Ethan Kra is an independent actuary, specializing in litigation support/expert witness, advice on multiemployer plan exposures and strategies and the financial aspects of executive benefits. Previously, he was a Senior Partner and Chief Actuary-Retirement of Mercer, where he consulted in the areas of the design and funding of pension and group insurance benefits, structuring and funding of non-qualified pension benefits and the proper accounting for expense of employee
benefits. He specializes in analyzing the economic and accounting implications of financing strategies and vehicles for employee and executive benefits. For over 17 years, he chaired Mercer's Actuarial Resource Network, a committee of the senior technical actuaries throughout the United States.
Experience
For over 34 years, Dr. Kra advised Mercer's largest clients on: retirement plan funding, accounting, financing, compliance and design; executive benefit funding, accounting and financing; retiree medical accounting, funding and financing; health, life and disability underwriting, financing and accounting; multiemployer plan obligations; uses of captive insurance companies for employee benefits. He also served as expert witness and provided litigation support on
these issues in litigation, arbitration and mediation contexts.
Ethan is a Fellow of the Society of Actuaries, a Member of the American Academy of Actuaries, a Fellow of the Conference of Consulting Actuaries, a Fellow of ASPPA, an Enrolled Actuary and a Chartered Enterprise Risk Analyst. He has been a regular speaker at Society of Actuaries meetings and Conference of Consulting Actuaries meetings, an instructor at Enrolled Actuaries Learning Sessions and a lecturer at the Practicing Law Institute. He has also taught the American
Management Association’s course in Advanced Employee Benefits.
Ethan has served as Vice President of the Society of Actuaries, where he had oversight
responsibilities for Education and Examinations. He also formerly chaired the Society’s Pension Section and was the first chair of both its FAS 106 Task Force and its Pension Finance Task Force. He has served on the American Academy of Actuaries Board of Directors, as its Vice President, Pensions and Chair of its Pension Practice Council. He has also been an active member of the pension trade associations (American Benefits Council and the ERISA Industry Committee) for over 20 years. He served on the New Jersey Pension and Health Benefit Study Commission from 2014 to 2017.
Ethan has authored over 30 articles and given over 170 speeches in the areas of employee
benefits, executive compensation and the use of insurance products as corporate financial investments. He is also frequently quoted in such publications as The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Time Magazine, Newsweek, CFO Magazine, Business Week, Institutional Investor and has appeared on CNBC.
Recent Significant Accomplishments and Projects
Dr. Kra was instrumental in helping defense counsel craft mitigation strategies that resulted in a reduction of hundreds of millions of dollars in the cost of settling a major litigation. In another case, he served as an expert witness in tax arbitration, justifying the selection of a discount rate, resulting in the preservation of a $1.5B tax deduction. He has also crafted an approach for a client with $1.2B of potential multiemployer withdrawal liability to insure against the risk of counterparties defaulting on their withdrawal liabilities, which could help the client to avoid economic loss due to counterparty (often competitor) bankruptcy. In addition, Chief Justice Roberts, in a 5-3 majority opinion, twice cited an amicus brief structured by Dr. Kra.
Education
Ethan is a Summa Cum Laude graduate of Yale University, where he earned his B.A. in Mathematics and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. He holds M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in Mathematics from Yale University, where he was both a Woodrow Wilson Fellow and a National Science Fellow.
