Reflecting on the journey of becoming an actuary with Lufuno Netshitenzhe and Fulufhelani Mashapha

Описание: Safe Space is a vodcast series brought to you by Tsogang Bathong. We invite guests to share and reflect on their life’s journey to ignite transformative change within the minds of our viewers.

In this episode of Safe Space, we peep into one of the most prestigious professions in South Africa: the actuarial profession. There is no universal definition of the job of an actuary partly because they can be found occupying different types of roles across multiple industries. Despite that, there are clearly identifiable and unique abilities that a good actuary possesses that can make them valuable to the organization they work for.

Actuaries possess the ability to assess, measure, manage and report on risk. Traditionally actuaries were found in the life insurance industry, tasked with valuing insurance liabilities for regulatory and financial reporting purposes and the development and management of insurance products. The scope has widened to include specialties in banking, general insurance, health care, investments, and the emerging fields such as big data.

One of the major challenges facing the profession is transformation. Whilst progress has been made regarding appropriate representation in the student body, the proportion of black people who fully qualified actuaries is less than 10%.

To support the transformation efforts, the first episode of the safe spaces series aims to wake up and inspire those that are in the pipeline by harnessing the power of storytelling and lived experiences. Tsogang recognizes, that having a few reference points to look up to whilst on your journey of becoming a qualified actuary can affect your morale and dedication.

We invited Lufuno Netshitenzhe and Fulufhelanl Mashapha to share their stories and reflections and hope that their stories di tla go tsosa (will wake you up).

Please see biographies below:

Thato Pule (host)

Thato is an aspiring actuary who graduated from the University of Cape Town (UCT) with a Bachelor of Business Science in Actuarial Science (Quantitative Finance). In her professional role she is a lead specialist in investment product pricing at Liberty Group, in the retail investments product development and management team. After entering the professional world, she sat on the Board of Directors for Iranti-Org which is a leading Johannesburg-based media-advocacy organisation that advocates for the rights of LGBTI+ persons, with specific focus on lesbian, transgender (including gender non-conforming) and intersex persons in Africa. She is also founder of Tsogang Bathong.


Lufuno Netshitenzhe (Guest)

Lufuno is a Fellow of the Actuarial Society of South Africa (FASSA) and Chartered Enterprise Risk Actuary (CERA). She holds a Bachelor of Business Science in Actuarial Science from the University of Cape Town (UCT). In her professional role she is an Associate Director at one of the big 4 accounting firm. Outside of work she is a member of the Actuarial Women’s Committee (AWC) and serves as the editor of the AWC newsletter.

Fulufhelani Mashapha (Guest)

Fulufhelani Mashapha is an aspiring actuary who holds a Bachelor of Business Science in Actuarial Science from the University of Cape Town (UCT). She is currently an Actuarial Specialist at one of the big 4 banks as part of the Strategic Actuarial Support team. Outside her actuarial work, she is a content creator on YouTube with a specific focus on risk, money, and insurance. entrepreneur and founder of the online retail store: the_Soul_onlinestore. She is also a part time MC and motivational speaker.