Alumnus Supports Risk Management Internship Program

Every summer since 2018–including through the pandemic–five McCormack sport management students have engaged in summer internships with an added educational twist. As recipients of the $5,000 Tokio-Marine HCC Summer Internship Scholarship Award, part of their summer is spent putting the sport organization they are interning with under a risk management microscope.

What could go wrong with the business, or one of its events, or one of its players? What are the major risks the organization faces on a day-to-day basis? What are some new opportunities that the sport organization could embrace using existing Tokio-Marine HCC insurance products? And is there an opportunity to create an entirely new insurance product? 

These are just a few of the questions these students consider throughout their summer internships. The goal is for these students to become more aware of the significance and impact of risk management, risk transfer and promotion insurance within the sport and entertainment industry, as well as of the career opportunities within this critical and growing segment of the industry.

“Few things happen in sports, and likely any other industry, without there being a risk management plan in place, which typically entails insurance of some kind,” remarked Professor Steve McKelvey. McKelvey, along with Kristine Elison, Isenberg’s assistant dean of development, collaborated with alumnus Bill Hubbard to create the summer internship award program as part of Hubbard’s endowed $1 million gift to the McCormack Department of Sport Management. “For students planning careers in sport management, it’s vital that they understand not only how various types of insurance work, but also how insurance can help make new opportunities feasible. This awards program enables each student to do a deep-dive into this area.”

It’s a mission that Hubbard’s been on since obtaining a BS in sport management in 1987 and an MBA in 1989, both through Isenberg. After graduating, Hubbard started working for Boston-based American Specialty Underwriters (ASU), writing disability insurance for professional athletes and key persons in the film, television and music industries. Hubbard led ASU’s entrance into event cancellation insurance, kidnap and ransom insurance, and various coverages for the promotion marketing industry. In 2001, Hubbard and his partners sold the company to Houston Casualty Company (HCC), where Hubbard was named president and CEO of HCC Specialty. In 2015, HCC was acquired by Tokio Marine, one of the top 10 largest global insurance conglomerates, where Hubbard served as president and CEO of TMHCC Specialty until his elevation to chairman in 2017. 

“UMass has been very important to me individually and to the company,” remarked Hubbard. “We’ve had dozens of UMass sport management graduates intern and work here.” In addition to keeping his pipeline well greased for Isenberg graduates, Hubbard also had a personal motivation for creating this award program. “When I was at UMass, I couldn’t do an internship because I couldn’t afford one,” he said. “I would never want a student to have to turn down a summer internship offer because they lacked the funds to accept it,” added Hubbard, who was awarded the VanderZwaag Distinguished Alumni Award in 2000.

Nicole Melton, PhD, chair of the McCormack Department of Sport Management, said that internships are a crucial part of students’ learning experience and resume-building as they prepare for full-time jobs within the sport and entertainment industry. “The opportunity to receive substantial financial awards through Bill Hubbard’s generous gift further encourages and incentivizes our students to pursue summer internships that they might not otherwise be able to pursue,” she said.

In addition to the five students selected to receive $5,000 to help cover costs of their summer internships, there’s another tantalizing element that caps off the program. Each student returns to UMass in the fall to present about their internship experience and how their internship employer might implement risk management strategies via Tokio-Marine HCC. A team of Tokio-Marine HCC senior executives visit campus to judge the presentations, and one of the five students wins a $5,000 bonus award. 

Hubbard speaks very highly of the growth that McCormack has experienced. He recalls sport management being part of the School of Physical Education in the Boyden Gymnasium when he was at UMass, so he takes a lot of pride in where the department stands now (which includes the #1 global ranking among sport management graduate programs for the past three years). “We’ve watched it grow to become what it is today,” Hubbard said. “Through the strong and visionary leadership of faculty like Hal Vanderzwaag, Glenn Wong, Lisa Masteralexis and Steve McKelvey, the program has continually gotten better and better. When meeting with reinsurers across the globe, they want to know what our secret sauce is. I put UMass sport management majors right at the top of the list.”

