C. Seth Lester, ASA

Actuarial generalist in the commercial pharmacy benefits space with experience in core pricing and reserving functions, data storytelling and visualization, predictive modeling, public speaking, model CI/CD pipelines, and coaching Agile/Scrum teams.


*This résumé (typeset in LaTeX) is available in Adobe PDF format.

Work Experience

Actuarial Advisor (April 2019 to present)
Pharmacy Pricing, Cigna Commercial Healthcare, Philadelphia, PA

  • Lead actuarial pricing team’s feature development and new product pricing methodology for in-house interactive pricing model used by 20+ commercial pharmacy benefits underwriters.
  • Built intake system for case-specific pricing questions and exception approval requests from underwriting, sales, and other market-facing functions.
  • Transitioned team to Agile release train. Continue to champion Scrum roles and ceremonies in adjacent teams across the organization.
  • Coach teammates towards more innovative and pragmatic sharing of information with key stakeholders through data visualization improvements.
  • Provide ad-hoc pharmacy claims modeling, projections, and other business insights to matrix partners and internal customers, as needed.
  • Lead team effort to overhaul data processes and data validation frameworks in R and SAS codebases.

Actuarial Specialist (August 2017 to April 2019)
Actuarial Valuation, Cigna Supplemental Benefits, Austin, TX

  • Owned DAC true-up process for several LOBs; developed visualized process in R to validate and monitor deferred expense amortization model output.
  • Maintained suite of GGY AXIS models and in-house MS SQL Server-based data warehouse to support Stat/GAAP ALR, DLR, DAC, and VOBA financial reporting requirements.

Actuarial Senior Analyst (June 2015 to August 2017)
Actuarial Rate Maintenance, Cigna Supplemental Benefits, Austin, TX

  • Implemented feature enhancements for tool supporting the automation of several hundred annual rate filings for supplemental individual products in 50+ US states and territories.
  • Managed intern in developing a tool in R to model future Medicare Supplement experience using automated ARIMA methods.
  • Led the actuarial university recruiting team for Texas schools (2016 - 2017).

Professional Designations & Certifications

  • Associate of the Society of Actuaries (ASA) (May 2019)
  • Certified ScrumMaster (CSM) (August 2019)
  • Certified SAS Base 9.4 Programming Specialist (August 2020)

Education

  • Master of Science, Statistics (May 2020 - current)
    • North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC (Distance Program)
  • Bachelor of Arts, Philosophy (May 2015, Cum Laude)
    • University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA

Technical Competencies

  • Languages: VBA, SQL, R, SAS, Java, PHP, Python, JavaScript, C/C++
  • Tools: MS Visual Studio, Git, Docker, RStudio/Shiny, Hadoop/Spark, Teradata
  • Environments: Linux/Unix, Windows, macOS, AWS

References

References are gladly made available upon request.