This is Part 2 of Winning Against All Odds with Gaurav Upadhya. If you haven’t heard Part 1 yet, go back and listen to it. That is the episode right before this because you’d need that for context. Now let’s dive right into Part 2 of Winning Against All Odds with Gaurav Upadhya.
If a tiger was chasing you, you will not be looking towards a motivational speaker to guide you. You will run. We can hear all the motivational speeches and read motivational books we want, but the forces within us should push us to get things done.
Gaurav got polio at age 3 years when the vaccine he had didn’t work. Even though Doctors told Gaurav’s parents that he wouldn’t be able to walk but with help from his mother he was able to overcome it. The result was that he was eventually able to walk with crutches and leg braces.
This week’s episode is all about how we can win against all odds. I discussed extensively with Gaurav how he was able to achieve career success despite all the challenges life threw his way.
Gaurav Upadhya is the Global Chief Actuary and Chief Risk Officer at Foresters Financial, a nearly 150-year-old fraternal Canadian life insurance company serving over 2.5 million members and certificate holders in Canada, US and UK. He is a member of the company’s Executive Committee and leads the actuarial, capital, and risk functions at Foresters globally. He is also the Co-Chair of Foresters’ Inclusion, Diversity, and Equity Council.
He has broad experience in the financial services sector, previously working as Managing Director, Actuarial Services with PricewaterhouseCoopers. He also held a succession of leadership positions with Manulife John Hancock, including Senior Vice President, Product, and Insurance Risk Management, and Vice President, U.S. Risk and Capital Management.
Gaurav was born in India and immigrated to Canada as a pre-teen with his family, living in Winnipeg for a number of years before moving to Ontario for post-secondary education. Having contracted polio at a young age, he grew up walking with crutches and leg braces. He is married to an artist, has two adult children, and lives in Toronto.
He is a Fellow in the Society of Actuaries (FSA), a Fellow of the Canadian Institute of Actuaries (FCIA), Member of the American Academy of Actuaries (MAAA), Chartered Enterprise Risk Analyst (CERA) and a Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) charterholder. Gaurav has a Master of Mathematics (Actuarial Science) from the University of Waterloo and a Bachelor of Commerce from Queen’s University. He is a member of the Dean’s Advisory Board of Smith School of Business at Queen’s University, and a former member of the Board of Ascend Canada, a non-profit that supports Pan-Asian business leadership.
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Special thanks to Gaurav for joining us this week. Until next time!
