Head of Actuarial Expense Strategy

Full-Time

Springfield, MA or Boston, MA

The Opportunity

MassMutual’s Corporate Actuarial team is seeking a dynamic and well-rounded actuary to lead the Actuarial Expense Strategy team. This highly visible and strategic role offers the opportunity to apply analytical and leadership skills to drive understanding of expense impacts across the business, influence decision-making, and deliver insights that reach the highest levels of the organization.

You’ll serve as a trusted partner to senior leaders, providing actionable expense-related analysis and recommendations that directly impact company performance. The team’s work spans all lines of business—including Life Insurance, Annuity, Disability Income, Worksite Insurance, and Institutional products—and supports key functions such as Corporate Actuarial, Finance, Underwriting, Operations, Enterprise Technology (ETX), and Product & Distribution.

The Team

The Actuarial Expense Strategy team is a high performing group of actuaries and financial professionals dedicated to shaping the company’s expense landscape through actuarial expertise, advanced analytics, and strategic insight. Distinct from Strategic Expense Management (SEM) and Financial Planning & Analysis (FP&A), this team is uniquely positioned at the intersection of actuarial science and business strategy, directly informing product pricing, distribution economics, and enterprise financial outcomes.

The team thrives in a fast-paced environment where bespoke analysis and ad hoc requests are common. Their work is characterized by intellectual rigor, objectivity, and a collaborative spirit, making them respected thought partners for expense-related insights across actuarial, financial, and business domains. The team thrives on solving complex, cross-functional challenges and is committed to continuous improvement, knowledge sharing, and building organizational capacity for the future.

The Impact

As Head of the team, you will lead a team of ~3 actuaries and financial professionals responsible for delivering key expense analyses and providing management decision support. Key facets of the role include:

• Delivering various Unit Expense Factor studies and assumptions used in critical business and regulatory deliverables, including Cash Flow Testing and PBR, dividends, Illustration Regulation Testing and pricing expenses
• Providing subject matter expertise on expense allocations and implications of resulting allocations across products and distribution channels, including regularly monitoring and reporting on gaps between actual and priced for expenses
• Reviewing and proposing distribution management allowances for use in product pricing and distribution-based P&Ls
• Developing vision for and executing on efforts to evolve current tools, data pipelines, reporting and processes to modern approaches, driving greater insights and capacity to undertake additional/deferred analysis
• Ad Hoc Strategic Support (e.g. M&A, reinsurance, etc.)
• Collaborate across teams to solve complex problems and drive strategic outcomes

The Minimum Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Mathematics, Actuarial Science, Finance, Computer/Data Science, or related quantitative field
• 10+ years of experience as an actuary or senior quantitative professional in insurance, risk, or financial services
• Strong actuarial foundation demonstrated through professional credentialing or sustained application of actuarial methodologies in complex business environments

The Ideal Qualifications

• Associate or Fellow of the Society of Actuaries (ASA or FSA) strongly preferred
• Member of the Academy of Actuaries a plus
• Deep understanding of insurance products, accounting, and profitability across multiple lines of business and distribution channels
• Highly effective communicator, both written and verbal, comfortable presenting to all levels of the organization as well as technical and non-technical audiences, and skilled in creating simple, powerful, and data-driven communications
• Strategic thinker who can apply strong actuarial and quantitative skillset to analyze a wide range of business problems, draw out insights and implications from complex data sets, and distill key conclusions into a story that drives understanding and action
• Ability to generate impact as a trusted advisor by maintaining the ability to see the big picture in inherently complex and dynamic situations and influence decision-making across senior stakeholders, demonstrating a strong sense for value in both prioritizing and solving problems
• Comfortable with ambiguity and complexity; willingness to explore multiple solutions to a problem; ability to work independently with little direction/oversight while setting direction and priorities for others
• Self-motivated and driven self-starter with demonstrated ownership for driving initiatives from concept through execution
• Able to build and maintain strong working relationships and effectively collaborate across cross-functional groups while leading and developing high-performing actuarial or quantitative professionals
• Demonstrated ability to harness and deploy modern technologies (i.e. Excel, SQL, Alteryx, Python, etc.), including generative AI, to enhance processing, manipulation, validation, and analysis of large amounts of data and drive modernization of tools, data pipelines, and reporting

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Salary Range:

At MassMutual, we focus on ensuring fair equitable pay, by providing competitive salaries, along with incentive and bonus opportunities for all employees. Your total compensation package includes either a bonus target or in a sales-focused role a Variable Incentive Compensation component.

Why Join Us.

We’ve been around since 1851. During our history, we’ve learned a few things about making sure our customers are our top priority. In order to meet and exceed their expectations, we must have the best people providing the best thinking, products and services. To accomplish this, we celebrate an inclusive, vibrant and diverse culture that encourages growth, openness and opportunities for everyone. A career with MassMutual means you will be part of a strong, stable and ethical business with industry leading pay and benefits. And your voice will always be heard.

We help people secure their future and protect the ones they love. As a company owned by our policyowners, we are defined by mutuality and our vision to put customers first. It’s more than our company structure – it’s our way of life. We are a company of people protecting people. Our company exists because people are willing to share risk and resources, and rely on each other when it counts. At MassMutual, we Live Mutual.

MassMutual is an equal employment opportunity employer. We welcome all persons to apply.

If you need an accommodation to complete the application process, please contact us and share the specifics of the assistance you need.

At MassMutual, we focus on ensuring fair, equitable pay by providing competitive salaries, along with incentive and bonus opportunities for all employees. Your total compensation package includes either a bonus target or in a sales-focused role a Variable Incentive Compensation component. For more information about our extensive benefits offerings please check out our Total Rewards at a Glance.