In this personal reflection, Jennifer Loftus FIA C.Act shares how approaching Continuing Professional Development with curiosity and a growth mindset transformed her learning journey from a routine requirement into a powerful driver of opportunity. From exploring new disciplines to expanding her professional impact, her experience highlights how flexible, self-directed learning can open doors, broaden perspectives and redefine what’s possible in a career.
I have always had a passion for learning. As a result, I have never experienced Continuing Professional Development as a compliance exercise to be endured or a box to be ticked. Instead, I have always viewed CPD as an opportunity – an invitation to explore, to stretch, and occasionally to wander a little off the well-trodden actuarial path.
For me, getting the most out of CPD requires a growth mindset. It means being open to topics that may not feel immediately relevant, trusting that learning has value even when the application is not obvious at the outset, and allowing curiosity rather than obligation to guide choices. Approached in this way, I believe that CPD becomes energising rather than burdensome, and its impact can be both subtle and far-reaching.
In that context, I have found the more flexible, principles-based CPD framework adopted by the IFoA in recent years to be genuinely empowering. The move away from a narrow, prescriptive definition of CPD towards enabling members to engage in learning in many different forms – including books, podcasts, recorded webinars, volunteering and professional conversations, alongside more traditional options such as conferences and formal courses – better reflects how professionals actually learn.
The emphasis on meaningful engagement and reflection, rather than rigid compliance, recognises that professional value is built not only by deepening existing expertise, but also by developing adjacent skills, broader perspectives and future-focused capabilities.
I have frequently found myself gravitating towards CPD opportunities that sit just outside my immediate area of responsibility. One of the most influential examples of this happened almost by accident. While catching up on CPD during maternity leave a number of years ago, I listened back to a recording of a data science webinar out of interest.
At the time, data modelling was already central to my role and like many actuaries, I very much enjoyed finding patterns and trends in data. But I had not yet encountered the power and flexibility of open-source languages such as R and Python or engaged with advanced data visualisation tools such as Power BI and Tableau. The old staple of Excel was still very much my primary analytics and modelling tool at that stage.
That single data science webinar opened my eyes to a very different way of thinking about data and modelling and a whole new universe of capabilities and possibilities. What began as curiosity soon became a desire to explore further, ultimately leading me to pursue an MSc in Data Analytics.
A similar pattern emerged with sustainability. I initially engaged in sustainability-related CPD events out of interest rather than professional necessity, motivated in particular by the corporate social responsibility dimension of the topic. Sustainability was not a major feature of my day-to-day role at that point.
But as regulatory requirements evolved and sustainability disclosures and sustainable investment considerations became increasingly prominent, the relevance of that early learning became clear. What started as values-driven CPD evolved into a core professional capability, culminating in my graduation with an MSc in Sustainability Leadership last year.
Delving further into both data science and sustainability also prompted me to engage more actively with the profession through volunteering. I now volunteer with the Society of Actuaries in Ireland as a member of both the AI and Data Science Committee and the Diversity, Equity, Accessibility and Inclusion Committee, where I chair the Gender Pipeline Working Group.
In recent years, I have also volunteered with the IFoA’s Actuarial Data Science Working Group. These experiences have been enormously enlightening and rewarding, offering exposure to diverse perspectives, emerging practice and collective problem-solving beyond my own organisation. The normalisation of remote participation post Covid-19 has been instrumental in enabling this involvement.
Looking back, what felt at the time like a somewhat rambling CPD journey has, in fact, quietly shaped my career. While I have always held what might be described as traditional actuarial roles, the breadth of my learning has expanded the scope of what those roles now involve. I am currently Group CFO and Chief Actuary of a life insurance company. My responsibilities have recently expanded to include oversight of both our AI/data science and sustainability strategies.
This expansion has been both hugely rewarding and, if I’m honest, somewhat surprising! On reflection, I believe that my recent career trajectory has been very much influenced by my meandering CPD journey.
I cannot overstate how transformative remote access to CPD has been. Being based in the west of Ireland means I am geographically removed from many traditional industry epicentres. The availability of high-quality online CPD has levelled that playing field entirely, allowing me not only to learn, but also to contribute. Remote participation has allowed me to volunteer, collaborate and engage with the profession at a national and international level without the constraints of location. For me, this accessibility has not just supported compliance – it has enabled growth and connection.
If there is one lesson I would share, it’s that CPD does not need to be linear, immediately useful or narrowly defined to be valuable. When approached with curiosity and openness, CPD can become one of the most powerful tools we have – not just for maintaining competence, but for shaping careers we never quite planned, yet are deeply glad to have found.
