It’s game day for the Tampa Bay Lightning, and Tyrus O’Neill ’08, CEO of Benchmark International, is at home.

As he makes his way outside and through the Tampa arena that newly bears his company’s name, he smiles, shakes hands with friends and fans, and greets and thanks hospitality and other facility staff. He’s approachable, confident and comfortable. Over thumping music and the team’s hype man yelling on the PA system, with a sweeping arm gesture, he says, “Who wouldn’t want to be here and a part of all this?”

“Here” is Benchmark International Arena, home of the National Hockey League’s three-time Stanley Cup-champion Lightning and scores of concerts and other events every year. Formerly and most recently known as Amalie Arena, the naming rights to the Channelside District building transferred to Benchmark International in August in a multi-year partnership agreement between Benchmark International, the Lightning and Vinik Sports Group, the organization that runs the team.

O’Neill is at nearly every game, and people are starting to recognize him. At 6 feet, 4 inches tall, he’s hard to not notice as he weaves through foot traffic in The Mark, the club level of the arena where he prefers to watch the action on the ice. It’s where he can mingle, rather than entertain in a luxury box, where you might expect to find the leader of the company whose name is on a lot of people’s minds these days.

Because What is Benchmark International? is a natural question when its name and logo are seemingly suddenly everywhere, not only stenciled on the roof, built onto the façade, and emitted from the electronic signage on the big building downtown, but on highway and city signage, national broadcasts, podcasts and other media, and anywhere sports and entertainment mix.

Benchmark International is a global mergers and acquisitions company headquartered in Tampa. It specializes in helping private business owners sell their companies or advance their capital growth strategies. Clients often are family business owners, like in HVAC, food and beverage, pharmaceutical manufacturing — “you name it, we’ve probably worked on it,” O’Neill said — who built their companies from the ground up and who are ready to retire. Or it might be those who have a business doing anywhere from $20 million to $100 million in revenue, and they’re ready to take it to $500 million or more.

“We’re working with them hand in hand over the life cycle of their exit from this business, their legacy, their life’s work,” O’Neill explained.

“Our clients trust us to give them the right guidance, and we’re there for them in a lot of ways that go above and beyond just the P and L and the balance sheet and the financial side of it,” he said.

Since its founding in 2008, the company has handled more than $12.5 billion in transactions for its clients, and it’s ready to do more.

LOVING THE LIGHTNING

Also in 2008, O’Neill graduated from UTampa with a finance degree. He came to Tampa from the Philadelphia area, where he was raised a fan of a certain other team.

“I did grow up a Flyers fan back in the day,” he said. “You know, Lindros, LeClair … all those guys, the Broad Street Bullies. How could you not love the Flyers?”

Then, his first year in Tampa, the Lightning, just a short walk from campus, made a run for and captured the Stanley Cup. “I don't want to be too fair-weather, but I was quickly a Lightning fan, and I have been in love with them since,” O’Neill said.

O’Neill’s own athletic pursuits included just about every other sport as a kid, he said, except hockey. As a UTampa student, he joined crew, rowing as part of a four-man boat. He loved being on the water, inspired by the “beautiful scenery out there on the Hillsborough when the sun’s coming up.”

But even as his Lightning fandom grew while attending games with his friends, sitting in the nose-bleed seats, he never tried hockey himself.

“I don’t know if I should admit it,” he said, “but I’ve actually never been ice skating.”

After UTampa, O’Neill earned an MBA from University of Florida. His early career was in banking and financial services in Tampa, before joining Benchmark International in 2014, where he’s been since, and has done “virtually every role,” from cold calling to calling the shots.

It’s hard to compare all the different jobs he’s done at Benchmark International, he said, but he enjoys the negotiations, the problem solving and the challenges that make the big emotional rewards even sweeter.

“Sometimes it’s changing people’s lives, and being a part of that, at the end of the day, is what you get out of bed for. That’s what makes you want to come in and do the job, is to be able to change someone’s life and to have that big win for them.”

Benchmark International, which has offices in more than a dozen cities worldwide, sent O’Neill to Nashville in 2018 to establish a new operation and profit center. The experience there set up his eventual move back to Tampa a year ago, this time as CEO of the Americas.

“It’s really about understanding the entire business and the operations and being able to put it all together and understand the direction that we need to go — and just take it to a whole other level,” he said.

