Chris Daykin was the Government Actuary and head of the Government Actuary's Department (GAD) from April 1989 to September 2007. He graduated with a 1 st Class honours degree in mathematics from Cambridge University (UK) in 1970 and qua li fied as a Fellow of the Institute of Actuaries (FIA) in 1973. Employed at GAD from 1970 to 2007, he worked for UK and many international c li ents on pension fund consultancy, population projections, social security, national pension po li cy, pension reform, risk management, the supervision of insurance companies, and compensation in personal injury cases. He is currently an independent consultant and has a variety of appointments, among others, as Chairman of Trustees of the Arts Council Retirement Plan, Chairman of the Civil Service Insurance Society and as a member of the International Advisory Council for the Principal Financial Group.

He was President of the Institute of Actuaries from 1994 to 1996 and Chairman of the International Forum of Actuarial Associations (IFAA) from 1996 to 1997. He was the Chairman of the Technical Commission for Statistical, Actuarial and Financial Studies of the International Social Security Association from 1992 to September 2007. He was Chairman of the Education Committee of the European Actuarial Consultative Group (EACG) from 1992 to 2006 and was elected Second Vice-Chairman of the EACG in September 2007. He chaired the Professiona li sm Committee of the International Actuarial Association (IAA) from 1999 to 2002 and since 2003 he has been Chairman of the Pensions, Benefits and Social Security Section of the IAA. He is a member of the Executive Committee of the IAA.

He has been chairman or a member of numerous committees and task forces on the education of actuaries and has chaired the International Education Committee of the UK Actuarial Profession since 1999. He was involved in designing and implementing diploma programmes to start up actuarial education in a large number of the countries of central and eastern Europe from 1990 onwards and pioneered the involvement of the UK Institute of Actuaries in China from 1993 to the present time. He is now a member of the International Education Programme Committee of the IAA, Chief Executive of the IAA Fund and a member of the IAA Advice & Assistance Committee, China Committee and Latin America Committee.

He has written numerous papers on actuarial topics, including pensions, social security, general insurance, li fe insurance, genetics and insurance, demography and AIDS. He is joint author of the book Practical Risk Theory for Actuaries with Teivo Pentikäinen and Martti Pesonen. In 1998 he was awarded the Gold Medal of the Institute of Actuaries . In 1997 he received the President's Award of the Society of Actuaries (in North America ). In 1993 he was made a Companion of the Order of the Bath by Her Majesty the Queen. He is an honorary visiting professor at City University , London , the Shanghai University of Finance and Economics and the Central University of Finance and Economics, Beijing .