Many great leaders have inspired me during the course of my extensive international marketing and communications career.  From graduate school to the business world and global humanitarian work, I’ve witnessed a multitude of exceptional leaders take organizations to new heights while improving others’ lives.  

This year’s National Risk Retention Association (NRRA) National Conference in Chicago offered several sessions focused on disruptive innovation’s impact on the rapidly changing face of risk. The keynote presentation, The Reality Trap, was a thought-provoking exploration of how expanding one’s perspective can equip people to better embrace change. The presenter challenged audience members’ preconceived notions about generational differences and suggested that we simply cannot learn new skills quickly enough to keep up with the ever-accelerating pace of change.

A Pinnacle client recently inquired about a paper regarding an approach to estimating the maximum premium appropriate for a captive insurance company. The author sought to determine a ceiling on the premium a company might pay for insurance by treating insurance as a put option and applying a popular financial tool, the Black-Scholes model. 

The recent Equifax breach of 143 million individuals’ personal data was announced September 7, 2017. The hack included social security numbers, birth dates, addresses, driver’s license numbers and might also include credit card numbers. According to Privacy Rights Clearinghouse, “The number of people impacted and the sensitivity of the breached information may make this the most significant data breach ever.”

Machine learning techniques, particularly Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs), have enjoyed an upsurge in popularity and practical applications in a myriad of disciplines.  The explosion in the variety and volume of available data, coupled with cheap data storage and fast computing power, have placed ANNs front and center in data scientists’ tool boxes.