Tom Opdyke (M&T’91) is managing director of AIG’s Portfolio Solutions Group and an active member of the M&T Alumni Network, which he built from the ground up. At the 2026 M&T Summit, Opdyke will receive the Alumni Service Award in recognition of his role in creating and growing the alumni network – an initiative that has added tremendous value to the program and helped attract prospective students. In the below Q&A, Opdyke reflects on his time in the M&T Program as a student and his ongoing involvement as an alumnus.
Q: Tell us about your current role and what you love most about the work you do.
TO: I’ve been at AIG for nearly 14 years, working in what’s now called the Portfolio Solutions Group within the tax department. The group was created following the financial crisis, when AIG had lost over $100 billion and was under government control. There were various organizational, financial, and regulatory issues that had never existed before, and the company needed a way to address them.
What I love most about my work is that it is never routine. I’m constantly moving from one interesting problem to another. We’re given an issue, there’s no script, and we have to exercise financial, mathematical, and organizational creativity to come up with a solution – and then develop a blueprint for implementation. That combination of big-picture thinking and getting deep into the details is what keeps it exciting.
Q: How did your time in the M&T Program prepare you for the challenges of your industry?
TO: The M&T Program is incredibly demanding, and one of the most valuable things it does is push you beyond what you thought you were capable of. It teaches you that you can tackle very difficult, unstructured problems and find a solution.
A big part of my job now is walking into situations where there is no trodden path – no handbook or manual – and not being afraid to start down one anyway. M&T gave me that confidence. It also instilled a very analytical, problem-solving mentality that I use every day. Even though I’m not an engineer in the traditional sense, I think of what I do as organizational engineering: building systems and overseeing how the various aspects of the company fit together to make them work.
Q: Can you talk about some of the ways you’re still involved in the M&T Program?
TO: When I graduated from the program in the early 1990s, the program was very different socially. The academic curriculum was strong, but there wasn’t much of a community – we barely knew the people in our cohort. That changed for me in 2004, when I went to the program’s 25th anniversary celebration as it was the first all-class reunion, and it caused me to think about how powerful the alumni network could be.
After that event, I created a committee comprised of other alumni in New York and started planning regular social events. About 35% of all M&T alumni are in the New York area so we were able to quickly grow and build the network. Over 20 years, we hosted more than 75 gatherings, and this effort became the backbone of today’s M&T alumni network, bringing together alumni, current students, and the M&T office.
Q: Can you share a highlight from the M&T events you’ve planned over the years?
TO: After the early success of the New York group, they asked me to be the event planning chair for the 30th anniversary. We had a clean slate, so I suggested we take it from a morning/afternoon event and transform it into a three-day off-site with dinners, and cocktails and a farewell brunch. It became what we jokingly called “M&T Woodstock.”
At the time, we had about 1,600-1,700 M&T alumni and Alumni Relations told us that having 10% attend would be considered a huge success. Our goal was even more ambitious – we wanted 10% of alumni from every class. We recruited people to call their classmates, and we achieved it: 215 people came – far more than anyone expected. I was asked to do this again for the 35th anniversary, and we repeated the success.
Q: What does winning the Alumni Service Award mean to you?
TO: It’s very nice to be recognized. I didn’t do any of this for an award – I did it for my fellow alumni – but it’s meaningful to know that the vision and the work behind it are appreciated.
Q: What is one piece of advice you would give to current or prospective M&T students?
TO: M&T students by nature are good generalists – we’re good at many things. The advice I give to undergrads is to have one “killer” skill where you’re the expert. Find one area where you’re the expert in the room so that people turn to you for answers.
That combination – being multifaceted while also having a deep specialty – is incredibly powerful and will help you stand out while still being adaptable across industries and roles.