Biography

Professor Conrad Beyers is an Associate Professor at the University of Pretoria (UP) where he lectures and supervises research projects in addition to undertaking research. He is the current ABSA Chair in Actuarial Science. Outside the UP, Prof Conrad collaborates with National Standard in delivering complex assignments for clients in the banking and enterprise risk management area where mathematical and statistical modelling is required. He has been involved in building and validating credit scorecard models and IFRS 9 expected credit loss models for banks. He also undertakes market and statistical research on behalf of National Standard in delivering client assignments and collecting market intelligence. He has also worked on designing stress testing frameworks for the banking industry that are appropriate for assessing both market-wide systematic risk and bank specific risks, models that National Standard has access to for delivering client assignments for both regulators and banks. He is a Fellow of the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries, a Fellow of the Actuarial Society of South Africa and a Chartered Enterprise Risk Actuary. He also holds a PHD in Mathematics among many of his qualifications.

Professor Conrad Beyers has written many research papers in banking and risk management in sharing his expertise. This is consistent with National Standard’s focus on Human Capital Development initiatives to achieve a positive impact in industry skills development. Professor Conrad Beyers’ interdisciplinary research activities can be seen from his publications in a range of high-profile academic journals, as well as the joint postgraduate supervision with academics from a range of disciplines, either through research outputs or through postgraduate supervision. These disciplines currently include Banking Law, Economics, Agricultural Economics, Engineering, Geosciences, Mathematics, Statistics and Data Science.  Since 2012, Professor Conrad Beyers has been increasingly involved in interdisciplinary research efforts. This accelerated significantly after the establishment of the Absa Chair in 2013.  Collaboration with Oxford Professor, Dimitrios Tsomocos and UP researchers resulted in the development of a macro-economic banking model for South Africa. A strong Africa focus in the research is exemplified by the supervision of postgraduate students from various African countries, including Ghana, Lesotho, Nigeria and Zimbabwe.  As Absa Chair, Conrad is the convener of an Interdisciplinary Colloquium on Mathematics, Economics, Finance and Actuarial Science where he has convened a number of colloquium lectures, including being a prominent speaker both locally and internationally, that have been already held from 2014.

Professor Conrad Beyers believes that research ties with industry partners and regulatory bodies is important in any banking-related research. He is currently involved in joint research initiatives with Absa Bank, MMI, Actuarial Society of South Africa and the South African Reserve Bank. He is also involved in research collaboration with South African Universities that include joint initiatives with the BMI institute at the North-West University and the Risk Management department at UNISA. Conrad is also engaged in efforts to establish academic ties with universities on the African continent.

Conrad also sits on the Advisory Board of the Data Science Institute at UP, High-Performance Computing committee at UP and as an alternate Trustee on the UP Pension and Provident Funds.