For life actuary Kaitlin Creighton, MAAA, FSA, CERA, the appeal of the profession began with a childhood fascination with numbers and puzzles. Today, that curiosity drives her thoughtful approach to professional judgment—the “look-in-the-mirror test.” Creighton, who is a 2025 Rising Actuary Award recipient, also values the guidance, standards, and community offered by the Academy, which she credits with helping her grow as a professional while ensuring that the work of actuaries continues to earn public trust.
What led you to become an actuary, and what attracted you to the profession?
When I was a little kid, I always thought I wanted to be an accountant when I grew up. I have many accountants in my family, and I loved the idea of using math within a business application and solving puzzles all day. However, I wanted the math to be more challenging than what you use as an accountant.
During my freshman year of high school, our personal finance teacher required us to research a career that used finance, so I picked actuary from the list of options. I found myself on websites like BeAnActuary.org, doing practice problems, and having so much fun, and I was instantly hooked. I interviewed an actuary as part of that project, and after talking to her, I knew this was the perfect career for me. The rest is history.
Describe a time when your professionalism training helped you in your career.
Whenever I am starting a new project or endeavor, I always think about the “look-in-the-mirror test” to determine if I am qualified to be completing the work or not. It helps me stop and take inventory of all of my qualifications and experiences that have led me to taking on the work.
This serves two purposes. First, it helps me with imposter syndrome. By taking an analytical approach to assessing my qualifications, it helps remind me that I have actually achieved quite a lot in my career so far, and I am often more qualified than I initially feel that I am. Second, it helps me identify the gaps in my knowledge or experience so I can be sure I am thinking about resources or people I will need to help me complete whatever project I am embarking on.
Tell us about a time where your actuarial expertise influenced an important decision in your workplace.
Many of my most rewarding projects have involved streamlining processes. This was usually done either by finding better data sources or by automating processes. Using an actuarial approach has always been very important. First, you have to make sure you properly understand the problem at hand and the questions the process is trying to answer. Once you understand the purpose, then you can better define the process. Next is making sure you understand the data—where it comes from, its accuracy, and what controls are there to make sure it ties out, etc. Then you have to make sure there are checks and controls in place to reduce errors. The process needs to be transparent enough that people can understand what is going on and can easily detect when something has gone wrong.
Finally, the most rewarding part is getting to help someone take a task that once took them hours or days and turn it into something that can be accomplished in a fraction of the time.
What’s one of the biggest lessons you’ve learned in your career?
Never be afraid to share your ideas. Early on in my career, I would fall victim to assuming that people more experienced than me must be doing things a certain way because they knew better than me. However, once I gained the confidence to start questioning everything and challenging things, I realized that often we all fall into the habit of keeping the status quo. This could apply to how analyses are done, or how departments are structured.
There’s always the potential for better ideas, and almost always, people are eager to hear new ideas, even when the ideas may not actually pan out.
You will learn more from talking to experienced actuaries and working alongside them than you could ever learn on your own. This is why networking, attending conferences, and volunteering with the Academy are so important.
What advice do you wish you were given at the beginning of your career?
Be curious! So much of an actuary’s job is solving puzzles and trying to answer the question “why?” The more curious you are early in your career, the more it will serve you later when your role shifts from completing processes to answering stakeholders’ questions. It is so important to not just understand how your spreadsheet works or how to complete a journal entry, but also to know how the spreadsheet will be used downstream or where in the annual statement that journal entry will appear.
Understanding how your work product will be used and being curious about the downstream impact of your work will help you design a better process and work product. It is also prudent to know that your work is being used for its intended purpose.
What do you value most about your Academy membership or volunteer work?
One of the things that really drew me to the actuarial profession is that it is self–governing. Having professional standards that we hold each other to and that offer guidance is paramount to ensuring that the public has trust in what we do. I believe these standards are what set actuaries apart from the growing industries of data science and artificial intelligence.
I believe one of the most valuable things the Academy does is to provide those professional standards and guidance to its members. I think the ABCD [Actuarial Board for Counseling and Discipline] is such a unique and valuable resource, and I also get a lot of value from the work papers and practice notes the Academy provides. Volunteering with the Academy has given me a behind-the-curtain look at how some of these are developed, and I am always in awe of the great depth of expertise and knowledge that exists among the members.
What is the value of your MAAA?
Having the MAAA credential brings a level of prestige and trustworthiness to one’s work. The Academy has high standards for its members, and being able to identify those who are held to those standards and who meet them is important in the industry.
Would you like to share anything else with aspiring or new actuaries, or those interested in volunteering for the Academy?
The greatest wealth of knowledge does not lie in the various white papers or textbooks available to you; rather, it lies in the people within this great profession. You will learn more from talking to experienced actuaries and working alongside them than you could ever learn on your own. This is why networking, attending conferences, and volunteering with the Academy are so important.
When you are working within your role, you will only ever see the type of work, products, or challenges that your specific company has. When you talk to other actuaries, you will gain a much broader perspective on how you can approach different problems or challenges facing the industry on a larger scale.
Beyond work—what are your hobbies or personal interests?
In my downtime, I enjoy reading, doing jigsaw puzzles, and dancing. I belong to several book clubs and like to read a variety of genres. I feel like each book can bring a new idea or perspective. I also love doing jigsaw puzzles that doubles as art. I have many finished puzzles that I’ve glued and framed and now have hanging in my house.
Dancing has also been such a great community, especially as an adult. There is such joy in sharing choreography and expression with a group. I’ve also had the privilege of serving as treasurer on the board of a small, nonprofit dance studio in Bloomington, Illinois. I am always so inspired by the women I serve with, and I have learned many leadership skills from them.
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