RAISING THE BAR

Benchmark International is poised for growth. Part of its corporate strategy is to expand beyond the sell side of mergers and acquisitions into being a full-suite professional services firm, O’Neill said, including consulting and buy-side services. With that comes a need for more public-facing branding and recognition, which the naming rights deal on the Lightning’s arena provides in spades.

But that’s only part of the plan and the reason O’Neill was so interested when the opportunity presented itself. The other piece? A partnership with Vinik Sports Group and the Lightning Foundation aligns with Benchmark International’s commitment to community service and support.

Benchmark International always has had an arm called “Benchmark Cares,” O’Neill said, where employees could request help for causes that mean a lot to them, like fighting ALS, providing wheelchairs for children who need them or helping people with epilepsy. The support from Benchmark International might be financial, but also, every employee is encouraged to volunteer real, hands-on time out of the office to make a personal impact.

The naming rights agreement builds on both the Lightning’s and Benchmark International’s culture with a $3 million guarantee in partnership with the Lightning, earmarked for nonprofits and charitable organizations working in three main areas: hunger, education and health.

“Tampa Bay is our global headquarters. It’s the heart and soul of our business. It’s where our employees are. It’s where a lot of people have lived their entire lives, where a lot of people went to school. It’s where people are raising their families, and we want to invest back in the community,” O’Neill said.

Elizabeth Frazier, executive vice president of community development and social impact and executive director of the Lightning Foundation, said the specific, monetary community component of the naming rights agreement is a first for the Tampa venue, and it represents the deeply shared values between the organizations.

“We wanted to make sure that we created a program that encompassed transformative philanthropy, that could last the breadth of the duration of the deal, and would not just be transactional,” she said.

The commitment got off to a fast start last fall, when food insecurity became a pressing concern.Benchmark International and Vinik Sports Group responded with a $50,000 donation to Feeding Tampa Bay, and employees from both groups spent time packing and distributing food. A $25,000 donation to stock the holiday tent at Metropolitan Ministries followed, to make sure the right items were on the shelves when it opened to the public.

“The partnership enabled swift action and an immediate, outsized impact — even before the full strategy was finalized,” O’Neill said, “responding to the needs of the community and having an impact in the short term that is so much larger than we would have had on our own.”

THE FANS HAVE A SAY

The community piece of the Benchmark International deal is also coming to Lightning fans.

In January, which is National Mentoring Month, Benchmark International supported programming at Lightning games that aimed to raise awareness for Big Brothers Big Sisters and the need for more mentors, or “Bigs,” as they are known in the organization. There was a “Bigs and Littles” ball hockey clinic on Ford Thunder Alley outside the arena one day; another time, the Big Brother and Big Sister of the Year were recognized in front of fans. There was also a $50,000 donation to support the mentoring campaign.   

Big Brothers Big Sisters was something O’Neill, especially, wanted to support. “In terms of being able to help out at-risk youth and children and making sure that we’re able to mentor those who are going to be the future of the city and the future of Tampa Bay, that was important to me,” he said.

Even within the pillars of health, hunger and education, Benchmark International is committed to ensuring that funding is directed where the need is greatest. The company is relying on Lightning fans to help determine where the funds are allocated.

At most games this season, fans have been able to vote for organizations where additional community support will go. Through a campaign called Voices of the Bay, fans learn about the different nonprofits from programming broadcast on the Jumbotron during timeouts and between periods, and then they can vote for the one they like the most by using a QR code that displays on the screen.

All the featured organizations are guaranteed at least $5,000 on behalf of the Lightning Foundation. But the one that receives the most votes in each targeted category will receive an additional $10,000. In November and December, fans at games chose End 68 Hours of Hunger to fight food insecurity.

“Ultimately, we want to know what’s important to the community, and if people vote on things they are passionate for, we can understand where the need of the community is, with donations to follow.” O’Neill said.

IT WAS ALL HUSH-HUSH

Game days and the attention on Benchmark International are still thrilling, as the deal is “pretty fresh,” O’Neill said, but one of the coolest things so far for him was the big reveal to his staff. Only a few Benchmark International employees had worked on the agreement — “We trade in the industry of confidentiality,” O’Neill said.

“We led our team in through the tunnel, and people were in awe, like starstruck, jaws down, having not realized we were even having the conversation. … That was something special.”

He, too, is relishing the moment. As comfortable as he appears moving through the concourses on game day, sometimes, he admits, he gets lost as he navigates the “nooks and crannies” of the building.

“It’s still a little surreal,” he said.