That’s been mirrored in the quality of scholarship winners and presentations, with Hubbard sharing how impressed he and his team are with the pool of scholarship winners every year. He even ventured to say that the quality is so high across the board, they’ve had a tough time picking just one presentation from the group to award an additional $5,000 bonus. “We’ve been able to develop the best practices and make it better each year. I’ve really seen marked improvement and an uptick in the quality of the proposals. It’s just gotten better, and we like to think we have a part in that, but we definitely benefit from it.”

In 2018, the first bonus of the scholarship fund was awarded to Matthew Donnelly, who is now the Corporate Partnership Sales Manager with the Detroit Pistons. “I really wanted to explore opportunities within sport sponsorships and sport partnerships,” Donnelly said. However, he understood that would be exponentially more difficult without any financial backing. He thought, “I may as well throw my hat in the ring,” and sure enough, “it definitely enabled [him] to really pursue the vertical in this industry that [he] was passionate about.”

Donnelly also shared his gratitude for being selected as one of the first scholarship recipients. “The fact that I was recognized as one of five that were doing excellent in their coursework and outside internships, it was definitely a prideful moment.”

“The really impactful thing that this scholarship specifically allowed me to do was giving me an opportunity to construct and present a fully-fledged proposal,” Donnelly said. That pitch, one that included a full breakdown of how his internship with CSM Sports and Entertainment “could ultimately construct a benefit package that Tokio-Marine, a specialty insurance agency, could go out to market itself,” eventually led to him winning the bonus.

That was valuable to Donnelly, as his role “wasn't tied to insurance, but it allowed [him] to think about how the insurance industry can impact the sports sponsorship space.” Another piece of experience he gained from being awarded the scholarship was learning how to present an idea before a group—not any ordinary group though, but to Tokio-Marine senior leadership team. “I had to get out of my comfort zone a little bit,” Donnelly said, but “it allowed me to fine-tune my presentation skills and how to present myself in front of a CEO and president of an organization.”

The last point that Donnelly hit on was his appreciation of the McCormack Department and how it set him up to thrive where he is today. “It’s always been that UMass enables the people who are motivated and who want to work in this industry; they give you the tools to be successful.” He added, “I think that this scholarship was the perfect example of that. This award epitomizes what the McCormack Department is: everyone is willing to send a ladder back down and help someone out.”

Both Yuki Chiang and Jack Davis were selected as scholarship recipients in 2021. Chiang, who’s now a Fund Development Coordinator with the United States Tennis Association (USTA), always knew she wanted to work in sports. However, she didn’t exactly envision working in the tennis world. Chiang grew up playing tennis and had long been told, “You are always meant to go back into tennis as somebody who grew up playing,” but she resisted, thinking, “No, I’m not really one of those people.” After time spent at both Wasserman Group and 23XI Racing, where she interned during her association with Tokio-Marine, she found herself accepting an opportunity with the USTA.

“I’d never really had accolades for being academic. I never really considered myself to win these kinds of things,” Chiang said of being named one of the five Tokio-Marine scholars. “That to me really opened my eyes that I could last in sports. Through my creative outlook, whether it’s right or wrong or applicable today, somebody somewhere within the sports industry sees my ability and my talent and that I can contribute positively.”

Even before the official presentation to Tokio-Marine’s senior leadership team, she impressed herself with how much information she had absorbed from the insurance realm and how much she was able to teach others. Like Donnelly, Chiang also described how the presentation aspect of the scholarship went a long way for her in terms of career development at each position she has held. “As prestigious and as well-known as Tokio-Marine is, it was a great marketing pitch for me to say, ‘Tokio-Marine was a great scholarship program that I had been a part of. What is your risk management insurance company that you partner with?’”

