The budget variance comes in as a page of numbers, and you're the one who works out what it means.
All the data. No point of view.
I'm Mandy Geyer, and I teach actuaries to have opinions. Yes, really. I spent twenty years as an actuary and executive watching careful, correct work fail to change anything, so now I teach technical teams the part nobody taught them.
"So… what does this mean?"
A CFO, looking at 47 rows of data. The analysis was perfect and the answer was in there somewhere. Nobody in the room could find it, so no decision got made and everyone's time was wasted.
You've seen at least one of these this quarter.
Leadership changed a recommendation without understanding what they were giving up, and now you're dealing with the fallout.
A client isn't getting what they need from your team, and they've started looking elsewhere.
The opportunity missed because your team wanted the analysis perfect before anyone saw it.
Analysis that stops at the finding and never gets to what anyone should do about it.
The report that goes out every month, and nobody can tell you who reads it.
None of this is a competence problem. These are careful people doing careful work. But it costs you time, trust and money. Decisions stall, the pipeline of people ready to lead gets thin, and credibility with clients and senior leaders is slow to rebuild.
What changes for you.
01
Data arrives as information you can use.
The budget variance leads with what moved and what to do about it. The analysis reaches a recommendation instead of stopping at the finding. You stop having to play interpreter, and you get what you need in the first draft, not the fourth.
02
Business judgment, not just analysis.
Your people learn to account for what the business is actually weighing, including market, optics and what leadership will have to defend, not only the math. So when someone disagrees with a recommendation, it's a decision made with open eyes rather than a misunderstanding you pay for later.
03
Emerging leaders start to look ready.
You know the person you'd promote if you could justify it. What's missing usually isn't technical. They wait to be asked instead of taking a position, they go quiet when a senior person pushes back, and they've never built the relationships across the organization. Nobody teaches that, which is why the bench is thinner than it should be.
It works, and I measure it.
A leadership development program for a professional association
Four sessions and an in-person capstone. Participants rated themselves on the same five skills, on a scale of 1 to 5, before the first session and again at the end, so the change is measured rather than assumed.
5.0 /5
Overall program rating, from every respondent
3.6 → 4.4
Ability to translate technical work into a clear recommendation for a non-technical audience, self-rated on a 1–5 scale
"Practical, engaging, and immediately applicable, providing valuable frameworks and candid discussions that helped turn everyday leadership challenges into actionable skills."
Alan R., program sponsor
I've been in every one of those situations.
Twenty years as an actuary, consultant and executive. I ran some of the most complex client work at Willis Towers Watson and spent a lot of time in Fortune 500 boardrooms presenting benefits strategy to C-suites, then led large teams as a VP at Health Care Service Corporation.
So I've been the one whose recommendation got changed, the consultant watching a client lose confidence, and the leader who needed to understand what was happening and couldn't get there from what I'd been handed.
Which means I know what a leader actually needs to make a decision, and why brilliant work so often doesn't get them there.
SOA PD Edge Podcast
Wantrepreneur to Entrepreneur
Built around your team's work. Not off the shelf.
Abstract training doesn't stick with analytical people. So I work from the situations your team already knows because I sat on every side of them for twenty years. I build around your group, the time you've got, and whatever's actually in the way.
Speaking
Keynotes and conference sessions
A talk that makes every technical person in the room recognize themselves, and leave unable to build another data dump. Story-driven, interactive, and equal parts uncomfortable and funny.
Conferences, association meetings, all-hands.
Training
Sessions and workshops
From a lunch and learn through to a half day. A focused session on whatever is most in the way. I set up the situation, your team works it live, and I give them direct feedback on what landed and what didn't. Everyone leaves with something they can put to use immediately.
A single team, several teams, or an association.
Programs
Multi-session cohorts
Four to six sessions built around the specific gaps in front of you, with confidence measured before and after so you can see exactly what changed.
Emerging leaders and high potentials.
I work virtually anywhere, and in person across Europe and the US.
Here on your own?
Your Edge is my free membership for individuals building these skills on their own. Frameworks, career moment guides, AI tools and a growth tracker.
Tell me what keeps happening.
Not what you think you need, but what actually keeps going wrong. We'll work out the right next step from there.
Let's talk