HayesCulleton Group

“What is the most valuable skill you use, on a daily basis, to help you succeed as an #actuary?” “Are there any other subjects (apart from maths) that were particularly helpful in school?” “What are the highs and lows of being an actuary?” “How does one determine if it’s (actuary) is for them?” “Is there any other way to get into actuary apart from a courses with very high points and relatively few places?” “Is AI going to take away some, or even all, parts of the job?” “How important is internships and work experiences including the Transition Year programme?” “Do you have the opportunities to, and do you take them, to travel?” In our recent Society of Actuaries In Ireland webinar for 5th and 6th-year students, Susan HayesCulleton CFA, "The Positive Economist" facilitated an insightful Q&A session with Rebecca O'Mahoney and Mairead Grant where they shared their experiences and insights from their journeys and careers in the field. If you, or somebody you know, is interested in learning more about life as an actuary, check out the full conversation including: 1️⃣a whistestop tour of the daily working life of an actuary 2️⃣an active learning session where you work on a series of actuarial thinking tasks 3️⃣the full Q&A including the queries our live audience submitted. 🔗https://lnkd.in/e5jZc3Bf Thank you Sinéad Clarke, Catherine McBride and Aisling Breathnach for the opportunity to work with you on this. #SDG4 #QualityEducation #LeavingCert #ALevels

Thank you Ashley Kelly for sharing your insights with us today at the Zurich Ireland #TransitionYear #WorkExperience. What are your takeaways?

Thank you to Ciara O'Brien from Zurich Ireland for giving us an insight into life in corporate sales. What are your takeaways?

Thank you Gareth Keane for coming into our teenagers today at Zurich Ireland to speak today about pricing risks, the plethora of jobs he’s had in the company over his career here and the difference between senior and junior roles.

Thank you sincerely to our PwC Ireland mentors for being superbly enthusiastic in answering our NEIC Dublin teenagers’ questions. From answering “what motivates you to get up in the morning to work?” all the way to the end of their list, you’ve given them real lessons in life. Thank you to Clodagh Dunleavy and Anna Bell giving us, at Savvy Teens, the opportunity to facilitate this experience for these teenagers this week.

Thank you to Paresh Panchal for your insights about jobs in technology and insurance today in Zurich Ireland. What were your takeaways?

A fascinating, action-packed morning in Galgorm Collection. Danske Bank UK kindly invited me to host their Business Breakfast with Ballymena Chamber of Commerce and Industry and Causeway Chamber of Commerce. Here is a summary of insights: 1. The recent UK budget was planned to be one of “fiscal loosening”, but looks to be pushing upward pressure on the prices businesses need to charge. (This topic was also high on the agenda at Mid Ulster Enteprise Week with Anne Donnelly and Denise Murtagh). 2. Economic growth for the UK is forecasted to be around 2%. 3. Businesses now are automating as much as possible. 4. There is a real issue with the intergenerational transfer of machinery-intensive businesses. 5. Interest rates are expecting to fall at a slower pace to a higher base rate. 6. If you’re wondering what you can automate, start with your pain points and design solutions accordingly. 7. Talk to your staff about their experience of what they do every day. You might be surprised by their “workaround tasks” as Larissa Feeney FCA coined the term. 8. The five key trends to look out for in 2025 is inflation, interest rates, the Budget, geopolitical uncertainty and a skills shortage. 9. The UK is now a “bastion of stability” with a clear political outcome, a stronger pound and a faster growing economy than the European average. 10. There is a lot of positivity coming from Northern Ireland with its functioning Executive, focus on regional dispersal and government departments working together. 11. Don’t conflate skills with jobs. Underemployment exists in an economy of unemployment and make the most of who you have in your business. 12. The labour market is expected to soften a bit and this translates into the possibility of people losing their jobs. 13. Remember that the sustainability efforts you make, and particularly from a decarbonisation perspective, makes a difference to your clients’ (and lenders’) SCOPE 3 levels. 14. Sustainability offers remarkable opportunity for a nation of problem-solvers. 15. The UK government is now paying more to borrow than a new mortgagee due to the amount of money it needs to fund its deficit. 16. The Bank of England isn’t going to be buying as many gilts as it has done in the past. Let’s see how this affects the cost of UK government borrowing. 17. The four underestimated trends to watch in 2025 are the second term of the Labour government and the Stormont Executive, the productivity gains in AI, the political will (or lack thereof) to make difficult decisions and the opportunities or penalties from sustainability actions from business. Thank you sincerely to Conor Lambe, Stephen Kelly and John Paul Coleman, CFA, MCSI for their insights. Thank you to Tom WIGGINS for a most observant introduction, James Kilgore for a very fitting wrap-up and Karen Yates for an excellent question. Thank you again and again to Clare Megarry and Robert McCullough for giving me the opportunity to work with you.

