Today is a first.

I’ve had a many senior industry executives on the show who have started their careers as actuaries, but I’ve never met anyone who already knew when they left school that they definitely wanted to be one.

Martin Burke is different and this is what makes him an excellent podcast guest. In his own words he has walked something of a squiggly career path that has brought him to his current position as Chief Underwriting Officer at Lloyd’s stalwart MS Amlin.

But having walked all the bends in the road to get where he is now has made Martin an extremely well-rounded CUO.

It’s obvious none of his time spent on reserving, pricing and in the finance and risk departments has gone to waste. To re-run the cliché, actuaries aren’t famous for being great communicators, but that just makes the ones who are stand out.

Martin has the gift of the gab and that makes him a high value guest to someone like me.

An interviewee who can understand and, more importantly, summarise and explain complicated ideas in a way that laypeople can understand, is podcasting gold dust.

And when that person is also responsible for profitably growing a £2bn (US$2.5bn) book in today’s market, this makes for a complete and satisfying listen.

Here we run through MS Amlin’s strategy in an evolving market and take in Martin’s views on an eclectic range of topics, including the impacts of the latest major loss activity on insurer and reinsurer appetites, the best applications of technology and Ai, as well as his priorities for where he feels the London Market should be developing as a collective as the leadership regime at Lloyd’s transitions.

I think you’ll find Martin fun to spend time with and full of surprises.