Strengthening the Partnership Between Risk Management and Wise

Kristin Dinwiddie

A more defined relationship between UVAFinance’s Risk Management department and UVA’s College at Wise has resulted in benefits for all involved.

As the senior manager for risk control at UVA, Kristin Dinwiddie has always worked closely with UVA-Wise on matters such as insurance claims. In 2021, when Director of Property & Liability Risk Management Gretchen Kriebel came on board with outreach as one of her priorities, Dinwiddie took the opportunity to grow her relationship with Wise. She partnered with Joe Kiser, Vice Chancellor of Finance & Operations at Wise, and began regularly providing more direct support in other areas such as loss prevention and process review.

As these conversations continued, Dinwiddie and Kiser realized it also made sense for her to have a physical presence at Wise. As Kiser puts it, “We felt like it made sense to grow the relationship so that Kristin was well known and could be reached out to directly, rather than having me be a middleman. If people know Kristin, they can get things done quickly and more efficiently.”

After many months of in-person meetings, Kristin was fortunate to get to meet with many employees and added that because many staffers at Wise wear multiple hats, she often talks to one person about several different risk issues.

When at Wise, Dinwiddie has assisted with event management, certificates of insurance, and even formalizing policy compliance, which reduces exposure for UVA as a whole. “The more our colleagues at Wise know about what the risk management office does, the more they want to partner with us,” says Dinwiddie. “They see huge value in our partnership.”

Kiser agrees that growing the relationship has been a win-win: “We have definitely been able to learn a lot from one another. Our collaboration is a model of how we can steward resources between the two organizations.”