The 2024 Change Agent Mixer: Honoring the People Moving New York Forward

Change rarely starts with a headline. It starts with a person who decides to do the work: in a newsroom, a classroom, an intensive care unit. Every year, the Gentlemen's Factory Change Agent Mixer exists to find those people and say thank you, out loud, in front of the community they serve.

On Thursday, October 17, 2024, our annual signature event took over The DL on the Lower East Side, presented with JPMorgan Chase, for a night of connection, celebration and three Change Agent Awards.

The arrival

The night opened the way every Mixer does: with people who should know each other meeting for the first time, and old friends picking up where they left off. Upstairs, the GF Cigar Deck was open under the city lights.

The program

Jeff Lindor, founder and CEO of Gentlemen's Factory, took the mic to welcome a packed room and introduce this year's Change Agent Awards, co-presented with our partners at JPMorgan Chase.

The 2024 Change Agents

• Phil Taitt, Emmy Award-winning morning reporter for ABC7 Eyewitness News. Brooklyn-bred, with Caribbean and British roots, he has covered the stories that matter most to New Yorkers, from gun violence and housing to politics and social justice.
• David Adams, CEO of the Urban Assembly, the New York City school network. He created its Resilient Scholars Program, which brings social-emotional learning into classrooms nationally, was named to Crain's 40 Under 40 in 2022, and serves as a Civil Affairs Officer in the Army Reserve.
• Dr. Ramon Gist, Co-Director of the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit at NewYork-Presbyterian Brooklyn Methodist Hospital and Assistant Professor of Clinical Pediatrics at Weill Cornell Medicine, caring for the sickest children in Brooklyn every day.

Each honoree received the Change Agent Award, flowers and a standing ovation from a room that understood exactly what their work means.

The celebration

Then the music turned up and the Mixer did what it does best: turned a room of strangers into a community.

Why it matters

Journalism, education and medicine: three fields, three people, one common thread. Each of our 2024 Change Agents chose to put their talent to work for New Yorkers who need it. Recognizing that work, publicly and in community, is how we tell young Black and Brown men what leadership looks like. Learn more about our signature events, or sponsor next year's Mixer.

Congratulations to Phil Taitt, David Adams and Dr. Ramon Gist, and thank you to JPMorgan Chase and to everyone who joined us at The DL.