GNO, Inc. Sunday Night Highlight – GNO, Inc. Celebrates 20th Anniversary
Good evening,
This past Friday, GNO, Inc. celebrated its 20th anniversary with a record-setting 1,500 business and civic leaders from across the Greater New Orleans region attending the 2024 annual luncheon.
With the theme “20 Years of Impact,” the event featured remarks by outgoing Chairman Susan Bonnett Bourgeois, incoming Chairman Chris Kane, and a presentation by President and CEO Michael Hecht.
Highlights of the presentation included:
- 2023 Year in Review
- 2023 was a come-back year for Greater New Orleans: tourists returned in record numbers, violent crime dropped by 30% (double the national average), and GNO, Inc. and partners began the fight on mitigating both flood and property insurance
- Major business development wins included the $5B St. Charles Clean Fuels project, Big Fish Games from Seattle opening a new studio, and Shell announcing its new HQ in the nascent $1.5B River District
- Public policy wins included reforms for insurance, millions for early childhood education, and securing “primacy” for carbon capture for Louisiana
- Workforce wins included a new partnership with NASA and Boeing for aerospace, and Louisiana being named #1 in the USA for “Tech Talent Pipeline”
- Economic Mobility wins included the growth of the HBCU Innovation Internship program, with Dillard, Southern, SUNO and Xavier
- Entrepreneurship wins included a partnership with OHUB, which started a tech accelerator for 50 minority-led startups, five of which will receive $250,000 each
- Special animated video: With a Great Region Comes Great Responsibility
- The Evolution of GNO, Inc.
- The “GNO, Inc. Difference” – Leveraging the power of partnership, creating a region where companies want to invest their capital, and people want to raise their families
- The Impact of GNO, Inc. – Over 20 years, helping to create over 16,000 jobs, with average salary of $78,000 (44% above average), and over $40B of investment
- Our Responsibility – Using Super Bowl LIX (a record-setting 11th for New Orleans) in a little over a year to tell the story of a New Orleans that has not only come back from Katrina and now COVID, but is better than ever, leading the nation in innovation in areas from energy to aerospace to environmental management
You can see the presentation and video here: https://gnoinc.org/annualluncheon
You can see the “20 Years of Impact” brochure here: https://gnoinc.org/our-impact/
You can see the incoming Board of GNO, Inc. here: https://gnoinc.org/about/board/
You can see the incoming NextGen Council here: https://gnoinc.org/about/nextgen-council/