differentiation

Why senior people look different (brief):

Experience & pattern recognition — many problems they’ve seen before, so decisions look fast and confident.
Risk tolerance & decision bias — willing to back imperfect decisions because they judge upside better.
Resource of examples — years of delivered outcomes to point at.
Visibility & sponsorship — they’ve been seen doing high-value work and have senior people who back them.
Commercial sense — they talk impact in money/time saved, not just technical correctness.
Delegation & leverage — they get work done through others; their time buys influence.
Luck & timing — being in the right project or role at the right moment matters.

exploit

Gaps you can realistically and ethically exploit (i.e. opportunities to jump ahead):

Translate technical work into clear business impact. Most actuaries don’t. If you do, you stand out.
Visibility: publish short case notes, present at internal meetings, volunteer for client updates.
Sponsor relationships: senior advocates accelerate promotion more than performance alone.
Commercial storytelling: learn to pitch outcomes, not methods.
Niche expertise or tooling: pick one useful niche (model risk, IFRS, ML explainability, pricing frameworks) and own it.
Operational / delivery skills: reliable delivery + calm under pressure gets noticed.
Interviewing / negotiation: applying for a role can raise your outside value and bargaining power.

Rowena with a spear (experience) and textile patterns in a line up (pattern recognition)

red amp on a pulley

an imp purring with a cat

sponge ship with money flag

white van in television screen

jonny depps head with leg coming out of forehead
old man pulling one of those train track levers