead Subject Matter Expert on BE, acting as an internal and external consultant for BE.
The Chief Behavioral Scientist will serve as evangelist and subject matter expert, providing a center of excellence for all aspects of BE and in particular building RGA’s brand in the area of BE.

Duties and Responsibilities

Develop and Lead Execution of Strategy: Work with internal and external stakeholders to develop a strategy for the efficient and effective deployment of behavioral design throughout the RGA enterprise and to our clients.
Commercial Applications: Generate/evaluate and promote solutions (or experiments to pre-test solutions) for internal and external clients and oversee the development of commercial applications of behavior-aware models for use in underwriting, claims, risk management, ongoing engagement etc
Modeling: Lead projects to design, develop, refine, interpret and implement end-to-end drivers of policyholder, claimant, target market, etc. behavior for use in internally or externally developed models and for independent studies of human actions.
Evaluating: Prepare pre-and-post study analyses of live field trials to validate behavioral approaches and design changes to improve results of future trials.
Subject Matter Expertise / Client Contact / Expert Buyer of Services: Serve as the enterprise-wide expert in behavioral economics as applied to the full range of behavioral economic use-cases in the Life and Health insurance industry for both internal and external clients.
Collaboration / Communication: Lead collaboration efforts and routinely serve in a client-facing role as a subject matter expert. Develop RGA’s brand through routinely presenting information to clients and at various industry & RGA hosted events. Write internal and external publications and communications about the application of behavioral science in insurance and financial services.
Actively participate in other research-related initiatives.

Education and Experience

Required
Master’s degree in Behavioral Economics, or related disciplines (e.g. Psychology, Economics, Finance, Decision Science, Marketing, Organizational Behavior, Public Health).
10+ years of experience researching or applying Behavioral Economics/
5+ years of experience directly interacting with and influencing senior management.

Preferred
2+ years applying behavioral design in a commercial setting
A PhD qualification involving behavioral research such as behavioral economics, behavioral science; or psychology coupled with economics and statistics.
Experience leading BE teams working in multi-national insurance and related financial institutions.
Fluency with Asian/European languages and cultures.

Skills and Experience

Required
Entrepreneurial spirit and experience in innovation ecosystems
Ability to merge qualitative and quantitative perspectives into actionable experiments
Ability to quickly adapt to new methods, stress, and work under tight deadlines
Ability to work well within a team environment, participate in department/team projects and balance detail with departmental objectives
Advanced oral and written communication skills, demonstrating the ability to convey business terminology that is meaningful and well received
Strong ability to manage multiple projects and/or teams simultaneously
Advanced persuasion and negotiating skills working with internal/external customers
Skills in customer relationship management and change management
Ability to resolve conflict and foster teamwork
Investigative, analytical, introspective, and problem solving skills
Advanced ability to translate business needs/problems into viable/accepted solutions
Advanced ability to liaise with individuals across a wide variety of operational, functional and technical disciplines, and to clarify technical concepts to non-technical audiences
Willingness to travel worldwide, as necessary

Preferred
Knowledge of life, health, and/or annuity products; reinsurance knowledge a plus
Ability to quickly earn the respect and cooperation of diverse types of professionals: senior management, the quants, administration and operations, line managers, actuaries, marketing and business development associates
Knowledge of life insurance underwriting and biometric risk analysis
Experience with quantitative tools for data analytics such as R, Python, SAS, and various modeling techniques such as agent-based modeling, complexity sciences, and predictive analytics
Advanced skills in behavioral analytics, econometrics, and/or computational finance.

Location and Travel

The position is located in London (with some flexibility)
Regular global travel expected (>10 weeks a year)

To Apply: Please send a covering letter and CV to Joe Gladstone at j.gladstone@ucl.ac.uk, who is managing the recruitment process. The deadline to receive these documents is 5pm on Friday 21st July, EST. Unfortunately, we are unable to provide feedback to unsuccessful candidates.