What a remarkable year it has been at UpGlo!

In 2025, we celebrated a major milestone: a full quarter century of supporting immigrants, refugees, and asylees rebuilding their careers in the United States. What began in a San Francisco kitchen in 2000 has grown into a nationwide movement that has supported thousands of jobseekers, including 13,196 this year alone. Today, our alumni contribute an impressive $1.9 billion annually to the U.S. economy, fueling industries, uplifting communities, and powering the workforce.

This year was not just a celebration of where we’ve been; it was also a bold leap forward into where we are going.

2025: A Transformative Year of Leadership, Innovation, and Impact

To celebrate our anniversary, we placed our community front and center through our 25 Stories for 2025 series. This series spotlighted voices from our alumni, staff, volunteers, Leadership Council, and board members, showcasing the creativity, resilience, and talent that together form the vibrant mosaic of the UpGlo community.

At its heart, the series reaffirms that Upwardly Global’s impact is powered by the people who believe in our mission and make it real every day.

Upwardly Global also partnered with LinkedIn through its Outcomes Tracking Pilot Program. For the first time, we gained long-term, aggregate employment data that allowed us to better understand the real career trajectories of the immigrant professionals who have completed our training over the past five years.

Key findings include:

  • 65% of jobseekers served by Upwardly Global find a job within 18 months of starting our coaching program.
  • The data allowed us to accurately calculate our historical impact over any given period of time. Based on this model, we estimate that 35,000 UpGlo alumni have secured employment over the past 25 years.

A New Era of Leadership

This year, Upwardly Global welcomed several extraordinary leaders whose experience, vision, and deep commitment to equity will guide us into our next chapter.

  • Gregory Haile, a national leader in economic mobility and workforce development, was appointed as UpGlo’s new Chief Executive Officer.
  • Alice Kang was promoted to President in August, bringing expertise in strategy and operations.
  • Alexis Williams joined UpGlo as Chief Revenue Officer, bringing 15+ years of philanthropic leadership.
  • Avigail Ziv, now Chief Program Officer, continues to evolve our programs with the visionary leadership she’s brought since joining in 2023.
  • We also welcomed two distinguished additions to our Board of Directors:
    • Asim Husain, Co-Founder of Alterion
    • Ravi Chanmugam, Vice Chair at Accenture

Their combined leadership across technology, strategy, and global innovation strengthens our ability to build pathways to economic opportunity for thousands more newcomers.

Expanding Global Impact: Partnership Extension with FRSI and Accenture

We proudly extended our partnership with the Information Society Development Foundation (FRSI) and Accenture to support Ukrainian refugees in Poland. Since 2022, this collaboration has trained over 1,500 Ukrainian jobseekers and placed 520 into skill-aligned roles across IT, Finance, Accounting, and more, demonstrating the power of cross-sector partnership.

Modernizing for the AI Era

In 2025, we embarked on a full modernization of our 12-year Salesforce database to prepare for AI-powered tools that will drive greater accuracy, fairness, and efficiency across our programs. Clean, structured data ensures we’re ready for the next generation of workforce innovation.

As we step into this new era, deepening our understanding of AI also enables us to be stronger, more informed educators, equipping our coaches and staff to prepare jobseekers to confidently use these technologies in their job searches and in the workplaces they are entering.

National Visibility and Thought Leadership

In addition, our reports, Missing in Action: Immigrant Women’s Pay Disparities in the Workforce and Hidden in Plain View: Leveraging Responsible AI to Uncover the Untapped Potential of Immigrant Talent, further advanced the national conversation on wage equity, responsible AI, and skills-first hiring.

Powerful Partnerships and Community Connection

In partnership with Workday, a leading HR tech platform, we launched Upwardly Global Fetch. This custom-built API allows recruiters and hiring managers who are working within HiredScore to seamlessly access UpGlo’s candidates and search their profiles on a skills-first basis,  expanding and diversifying their talent pipelines without altering their workflow.

Across the country, our events brought people together:

Each gathering reaffirmed the power of belonging and the resilience of our community.

A Silver Anniversary to Remember

On September 24, supporters gathered at Tribeca 360° to celebrate Upwardly Global’s 25th Anniversary Gala. With moving remarks from journalist Mariana van Zeller, filmmaker Marco Calvani, and our own alumni, the evening honored the brilliance and humanity of the immigrants and refugees we serve.

Looking Ahead

As we enter 2026 with bold new leadership and unwavering commitment, we will continue to build a future where every newcomer can find meaningful work, rediscover their dreams, and pass the torch to the next generation.