On Wednesday, May 3, The Opportunity Network (OppNet) community gathered together to celebrate our 20th anniversary at the annual Night of Opportunity Gala at Cipriani Wall Street in New York. And celebrate we did: In the sold out Cipriani ballroom, our 1,100+ guests from the finance, entertainment, philanthropy, media, and business industries gathered to raise a recording-breaking $4 million in support of OppNet’s mission to close the opportunity gap and continue scaling our impact for young people of color nationwide. 

This year's event recognized the service and achievements of our esteemed honorees: Blue Owl and Michael Rees, OppNet Board member and Co-Founder and Co-President of Blue Owl; Trevor Noah, comedian, best-selling author, producer, and philanthropist; and Anré Williams, CEO, American Express National Bank and Group President, Enterprise Services, American Express.

In addition to raising critical funds to expand educational and professional access, the evening featured powerful remarks from OppNet’s leadership, our honorees, and current and former OppNet Fellows who received this year's Opportunity Awards.

Richard Jefferson, Emcee and NBA Champion, kicked off the night, sharing how OppNet’s mission has personal significance for him. Growing up in a working class family, Jefferson was able to realize his dreams thanks to the support of those around him, in particular his father who purchased him a ticket to see an NBA game when he was 12 years old. This act “unlocked an opportunity” that has stayed with Jefferson his entire life. He also spoke about OppNet’s “special sauce,” our proprietary Career Fluency® framework. Jefferson said: “Career Fluency means knowing how to cherish the community you have while building a broad, vast network to expand your horizons and enrich other people’s perspectives.” 

In his remarks, Dan O’Keefe, Chair of OppNet’s Board of Directors and Partner at Apax, also recounted the personal significance of OppNet’s mission, as a “product of the transformative power of education.” 

In the end of his remarks, O’Keefe introduced to the stage President and CEO of The Opportunity Network, AiLun Ku, who celebrated the last 20 years of OppNet and shared her excitement and vision for the years to come. She said that OppNet started as “an idea that was rooted in addressing injustice—that some of us access economic opportunities through networks while others were kept out. [Founders] Brian [Weinstein] and Jessica [Pliska] took that idea and made a promise.” From first serving 10 Fellows in 2003, AiLun shared how over the next 20 years OppNet “built on that promise and turned that promise into a bonafide organization that now serves over 1000 students in all five boroughs of New York City annually,” and has cumulatively trained over 1000 educators and managers from over 160 corporations, colleges, and community-based organizations. 

Ku also presented the first 2023 Opportunity Award of the night to Blue Owl and Michael Rees, who in his speech shared about his work in the Opportunity Ignited program and with OppIgnited interns. He shared his philosophy of building in “tiny advantages that compound in a positive way each day,” in terms of professional development. Additionally, Rees said the inverse is also true, and when faced with compounding structural inequities that act as barriers to opportunity for our young people, the work of OppNet is “come in and fill that gap… and provide the tailwinds” to bolster student success.

Community, family, and resilience were key themes throughout the evening. Alan Perez, First Year College OppNet Fellow and member of the Johns Hopkins University Class of 2026, shared advice that his family had given him when he was 10-years-old, and how it has returned to him as he’s grown older and faced new challenges and unknowns: in the words of his parents, Perez encouraged the audience to “give it all you’ve got, but do it well.”

Next Raquel Vargas Palmer, Managing Partner at KPS Capital Partners LP, took the stage to officially succeed Dan O’Keefe as Board Chair. Vargas Palmer said that what drew her to OppNet was “the quality of its programs, the results and unparalleled outcomes every year, far exceeding national averages. OppNet continues to prove that every student can build the life they want when they get access to opportunities, skill development, and support.”

Following Vargas Palmer, Opportunity Award recipient and 2016 OppNet Alumna Joy Funmi Akinfenwa shared her powerful journey—in both speech and video format—of immigrating to the U.S. from Nigeria at age 4, and overcoming bullying to find herself among like minded people as an OppNet Fellow. She spoke to the positive cycles that have come from her getting the support she needed: having a mentor to connect with “was life-changing because it meant that I didn’t have to go through it alone. I had to experience this myself to then give back to my community. I wrote a children’s book about anti-bullying and teaching children the importance of not being bystanders in situations where bullying is occuring.” Akinfenwa’s story is a perfect example of how each of our futures is bound together and that by increasing support and connection we can impact the world for years to come.

