The Haslam Sports Group Diversity and Opportunity Fellowship officially announced the 2025 class of fellows. They will embark on a year-long opportunity to build their knowledge of professional sports and gain experience working in the industry.
Fellows will have the chance to work with the Browns over the course of the year-long program and will work in one or more disciplines – sales, marketing, operations and administration – each containing several different departments.
The Haslam Sports Group (HSG) began the Diversity and Opportunity Fellowship in 2021 and has seen multiple alumni receive full-time offers with the Browns and Crew or elsewhere in the sports industry. Other program alumni have returned to school in pursuit of MBA or Juris Doctor degrees.
Get to know the four fellows of the 2025 class:
Eduardo Cisneros
Eduardo Cisneros, who is graduating from Illinois Wesleyan University in May 2025, was a member of the football team. He played safety for the Titans, appearing in 18 games and recording 35 tackles and six passes defensed.
Cisneros wanted to find a field that combined sports and creativity, which led him towards pursuing video content creation and used social media as a platform. Over his collegiate career, he edited videos for different platforms and gained experiences in the sports industry that cemented his interest in sharing stories of athletes through video.
"Being an athlete, I always been around sports," Cisneros said. "I appreciate the camaraderie, the teamwork, the hallway you got to put in to be an athlete. And I wanted to showcase that and tell stories. So, one of the best ways to go about it was social media posts – quick edits, quick videos, meaning documentaries. And by doing that, I wanted to combine my ability to create and tell stories and tell stories for athletes."
Cisneros will work in the content & production department of the Browns.
Shannon Lipscomb
When Shannon Lipscomb started her freshman year at the University of Notre Dame, she knew she had an interest in sports. Over the course of her collegiate career, not only did she add a Sports Media and Culture minor, but she worked for the football team as a recruiting intern as well as Fighting Irish Media. Through those experiences, she gained experience in game day operations, production, communications and social media. Following graduation in May 2025, Lipscomb will work with the digital department of the Browns and take the experiences from her collegiate career with her.
Lipscomb was informed of the fellowship opportunity by a co-worker. As she researched the fellowship, she was intrigued by the program and the chance to experience different departments. She also valued focus on creating an opportunity for people of diverse backgrounds.
"The fact that the Browns were willing and are trying to elevate female voices, voice of women of color, men of color as well, and underrepresented communities, I just thought it was a great opportunity," Lipscomb said.
Kelly McLoughlin
Kelly McLoughlin first experienced the integration of how sports can impact communities when she interned with Make-a-Wish Foundation in Central North Carolina and worked with a child whose wish was sports related. Then, through her experience with Girls on the Run in Columbus, Ohio, she witnessed how sports can empower girls. Those opportunities inspired her to start her own non-profit organization, Empower Flow, which connects women who have survived domestic and sexual violence to yoga.
McLoughlin wants to continue finding ways to impact the community through sports as she enters the professional world. She will work in the community/foundation department with the Browns following graduation in May 2025 from Davidson College.
"It just really resonated with how sports can be a positive influence for so many people, and the way that the Browns really leverage sports to engage positively with the community," McLoughlin said. "In a lot of my prior experience, I've been doing community impact work, but I've been doing community impacts for a very specific subsection of a population. I'm super excited to see how we how the Browns and me as part of the team serve such a diverse and beautiful, exciting community."
Krisha Sanghabi
Krisha Sanghabi discovered her interest in the sports industry through the student newspaper at the University of Florida, where she covered swimming and diving. She witnessed the passion of fans and the emotions of the athletes. Through her discovery, Sanghabi decided to pursue a degree in public relations.
She found the fellowship after seeing the application on LinkedIn and was intrigued about the fellowship's dedication to creating opportunities for diverse participants. The fellowship also fell in a niche of the sports industry she ultimately wants to pursue with her professional career.
"I had spent so much of my time last year and past few years searching for a career path and I discovered that I really wanted to do sports, I really wanted to do diversity in sports. It's a very particular niche that I didn't think existed," Sanghabi said. "I was under the impression that I'd have to go into sports and then spend a lot of my time working in DEI or making that my own pathway. And then I found this fellowship that was such a blend of both things, and I just loved everything about it. I just really liked that it was such a diversity-focused fellowship, because I didn't even think that was an area that was so heavily emphasized anywhere."
Sanghabi will graduate from Florida in May 2025 before beginning her fellowship with the Browns, where she will work in the communications department.