Jack Davis, currently the Associate Athletic Director at the University of Delaware, was also a recipient of the scholarship in 2021 and also won the $5000 bonus. Davis’ background is in finance, so when he initially read the scholarship application prompt, he recalled coming up with ways he could apply his knowledge of finance to the scholarship program. “I thought of a lot of creative ways that tied my finance background to the project, and it fun for a big fan wanting to work in college athletics,” Davis said. He researched what types of products an insurance provider could offer, so “in that sense, the assignment was right in [his] wheelhouse.”

Davis kept coming back to how the Tokio-Marine scholarship really allowed him to tap into his imaginative side and come up with new ideas for insurance agencies. The internship aspect, which he did at the University of Rhode Island, “helped me think about how it can enable creative ideas and fun ideas. I pitched an insurance plan that would provide prize indemnity,” Davis stated. “It helped me gain an appreciation that when you have coverage, you can be more creative—like you see in the college athletic space.”

Davis used the experience he gained as part of the Tokio-Marine scholarship program to propel him to where he is today. After he was named one of the five recipients, he said he was able to stop working for his other employer and “pour some time into a product that I was developing around scheduling for men’s basketball, and doing so in a way that maximizes your chance to make the NCAA tournament.” Although that was never commercialized, Davis says that venture taught him so much about data science; he hopes to return to that project one day with it being on the backburner for now.

After working on the scheduling project, Davis said, “I realized I had a passion for that type of work, and I probably wouldn’t have if I was still working. That led me to my current role, where I now oversee business intelligence and analytics at the University of Delaware.”

The following year, Sophie Gindi was a recipient of the Tokio-Marine scholarship as well as being awarded the bonus. At the time, she was a Property Assistant at Learfield, UMass Sports Properties, a sports marketing company.

Gindi now works as a Sport Sponsorship Associate at KPMG Sports and attributed part of landing that role to her Learfield internship that coincided with the scholarship research project. “I already had some experience with sponsorships through that role where I was activating UMass Athletics partnerships,” Gindi said. She explained how that summer affirmed her passion for creating relationships and agreements between two parties, and being selected as a Tokio-Marine scholarship recipient let her flex her creative muscle.

It couldn’t be understated “how awesome of an opportunity and how unique of a scholarship program it was,” Gindi said. “You not only write a personal statement but learn about the company that you’re receiving a scholarship from.” For her, coming back to UMass at the end of the program and presenting in front of Tokio-Marine capped off a great career opportunity. It was an important step to “complete such an impactful experience.”

The financial aspect was obviously relieving since she was preparing to move to Dallas, Texas, for the Learfield multimedia internship. “Moving myself down to Dallas for the summer was definitely a great decision, so receiving the scholarship was a relief in that sense,” Gindi shared. However, outside the financial aspect, she was even more honored to be a recipient of and be a part of such a highly regarded scholarship program. “It was a really rewarding feeling, especially since I knew that the scholarship was open both to underclassmen and graduate students—I knew it was a tough pool and I was honored to be selected along with the other students.”

Since its inception almost seven years ago, the Tokio-Marine scholarship program has become a staple for the McCormack sport department. Each year, the recipients of the award take the project to heart and apply their knowledge of risk management and Tokio-Marine’s practices to their summer internships. Some go on to work for Tokio-Marine directly, and the rest have gone on to find success with other employers across the country. 

“The scholarship program helps the recipients focus on what they’re looking for from their internships,” Hubbard said. “It gives them a better idea of what’s possible.” One thing that he looks for from each recipient is real-world applications of what they have learned: identifying problems, coming up with creative solutions, and especially “how you can transfer risk management via insurance.” An accurate, engaging examination of how their internship company can transfer risk away from themselves is what marks a successful scholarship recipient.

2027 will mark ten years of the partnership, meaning that Bill Hubbard and Tokio Marine HCC will have made a memorable and meaningful impact on the lives of 50 McCormack students. The program will also become fully endowed by 2027, ensuring that Hubbard’s summer internship scholarship award program will continue on indefinitely. Indeed, this is a program for which risk really does have its rewards! 

By Adam Greene '26, a rising senior double-majoring in sport management and marketing, who is interning with Cape Cod Baseball League this summer.