Watch the inaugural Alumni Opportunity Award film here. 

Following dinner and a record-breaking pledge drive, Sarah Joseph-Donnelly, OppNet’s Chief Innovation Officer, and Ray Reyes, Chief Program Officer, kicked off a 20th Anniversary Founders’ Toast, where early OppNet Alumni Titi Oshinaya and Amanda Yepez and OppNet Co-Founders Jessica Pliska and Brian Weinstein shared memories and insights from their OppNet tenure. Oshinaya and Yepez both spoke to the ways that Pliska and Weinstein personally supported them on their professional journeys through one-on-one conversations and sharing their networks. Oshinaya is currently the Vice President of Business Development at Bad Robot Productions and Yepez is the Learning and Development Specialist at Spotify.

The next student recipient of the Opportunity Award was Luqmaan Bamba, 12th Grade Fellow in the OppNet Class of 2027. He shared his story of immigrating to the U.S. from Ghana, and how he found strength to persevere through change and culture shock. After sharing with the audience his plans to matriculate at Princeton University in the fall, Bamba said that even if his academic interests may change, he will continue to “rely on and trust in the OppNet community to support [him] with the resources to achieve success.”

Bamba also introduced honoree Anré Williams, who in his acceptance speech connected OppNet's mission of igniting the tenacity and passions of underrepresented students to his own family history growing up in Oakland, California. He said, “When I look out across this room, I see access, I see opportunity, and I see inspiration.”

Opportunity Award recipient Shun Ping Huang, OppNet Alumna and Babson College Class of 2017, shared moving remarks that highlighted the importance of having mentors you can look up to while also becoming confident in your own skills and knowledge. She also introduced the final honoree of the night, Trevor Noah, who as former host of The Daily Show was no stranger to public speaking.

In the last hour of the Gala, Noah captivated the audience with powerful reflections on community, agency, and opportunity. He noted that OppNet “bridges the gap between the opportunities that many take for granted and those who can make the best use of those opportunities.” He encouraged the audience to look at their networks and communities broadly and with open-mindedness, saying, “My honest advice to you would be just to see yourself beyond yourself. Deconstruct yourself to your core parts — what makes you who you are — and then find people like that because they will walk the path that you did.”

Congratulations to all of our honorees and student honorees: OppNet is proud to be in community with you. Thank you to all who attended the 16th annual Night of Opportunity Gala and celebrated 20 years of impact, 20 years of community, and 20 years of OppNet.

To read more about the evening see press coverage below:

• E! Online
• ET Online
• Forbes
• Hollywood Life
• New York Style Guide
• Upstract
• Variety
• Yahoo! Entertainment

 

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:

• People.com
• Microsoft News
• DailyMail

 

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.

OppNet’s 3Circles Founding Leadership Committee hosted its kick-off event on November 18, 2020, to launch 3Circles, a community of friends, supporters and partners invested in the long-term success of OppNet students and alumni. It was a memorable evening of candid conversation on identity, belonging and race, with award-winning journalist Soledad O’Brien and Sunny Hostin, Co-Host of ABC’s The View, and moderated by Madina Touré, New York City Education Reporter for POLITICO, and Amanda Yepez, Talent Development Specialist at NBCUniversal, both OppNet alumnae class of 2012.

For more about 3Circles, please visit our 3Circles Community page.

 

OppNet's Alumni Leadership Council hosted its Inaugural Alumni Summit: A Young Professional’s Guide to Navigating this Virtual Reality on June 30th at 5:30pm. This virtual event was designed to be a space of compassion, community building, and shared experience seeking to bring together alumni, including the newest additions (the Class of 2020), as well as rising college seniors (soon-to-be alumni).

