Bob Willis — trailblazing businessman and a pioneer in the Irish actuarial profession

Bob Willis (October 1st, 1923 – February 2nd, 2024), who died recently in his 101st year, was managing director of Irish Life from 1966 to 1983. He also served as chair of Cement Roadstone Holdings in the early 1970s after the death of Seán Lemass, its first chair. He was a pro-chancellor of Trinity College Dublin, his old university, and he chaired the boards of the Rotunda Hospital, the High School and Rathdown School, Dublin.

Bob went to school in the High School, Dublin, where he was one of a number of outstanding mathematicians who studied under Victor Graham. He then took a first-class maths degree with gold medal from Trinity. He was a scholar in 1943 and in April 2023 attended the Trinity scholars’ dinner at the age of 99.

He joined the then Irish Assurance Company as an actuarial student in 1945, working in the embryonic pensions department and in the actuarial area. He qualified in 1950, only the second person to qualify as an actuary in Ireland following independence in 1922.

He rose quickly through the managerial ranks, becoming actuary and then deputy general manager before becoming managing director in 1966, a post he held until his retirement in 1983.

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The Irish Assurance Company had been formed in 1936 as a merger of some small Irish life companies (most of which were in financial difficulty) and the Irish business of a number of UK companies, including Britannic, Liverpool Victoria, Pearl, Prudential and Refuge. When Bob joined, it was a very overstaffed hotchpotch of people and systems which took many years to sort out. The company became 90 per cent owned by the Irish State in 1947 when the UK companies sold their shares to the Irish government.

The transformation of this hotchpotch into the very successful Irish Life Assurance company, which still prospers in 2024, is a tribute to Bob and the team he built. The company was early into pensions, unit linked business and sophisticated investment management. It also became a major training ground for young actuaries – and professionals in other spheres like accountancy and investment. Notably, Irish Life started to recruit women in the 1970s to what had been totally male-dominated fields. This recruitment of young women and men produced a stream of able young people which had a profound effect not only on Irish Life but also on the wider financial services industry in Ireland.

Last October, at the Society of Actuaries in Ireland’s annual convention, a presentation was made to Bob Willis to celebrate his recent 100th birthday.

He responded by giving a witty and incisive speech, outlining his lifetime experience of the growth of the actuarial profession in Ireland. It was an extraordinarily moving address, even – perhaps especially – for younger actuaries who would never have known Bob personally.

When Bob qualified in 1950, there were only three or four actuaries in the whole country. Bob was one of the founder members – and an early president – of the Society of Actuaries in Ireland. When it started in 1972, there were 17 members. Now there are almost 2,200.

This remarkable growth says a huge amount about the quality and dedication of those early actuaries as they laid the foundations of the strong profession which exists in Ireland today. In many ways this growth of the actuarial profession in Ireland is an extreme reflection of what happened to Ireland and the Irish economy in the last 60 years.

Bob was a man of considerable charm but, more importantly, he was imbued with a great sense of fairness and doing what was right.

He was held in the highest regard by all his colleagues in the many spheres in which he worked.

Bob was married to Elaine (who predeceased him) for over 60 years, having three children, Linda, Neil and Erica. With their support, he was able to live on his own past his 100th birthday, continuing to drive, even to Portugal as recently as two years ago.

A remarkable man to whom Ireland and the Irish actuarial profession owe a great deal.