José Castañeda
WHAT IF? WHY NOT? HOW TO? FACTS, FIGURES, and MORE...
Support strategic decisions for optimizing marketing investments, budges, sales, and business processes by presenting recommendations to uncover business opportunities, adverse trends, data gaps, and risks hidden inside large data sets. Promotes profitable business analysis with a "find a way, make a way" attitude to efficiently get the work done while influencing teamwork quality and quantity.
Expert in transforming untested analytical ideas and data into creative tools to measure and optimize projects, mass marketing programs, processes, sales, and profits. Specialized in forecasting “what-if” risk or marketing scenarios and efficiently communicating the technical or cultural nuances hidden between the numbers impacting outcomes.
- Leadership: Able to navigate cultural countries work styles and people differences to exceed expectations.
- Communication: Excellent written, oral, and public speaking skills to become the problem solver go-to technical person.
- Flexible: Highly adaptable to changing circumstances, work efficiently in different time zones, cultures, and timelines.
- Self-motivated: Quick learner of new techniques, skills, and software, desktop or web based, needed to timely complete projects.
- Mentor/Trainer: Naturally adept at sharing knowledge to improve teamwork efficiency and go beyond job descriptions.
Experience
Expertise in solving data analysis, financial modeling, and marketing challenges while promoting profitable business growth.
José moved to Chicago in 1998, accepting a position with Combined Insurance of America as a Senior Staff Actuary for Spanish-speaking countries and Brazil. He interacted with sales, underwriting, actuarial, reinsurance, and legal teams from Mexico, Brazil, Chile, Bolivia, Argentina, Spain, Portugal, the UK, Puerto Rico, Japan, China, and South Korea, while also providing cultural expertise and feedback to counterparts in the USA. He frequently traveled to train local junior actuarial staff and providing ongoing communication and coaching. He also had a brief two-year brush-up on Property and Casualty expertise as an International Actuary with the former Aon Warranty Group.
José is a retired member of the American Academy of Actuaries, active from 2002-2021, received his BS in Actuarial Sciences from the Central University of Venezuela in Caracas, and completed his professional training through insurance and reinsurance companies in Switzerland, Germany, and Mexico. He is a past president of the Venezuelan Actuarial Association.
José currently is a dedicated professional at Chicago Public Schols who excels in optimizing operations and driving performance improvement. With a strong focus on data-driven decision-making, José thrives in developing reports, building metrics, and creating automated mechanisms to monitor and enhance services. His expertise and success lies in ensuring data integrity and providing coaching and training to empower teams in utilizing tools and systems effectively.
Additionally, José is committed to fostering a culture of continuous improvement within the organization. He takes the initiative to conduct data inquiries, share innovative ideas, and promote effective practices across teams. His exceptional communication and collaboration skills create an environment of open dialogue and teamwork, further enhancing the organization’s success.
He enjoys teaching Math and Statistics at the Saint Augustine College in Chicago.
SENIOR data analyst at TALENT / chicago public schools / 2021+
Develops reports, builds metrics, creates, identifies, and automates mechanisms and processes to monitor and improve services and streamline daily and regular operations while ensuring data integrity, coaching, and training staff to use tools and systems.
CONSULTANT at CASTANEDA GROUP, LLC / 2015+
Help businesses in data gathering, analytics, financial management, copywriting marketing in Spanish, and translations.
SURVEY STATISTICIAN AT US CENSUS BUREAU / 2020-2020
Daily monitoring to supplement and verify real time-data for census staff operations and performance goals for eight states.
ACTUARIAL Consultant AT QBE NORTH AMERICA / 2017-2018
A 6-month full-time project-based contract for developing and implementing an Excel/SQL/Access user-friendly tool to integrate a set of pricing models
INTERNATIONAL ACTUARY AT AON DIRECT GROUP / 2007-2015
Business Development, Financial and Statistical Analysis, Business Operations, Communications, Business Research, and Strategic Assessments.
INTERNATIONAL ACTUARY AT the warranty group 2005-2007
Liability assessment and business reporting, and Loss Ratios. Developed analytics for the program’s claim frequency and severity studies. Liaison between USA AON headquarters and the Latin America region, identifying business opportunities, improving business models, and operations.
senior staff actuary AT combined insurance-aon/1998-2005
Presented, developed pricing and valuation models, conducted post-campaign data analytics for marketing programs, and periodic sales reporting. Managed relationships with sales, underwriting, actuarial, reinsurance, and claim business units in the US offices and stakeholders in Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, Spain, and the UK. Trained/mentored/managed the Latin American actuaries’ team.
CORE DATA AND ANALYTICAL COMPETENCIES
Expert in Excel/Power Query/PowerPivot, Skilled in Data Extraction, Transforming, Loading, and Reporting. MS Excel modeling, Macros, and VBA programming to develop and implement financial models to execute Request for Proposals, Internal Rate of Return, Return on Investment, Net Present Value, Cost-Benefit Analysis, and Discount Cash Flow studies. Expert in financial, data management, and statistical MS Excel features and formulas including Pivot Tables & Slicers, Fitting Time Series for Trending/Forecasting Analysis, Arrays, Data Visualization, and Pricing Analysis.
FINANCIAL AND STATISTICAL ANALYSIS
Expert in evaluating and identifying growth strategies, economic variables impact, budgeting, funding amount needs, and its timing, also monitoring key performance indicators of domestic and international sales/marketing programs
Business Development
Build client relationships with domestic and international stakeholders, officials from regulatory and legal bodies, account managers, upper management, present sales plans, explain, analyze, or obtain the approval of critical and urgent new projects or programs.
STRATEGIC ASSESSMENTS
Expert analyzing and seeking alternative funding ways to split or share expenses and investments among business partners to make new projects feasible, performing statistical analysis of marketing results, researching Actual to Expected variation’s root causes and consequences.
Awards & Education
Programa Internacional en Ciencias Actuariales
Fasecolda – Bogotá, Colombia – 2018
Direct and Interactive Marketing Certificate
DePaul University – Chicago – 2004
Member
American Academy of Actuaries, USA 2002-2021
Life Insurance & Reinsurance Course
Swiss Insurance Training Center (SITC) – Zurich – 1987
Bachelors in Actuarial Science, with Minor in Statistics
Central University of Venezuela – Caracas – 1985
Rank #1 – Graduating Class
Central University of Venezuela – Caracas – 1985
Get In Touch
Ready to Chat!
Chicago, IL
312.985.6017
jose@us-actuary.com
(If I am not available, please email, text, or leave a message)