Eric Veletzos, FSA, CFA, EA
Investment Consultant and Actuary
Towers Watson

Eric Veletzos graduated from University of California at Los Angeles with a degree in Mechanical Engineering at the height of a recession. With aerospace, the primary employer of engineers in Los Angeles at the time, being one of the hardest-hit industries, Eric was having a hard time finding a position. Good thing he’s a problem-solver!

Having an affinity for math, Eric decided to continue his schooling and enrolled at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in upstate New York to pursue a Master of Science in Applied Mathematics. Eric was unaware of the actuarial profession at the time of his enrollment, but that quickly changed as the insurance companies located in nearby Hartford, Connecticut often held events to talk about the actuarial profession and recruit students. It was through one such recruiter that Eric learned of the actuarial profession and – in a twist that returned him to the West Coast – landed a position as a California-based pension actuary with Hewitt Associates.

Eric passed three exams before joining the Hewitt team. Since that time he’s obtained his FSA and worked with both the Towers Perrin (2001) and Watson Wyatt (2003) teams. In 2009, Eric found himself with a case of déjà vu as Towers Perrin and Watson Wyatt merged. Today, Eric is an actuary located in Los Angeles with Towers Watson Investment Services focusing on integrated risk management consulting on both the liabilities and assets for the pension plans of his corporate clients. He also leads the Post-retirement Income Area of Specialized Knowledge Team, which oversees the firm’s investment research into emerging lifetime income products for corporate defined contribution plans. In each of these roles, he calls on his broad educational and professional experiences in order to identify solutions to increasingly complex problems.

"The pension plans at many organizations have grown so large over time that they are indeed larger than the organizations themselves pushing pension risk management to the forefront of issues that senior executives face," said Eric. "Consequently, the world for pension actuaries is getting more complex. The profession is evolving into one that requires actuaries to be broad business thinkers in an environment where we are not just number crunchers but instead are risk strategists incorporating knowledge of assets, insurance, and capital markets into our well-known and respected expertise of liabilities as we work closely with plan sponsors to mitigate risk."

Eric is thankful his passion for math led him to a creative solution resulting in a career that has now ultimately helped him survive not one but two recessions. And today, as we work our way through a global recession, Eric encourages today’s students with an interest in math to consider a similar path.

"There is no need to be a math genius to become an actuary, but if you have an affinity for math and enjoy working with numbers, solving real-world business problems, continually learning new things, and working with others as you transform complex analyses into simple messages that non-actuaries can understand, then a career as an actuary is for you," said Eric.