 

The event featured:

• AiLun Ku, President & CEO of The Opportunity Network,
• Randy Moore, COO of COOP Careers,
• Carl Jackman, LMSW, Assistant Director of Wellness Support at The Opportunity Network, and 
• Dr. Kecia Brown, Ed.D, President and Managing Director, Kingston Bay Group.

 

Together with The Council, they guided discussions on Establishing Boundaries, Redefining Productivity, and Managing Grief and Loss. 

 

About the Alumni Leadership Council (ALC) The work of the ALC is to uphold The Opportunity Network’s mission, while also engaging and re-engaging alumni and fellows through programming, mentorship, philanthropy, and leadership. The ALC endeavors to identify gaps in OppNet’s curriculum, ensure that alum have access to strong postgraduate support, and continually reimagine the impact that OppNet can have even after the formal 6 years of programming.

 

Each year, The Opportunity Network’s annual Night of Opportunity Gala honors the achievements of OppNet students and industry leaders who have committed to expanding inclusion, opportunity, and access in critical ways.

While COVID-19 has disrupted our ability to gather 1,000 friends and supporters together at Cipriani Wall Street as we normally do each year, it has not disrupted OppNet’s commitment to our students, our impact, and our growth ahead, and the impact our partners have on our work.

We are thrilled to convert our annual Night of Opportunity Gala into a Month of Opportunity, a dynamic virtual celebration taking place throughout September 2020 that will help sustain the organization’s critical work, directly underwriting our efforts to ensure that young people from underrepresented backgrounds have equal access to educational and professional opportunities.

Our Month of Opportunity will feature videos from our students; Gala Co-Chairs Daniel Craig and Rachel Weisz, Actors and OppNet Board Members, and Michael Rees, Managing Director and Head of Dyal Capital Partners and OppNet Board Member; and OppNet leadership.

All support to OppNet’s Month of Opportunity will be fully tax-deductible and you can donate or help to sponsor this celebration here.

For questions or more information about our virtual Month of Opportunity Gala, please contact specialevents@oppnet.org or 917-258-3445.

Click here to see our invitation.

On Monday, April 8th, The Opportunity Network hosted their 12th annual Night of Opportunity at Cipriani Wall Street on 55 Wall Street in New York. This year’s event honored actress Kelly Marie Tran, BET Networks President Scott M. Mills, NBA All-Star Allan Houston, and several of OppNet’s incredible student Fellows. The record-breaking crowd of 1000 guests from the finance, entertainment, philanthropy, media, and business industries gathered to raise over $2.6 million, a historic first for the organization, to expand its work of connecting students to college and career opportunity, and help scale the impact of that work for as many New York City students as possible.Founder and CEO of The Opportunity Network Jessica Pliska kicked off the event with an invitation to OppNet’s entire community to come together and “build a future where resources and circumstances do not have power over college and career success.”

Founder and CEO of The Opportunity Network Jessica Pliska delivers opening remarks at the 12th Annual “Night of Opportunity” (Photo by Sylvain Gaboury/PMC/PMC) Themes of community, growth, and collective impact in service of student success ran throughout the evening. Graduating OppNet Fellow, Occidental College senior, and Student Opportunity Award Recipient Dean Lin said in his acceptance remarks that “looking back, I’m so proud that high school kid found OppNet, and found people who truly believed in his potential.” The evening featured remarks from OppNet leadership, this year’s honorees, and other OppNet students engaging in the organization’s signature Fellows program. From L to R: President of BET Networks Scott M. Mills, OppNet Student Awardees Uma and Dean, Founder and CEO of The Opportunity Network Jessica Pliska, Actress Kelly Marie Tran, NBA All-Star Allan Houston, and Chairman of OppNet’s Board of Directors Daniel O’Keefe (Photo by Sylvain Gaboury/PMC/PMC) In her acceptance speech, actress and 2019 Night of Opportunity Honoree Kelly Marie Tran connected her personal experience as a first-generation college student to OppNet’s mission of igniting the tenacity and passions of underrepresented students when she said,

“Because if your experience is anything like mine, whether it’s at college or elsewhere, you will one day find yourself sitting in a room full of people who don’t look like you, who don’t speak like you, who don’t understand your experience. And it is in that moment – when the world tells you to feel confused, doubtful, and ashamed – that I want you to remember this truth: you are doing an impossible thing. You are breaking invisible barriers, you are overcoming unjust obstacles, and you are changing the world. And that is nothing to be confused, doubtful, or ashamed about, it is something to be celebrated.”