In this episode of the Money Matters: Teacher Interview Series, Susan HayesCulleton CFA, "The Positive Economist" speaks with Matthew Taylor from Sutton Park School about how he incorporates the Money Matters book into his teaching. They discuss the impact it has had on students and the value of financial literacy in education. Watch the full video on YouTube to learn more about how Money Matters is being used in the classroom. https://lnkd.in/dwTte8r9

We started the STEM TY Challenge three years ago with 24 students from 3 schools..... Now in 2024, we have: 🙋♀️ 216 students 👨💻 87 mentors 🎒 12 school groups ⏲️ 240 classes spent on STEM 🏭 10 site visits 📗 245 "Engineering in the World" books sent to schools Over these past three months, students have been working on a range of real-life STEM activities like conducting a LEAN analysis on their school, redesigning their desks, using design thinking for augmented reality in education, creating metaverse avatars, creating a circular economy menu and using a critical thinking model called SCAMPER. We developed a tailored STEM TY Challenge App with different user experiences for students, teachers, mentors and companies. In their class groups, our participating teenagers and their teachers have been hosted on site visits all over Cork and Kerry. Further, they have been mentored by people who work across a wide variety of STEM careers whereby they've given feedback on the individual pieces of work the students have been doing and by being interviewed by the teenagers about the work they do on a daily basis. There are three defining characteristics of the STEM TY Challenge: 1️⃣ Real life STEM work, so that teenagers can really see what life in a STEM career is like. 2️⃣ Stuctured industry-school collaboration whereby students and teachers drive the intiative and mentors give meaningful, tangible feedback along the way. 3️⃣ Consistent class time with comprehensive, tailored teacher support and a very tight feedback loop. The STEM TY Challenge is only possible due to the relationships, time, effort and effervescent energy of all the partners involved. Marguerite O Sullivan and Elaine O Donnell at STEM South West have been absolutely instrumental in turning a vision into a reality. An enormous thank you to each and every one of our company partners including Micheal Crowley at J&J Innovative Medicine Europe, Middle East & Africa (EMEA), Susan Heeran at Johnson & Johnson MedTech, Aoife Foley at Thermo Fisher Scientific, Catherine Browne at Alcon, Cian O Donoghue at PepsiCo, Ezara Ahern Easter and Jean Casey at Eli Lilly and Company, Brian Barry and Therese Deane at MACOM, Mary O'Connor at Gilead Sciences, Susan Crowley - CIPD at Hovione, Luke Courtney at Boston Scientific, Marian Dennehy at Astellas Pharma and Lorna O'Reilly at Sterling Pharma Solutions.

I interviewed a panel of local business leaders at the launch of Mid Ulster Enterprise Week with Mid Ulster District Council in Cookstown and here is a summary of insights they had to share: 1. Is your business model fit for the trends set to shape 2025? Think about how Microsoft moved from selling one-off licenses to the recurring revenue of Microsoft 365. 2. According to the Ulster University Ecconomic Policy Centre, the Northern Irish Economy is set to grow 1.4% in 2024 and 1.7% in 2025. 3. With the time that your business can save from AI or other productivity gains, have you thought about how you’re going to divert those resources? Is your staff trained to take on those new tasks? 4. The key HR legislation trends to watch in the year ahead including pay and benefits, trade unions and the right to disconnect. 5. Ask your self “what is taking too much time and where are you overspending?” to find the places where you can focus on where to automate and make the most of technology. 6. People want to shop local, but they also want to find what they want. The internet has enabled consumers to discern if they’re getting value for money. 7. Think about how you would defend your company’s position in court if something went wrong. Could you show that you had the right training and processes in place for your people? 8. Getting the right data, in realtime, can help you make really important business decisions. Looking at lots of data, becuase you simply can, can be distracting. 9. Open communication is important in a business and so too is establishing boundaries around that communication. 10. Business and industry need a tight feedback loop with the educational sector so that as people enter and re-enter the workforce (and Northern Ireland has the lowest unemployment rate it’s ever had at 2%), they need to have the skills that are in demand in the labour market. This applies to graduates as well as lifelong learners. Thank you to my panellists Catherine Martin (Doris), Shannon McCaul, Stephen McCammon and Justin Quinn. Thank you so much to Anne Donnelly and Denise Murtagh for giving me the opportunity to be part of the occasion as well as to Elita Frid from MEGA- Manufacturing & Engineering Growth & Advancement for being there with me to share updates with attendees about our Engineering Across the Border initiative at our stand.