When considering an Industry Placement as part of your Masters qualification, we understand the nature of applying for an industry project requires the appropriate support. We offer challenging industry projects, academically reviewed, that offer an important and meaningful placement experience at the beginning of your career.
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SFRA are committed to removing barriers for both Industry Partner and Students to achieving a challenging and rewarding placement experience.
SFRA Group Members
Any member organisation of the SFE can be involved in the SFRA Group. Similarly, any Scottish University can be involved in the SFRA Group.
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The SFRA Steering Committee will ensure the alignment of the SFRA Group's plans with those of SFE and relevant universities. This is the responsibility of the SFRA Steering Committee that sets SMART objectives and conduct the following activities:
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The SFRA Group will be responsible for engaging with various stakeholders (including SFE, industry and academia through Heriot-Watt University and University of Edinburgh). The intention is that academic engagement will extend to other Scottish Universities.
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The SFRA Group will determine the anticipated programme of risk in financial services themes for the next three years to enable forward planning.
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The SFRA Group will liaise with other risk in financial services bodies to explore areas of collaboration. (wider dissemination of research, sharing costs for specific projects, etc).
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The SFRA Steering Committee will consider how best to engage with the wider academic and business communities and there is broad representation on the SFRA Group Steering Committee.
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Chairperson: Dr John Taylor
Institute and Faculty of Actuaries, Hymans Robertson
John Taylor, B Sc (Hons), Ph D, FFA, is an External Member of the Bank of England’s Prudential Regulation Committee and a former president of the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries.
He has innovated with technology throughout his career to create novel insurance propositions. John championed the greater adoption of data science and artificial intelligence by the actuarial profession.
John holds a bachelor’s degree and a doctorate from the University of Glasgow as well as post-graduate diploma from Heriot Watt University.
Director: Sandy Begbie, CBE, SFE Chief Executive
Scottish Financial Enterprise
Sandy Begbie CBE was appointed Chief Executive of Scottish Financial Enterprise in October 2020.
Prior to joining SFE, Sandy led the development of the Scottish Government’s Young Person’s Guarantee following an 18-month contract at Tesco Bank as the Chief Transformation Officer.
Sandy was responsible for the Global People, Organisation and Culture Integration following the successful merger of Standard Life and Aberdeen Asset Management. Before the merger Sandy was the Chief People Officer and Lead Executive for China and Hong Kong for Standard Life for eight years. During this time, he led the Standard Life HR team to be recognised as one of the top performing functions in the UK and also led the turn-around of Standard Life’s Chinese Joint Venture. Sandy was appointed Senior Advisor to the Standard Life Asia Board in July 2020, having been Chair of the Hong Kong-based Board since 2014.
Before joining Standard Life plc in May 2010, Sandy held similar Transformation and Group HR Director positions within Aegon, Scottish Power and the Royal Bank of Scotland.
Sandy holds several non-executive positions including Chair of Career Ready, Non-Executive Director of Place 2 Be and Chair of the Centre for Moving Images.
Sandy was awarded a CBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours List in August 2018 for services to business and social inclusion.
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"SFRA is a valuable special interest group for SFE members, providing important opportunities to directly connect with leading academics in order to better inform their operations around risk, as well as providing world-class learning opportunities for talented individuals. Our competitiveness as an industry will rely on attracting and retaining a highly skilled and knowledgeable workforce, and our partnership with SFRA offers the platform for us to do that."
"One of our ambitions in 2022 is to foster even greater collaboration with SFRA, allowing us to better harness the groups expertise to support our strategic priorities of leading the journey to net zero, supporting economic recovery, developing skills and inclusion and responding to changing customer needs."
Academic Director (designate): Dr George Tzougas
School of Mathematics and Computer Science, Heriot Watt University
George (aka ‘Yorgos’) is an Associate Professor at Heriot-Watt's Department of Actuarial Mathematics and Statistics in Edinburgh . George previously held a tenured position in the Department of Statistics of the London School of Economics and Political Science, where he also served as Programme Director for the BSc in Actuarial Science and was the Liaison Officer with the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries (IFoA). Previous to this, he was a Lecturer in the Department of Statistics of University College Cork in Ireland.
George’s research interests lie on the interface between applied statistics, computational statistics, actuarial science and actuarial data science. His articles have appeared in world leading journals. In particular, his research primarily, but not exclusively, focuses on statistical learning applications, via estimation methods, such as the Expectation- Maximization (EM) algorithm, and computational aspects of deep learning in actuarial work, including insurance ratemaking, setting appropriate levels of reserves and reinsurance, classification of green bonds and decarbonization. For more details, please refer to ‪George Tzougas‬.
George’s professional activities include a membership of the American Risk and Insurance Association, a fellowship of the Royal Statistical Society and he is a member of the reviewer board of MDPI's Risks journal.
Steering Committee
David Clancy
Aberdeen Standard Investments
Alan Porteous
Artemis
Gary Marshall
Asset Co
Fraser Douglas
HSBC
Ross Millar
Artemis
Stephen Pashley
Baillie Gifford
Andrew Cunningham
Barclays
Stephen Aubrey
BlackRock
Russell Baird
Kames Capital
Bruce Harrison
BlackRock
Robert McKechnie
Equifax
Peter Brading
Brodies LLP
Margaret McCaig
HSBC
Stuart Thomson
EY
Sara Lombardo
Heriot Watt University
Stephen Marshall
Heriot Watt University
Matthew Stubbs
HSBC
Simon Jones
Hymans Robertson
Fiona Darwin
Institute and Faculty of Actuaries
Leigh-Ann Plenderleith
Institute and Faculty of Actuaries
Stephen Jones
Kames Capital
Craig Hamilton
KPMG
George Tzougas
Heriot Watt University
Martin Friel
Lloyds Banking Group
Sarah Kenrick
Lloyds Banking Group
Ruth Leslie
M&G - Prudential
Devraj Basu
Strathclyde University
Alan Watson
Morgan Stanley
Stewart Gray
Phoenix Group
Katrina Hallpike
Price Waterhouse Coopers
Stuart Young
Sainsbury's Bank
Galina Andreeva
University of Edinburgh
Sotirios Sabanis
University of Edinburgh
Iain Gordon
University of Edinburgh
John Fisher
AlbaCo