Actress Kelly Marie Tran accepting the 2019 Opportunity Award. (Photo by Sylvain Gaboury/PMC/PMC) Founded in 2003 by Brian Weinstein and Jessica Pliska, The Opportunity Network’s track record of success over the last 16 years is marked by a steadfast commitment to guiding students from historically underrepresented communities to college and through graduation, and connecting them to robust professional opportunities along the way by facilitating paid summer internships and academic enrichment programs, training students in key mindsets and practices in professionalism, and equipping them with the skills to build powerful professional and personal networks. 92 percent 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, far exceeding national trends. This year, The Opportunity Network is actively pursuing its ambitious growth trajectory of serving more than 1000 students in its Fellows program by 2021, and accelerating the number of organizations and schools served through its Career Fluency^® Partnerships program, the organization’s immersive national capacity-building program that trains teachers, guidance counselors, and practitioners to best support students in reaching their college and career goals. Through the success of this year’s Night of Opportunity, President and Chief Operating Officer of The Opportunity Network AiLun Ku said, “OppNet is now able to propel its work to maximize the promise of college and career opportunity. The investment made tonight has a significant multiplier effect on the work we do at OppNet and how that work can bloom and expand in the lives of students.”  

OppNet’s Winter Conference is designed to provide college Fellows a collaborative and meaningful experience for students to build deeper community, hone critical skills while developing new ones, and network with professionals for internship and post-graduate opportunities. This year’s Winter Conference focused specifically around three topics: Reframing, Reinvigorating and Reinforcing. For many college students, winter is a crossroads of sorts, an opportunity to reflect on what occurred in the previous semester and how best to maximize what is to come in the next. Winter Conference 2019 supported college Fellows reframe personal expectations, reinvigorate passions and strengths, and reinforce skills activated thus far.

The Opportunity Network held its 11th Annual Night of Opportunity gala on Monday, April 9, 2018. Chaired by Rachel Weisz and Daniel Craig and Alba and Thomas Tull, the event honored Michelle Ebanks, President, Essence Communications Inc., Van Jones, Host of “The Van Jones Show,” and Gabrielle Union, Actress and Author.

This year’s Night of Opportunity celebrated 15 years of The Opportunity Network’s dynamic work with students across New York City as they create vibrant futures through college and career success. Founder and CEO of The Opportunity Network Jessica Pliska opened the evening with a reminder to all in the room of the importance of building an OppNet community for the next 15 years “where all can belong, and each and every student feels respected and celebrated so they can chart their own path through college and career to a future that is overflowing with possibility.”

The evening was full of excitement for OppNet’s future impact in driving access and opportunity for all students in spite of the structural and systematic challenges many of them face. Night of Opportunity honoree Van Jones said “I’m so proud to be associated with The Opportunity Network because they are ‘ladder-builders’ on a broken ladder.”

OppNet’s community of support for building those “ladders of opportunities” was on full display during the evening. More than 900 guests gathered to attend this year’s Gala at Cipriani Wall Street to celebrate OppNet’s continuous impact over the last 15 years, the outstanding contributions of OppNet students, and the bold leadership of each honoree.

The event raised over $2.1 million to further OppNet’s work through its founding Fellows Program and newest addition, Career Fluency® Partnerships, to support more students from underrepresented communities reach their college and career goals.

OppNet Fellow, incoming freshman at Swarthmore College, and Night of Opportunity continuum speaker Li Dong summed it up best, “As I navigate the future, I am certain that I will always be supported by OppNet. It will always be a place where I can seek guidance.”

This year’s Night of Opportunity served as a powerful example of the value of celebrating and investing in OppNet’s blooming community of students, partners, and friends.