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Originally, Harry Niederau holds a master in economics and as such obtained a regular rather than pronounced level of quantitative training. He got in touch with actuarial and finance mathematics from a hands-on perspective during his professional life, supplemented by the topic of his doctoral thesis. Motivated by quantitative problems such as typically occurring in actuarial or finance applications such as the modelling of extremal events, he has gradually built up knowledge about the underlying formal corpus. Seminars, colloquia, and lectures at ETH Zurich or seminars of actuarial associations like the SAV or the DAV or CAS have spurred this process.
Given this provenance with respect to quantitative matters, he feels at home whenever analytical tools and practical problems need to match. In particular, coming from a hands-on perspective, he is a strong opponent to mechanically applying text book wisdom to practical problems while ignoring or not even realizing potential pitfalls.
Apart from his quantitative education, Harry Niederau has always worked in multi-cultural environments both with respect to different professions but also geographical and religious provenance of peers, superiors, and business partners. He is therefore well sensitive to the different "languages", including associated "ways of thinking" in business life - a key prerequisite to brave the challenges and roles such as outlined on these sites.