Staff, alumni, and honorees pose onstage during The Opportunity Network's 15th annual Night of Opportunity Gala on May 4, at Cipriani Wall Street in New York City. (Photo credit: Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images)
On Wednesday, May 4, The Opportunity Network (OppNet) hosted their 15th annual Night of Opportunity at Cipriani Wall Street in New York. This year's event honored actress and producer Zazie Beetz; Chairwoman, Founder, and CEO of The Garcia Companies, Dany Garcia; and Macquarie Group and Shawn Lytle, Head of Americas at Macquarie Group. Gathering in person for the first time since 2019, the 800 guests from the finance, entertainment, philanthropy, media, and business industries gathered to raise a recording-breaking $3.6 million in critical support to help expand OppNet's mission of closing the opportunity gap and scale the impact of that work for as many young people of color as possible.
The evening featured remarks from OppNet leadership, this year's honorees, and current and former OppNet Fellows who received this year's Opportunity Awards.
Dan O'Keefe, Chair of the OppNet Board of Directors and Chair at Apax, kicked off the night. In his remarks, O'Keefe emphasized a core shared value of all attendees: leveling the playing field so all young people have equal access to opportunity. He highlighted The Coach Foundation and their Dream It Real partnership with OppNet, which provides a generous multi-year grant to support OppNet's work as well as four-year college scholarships for 125 first-year college Fellows.
President and CEO of The Opportunity Network, AiLun Ku, celebrated OppNet's institutional resilience. While the past two years of the pandemic have challenged us all, Ku said, "We know how with absolute certainty that we, as a community, will always take care of each other and transform that care into perseverance." She shared testimonies from Fellows that spoke to the impact of OppNet programming on their college and career trajectories, and called attention to the ways that OppNet scaled and expanded resources in spite of the pandemic. Ku's remarks also featured a special video appearance from Naomi Osaka who shared her support of OppNet's mission.
President and CEO of The Opportunity Network AiLun Ku delivers opening remarks at the 15th annual Night of Opportunity Gala. (Photo credit: Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images)
Creativity, resilience, and self-determination were key themes throughout the evening. Yeasin Haque, current 11th grade OppNet Fellow in the Class of 2027, said in his acceptance remarks that OppNet's networking programs helped him find the confidence to pursue his passion—photography—as a career: he said, "OppNet helped me gain a voice in a room full of people I once thought I'd be intimidated by." Fellow Opportunity Award recipient and alumna from the Class of 2019, Stephanie Inga, emphasized the beauty that comes from knowing one's own strength, and it was this strength that guided her path to her current job at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, and soon to medical school at Massachusetts General Hospital's Institute of Health Professions. To watch Yeasin and Stephanie's speeches in full, visit our Night of Opportunity website.
Opportunity Award recipients Stephanie Inga and Yeasin Haque with AiLun Ku, President and CEO of The Opportunity Network. (Photo credit: Adena Stevens)
In his acceptance speech, Shawn Lytle, Head of Americas at Macquarie Group and Global Head of Public Investments at Macquarie Asset Management, connected OppNet's mission of igniting the tenacity and passions of underrepresented students to his own family history. He said,
"Educational opportunities changed the trajectory of my parents' lives, breaking a socioeconomic cycle that is hard for so many to overcome. I would not be standing on this stage today if it had not been for those opportunities, the support and faith in them by others, and their own hard work. And this is why, I believe with personal conviction, that OppNet is incredibly important in giving young people opportunities to realize their dreams. And we only all succeed when everyone, equally, can succeed."
In her acceptance speech, actress and producer Zazie Beetz touched on the importance of looking to your peers to build supportive, long-lasting communities.
She said, "We know how to build community, and I see that here in this room today: by meeting AiLun, Dan, Manny, and the OppNet students. We still do know how to build sanctuaries. In my opinion, finding your group isn't about punching up but about looking to your left and to your right: choosing people who aren't necessarily already successful but choosing those who inspire you spiritually and for whom you do the same as well."
Dany Garcia, Founder and CEO of the Garcia Companies, spoke to the power of being a "multi-hyphenate woman." Garcia, who is also Co-Founder of Seven Bucks and Co-Owner and Chairwoman of XFL, shared a vision of success that centers inclusion and harnesses talent for the greater good.
She said, "With all the wonderful things we've been able to accomplish—XFL, Seven Bucks, GSTQ, and all of my companies—one of our key secret ingredients is diversity. As a Latina woman, I look at the world with diversity. I was born into diversity. The decisions we make, the hiring: around our tables are the eyes of individuals who experience and see the world in ways I've never seen. In those experiences and around that table comes the magic, creativity, and passion to make something that has not existed before."
Honorees Dany Garcia, Zazie Beetz, and Shawn Lytle on the red carpet at The Opportunity Network's 2022 Night of Opportunity in New York. (Photo credit: Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images)
In the words of Raquel Vargas Palmer, OppNet's Vice Chair and Managing Partner at KPS Capital Partners LP, "OppNet's students are bright, fun, and wise beyond their years. [The support from this evening] helps us remove stubborn college and career barriers so they can thrive."
To read more about the evening, see press coverage below:
Founded in 2003 by Brian Weinstein and Jessica Pliska, The Opportunity Network's track record of success over the last 19 years is driven by a steadfast commitment to ignite the drive, curiosity, and agency of underrepresented students on their paths to and through college and into thriving careers. Through a variety of programs including paid summer internships, academic enrichment programs, job readiness trainings, and multi-industry career exposure and networking events, OppNet seeks to build community and institutional networks whose combined power dismantles the systemic inequities that perpetuate the opportunity gap for people of color.
Today, OppNet proudly serves more than 1,000 students in our six-year Fellows program, with results that far exceed national outcomes: 92% of OppNet students graduate from college—compared with less than 20 percent of students from underrepresented and low-income communities nationwide—and within six months of graduation, 89 percent of OppNet students are admitted to graduate school or find meaningful employment.
Additionally, OppNet has expanded its programs and curricula nationally, reaching nearly 20,000 young people through: the Career Fluency® Partnerships, an immersive national capacity-building program that trains teachers, guidance counselors, and practitioners at schools and organizations across the country to best support their own students in reaching their college and career goals; UninterruptED: Unstoppable Learning, our free open-access digital learning platform that enables students and educators nationwide to use our college and career resources on demand; and Opportunity Ignited, consultative, tailored training sessions for corporate employers seeking to design and build equitable and inclusive workplaces.
