Success Stories

Brown & Riding is a national wholesale insurance brokerage firm based in Los Angeles with 17 offices across the country. One of those is in Oxford, Mississippi – specifically because of the University of Mississippi. 

After seeing the early success of its first hire from Ole Miss Class of 2010, Brown & Riding’s president and CEO, Jeff Rodriguez, traveled to Oxford. “I was very impressed with the school on that first trip, and the result was that Brown & Riding ended up making a number of new hires, including interns and full-time employees,” Rodriguez says. 

Brown & Riding employs more than 50 Ole Miss alumni. Due to its successful partnership with the university, the firm opened a processing office in Oxford to develop its own talent pool and support the internship program it helped design.

Brown & Riding has developed strong relationships with Risk Management and Insurance faculty, which helps the firm identify prime candidates for both internships and full-time employment. The company established the Brown & Riding Faculty Support Endowment to ensure the department’s top faculty are retained and equipped for continued success.

Brown & Riding is now partnering with Ole Miss to address other challenges the insurance industry faces by growing outreach and developing a certificate program aimed at increasing diversity in the industry.

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