Eromo Family's Illuminate Life Gala Returns to The Beverly Hilton October 15

The biennial black-tie evening expands its awards program to honor the builders of self-sustaining communities

BEVERLY HILLS, CA, UNITED STATES, September 18, 2026 /EINPresswire.com/ -- Concierge Healthcare International (CHCI) today announced the return of the Illuminate Life Gala to The Beverly Hilton on Thursday, October 15, 2026. Founded by Dr. Ersno Eromo and the Eromo family, the black-tie evening will welcome 450 invited guests from medicine, education, business, technology, and the arts to the hotel's International Ballroom for a champagne reception, seated dinner, live entertainment, and an awards program honoring the individuals whose work allows communities and the people in them to live longer, fuller, and freer lives.

Held every two years, the gala follows a sold-out inaugural evening in December 2024 and returns with an expanded awards program and an independent selection committee. Its guiding idea is simple: to honor people who built something lasting in the communities they come from or serve and who built it to sustain itself long after they are gone.

The evening will be hosted by Adai Lamar, the Gracie Award-winning broadcaster and philanthropist and one of the defining voices of KJLH-FM, Los Angeles, alongside investor and philanthropist Jeff Cunningham, a 2024 Illuminate Life honoree returning to the stage.

A FAMILY'S COMMITMENT

The gala is the public expression of a family's conviction. Its highest honor, the Dr. Eromo Kelbisow Prize for Humanitarian Leadership, is named for Dr. Eromo Kelbisow: the founder's father and, at 83, a humanitarian, educator, and minister whose life of service is the model the entire evening is built to recognize. The Prize is given, once every two years, to a body of work of exceptional and lasting consequence beyond borders.

"My father spent his life giving people what no one had given him: education, dignity, and a reason to believe their community could sustain itself," said Dr. Ersno Eromo, founder of Concierge Health Care International. "This is not my evening. It is my family's way of doing on a stage what he did quietly for sixty years: putting everything we have behind the people who build where there was nothing, stay where they're from, and lift the ones who come after them. Not charity handed down; capacity built up."

THE AWARD ARCHITECTURE

The gala presents seven named awards, each recognizing one pillar of a community that can stand on its own: health, education, technology, industry, capital, land, and culture. Each honors a person who built that pillar in the place they came from or serve:

The Vanguard Award (Public Health): for medicine at its leading edge, in service of communities that have gone without.

The Guiding Light Award (Education and Mentorship): for opening the doors of knowledge to the next generation.

The Signal Award (Technology): for the tools and connection that put the world within a community's reach.

The Forge Award (Industry and Manufacturing): for the enterprises and jobs that give a community its own ground to stand on.

The Keystone Award (Capital and Enterprise): for directing capital where the ordinary market will not go.

The Groundbreaker Award (Land and Infrastructure): for the housing, land, and infrastructure on which a community's future is built.

The Resonance Award (Culture): for the artists whose work carries a community's story and lifts the place it came from.

The evening culminates in the presentation of the Dr. Eromo Kelbisow Prize for Humanitarian Leadership, the gala's highest honor.

The 2026 honorees are being chosen by an independent seven-person Honoree Selection Committee composed of leaders in healthcare, education, humanitarian service, business, and civic life. The honoree class will be announced in a separate release in the coming weeks.

THE INAUGURAL HONOREES

The 2024 Illuminate Life Gala recognized:

Dr. Deven Khosla, Founder of Achieve Brain and Spine, with Dr. Daniel Nagaswa, Dr. Pouriya Ghayomi, and Dr. Lindsay Ross recognized on stage

Dr. Jackie Rowles, presented by Kelsey Rowles

Metasebia Ketsela, accepted by Dan Teshome

Jeffrey Cunningham, presented by Mitch Yankowitz, Annie Cunningham, and Jackson Cunningham

Attendance is by invitation and sponsorship. A limited number of tables and individual seats remain available; inquiries may be directed to Heather Richmond, Executive Director, at heather@illuminatelifegala.com or illuminatelifegala.com.

ABOUT THE ILLUMINATE LIFE GALA

Founded in 2024 by Dr. Ersno Eromo and the Eromo family, the Illuminate Life Gala is a biennial black-tie evening honoring the individuals and organizations whose work extends and enriches human life. Through its named award architecture and the Dr. Eromo Kelbisow Prize for Humanitarian Leadership, named for the founder's father, Dr. Eromo Kelbisow, the gala recognizes those who build lasting capacity, across health, education, technology, industry, capital, infrastructure, and culture, in the communities they come from and serve. The 2026 gala will be held October 15 at The Beverly Hilton in Beverly Hills, California. Learn more at illuminatelifegala.com.

ABOUT CONCIERGE HEALTHCARE INTERNATIONAL

Concierge Healthcare International (CHCI) is a Los Angeles-based 501(c)(3) nonprofit founded by Dr. Ersno Eromo, MD, MBA, FACS, and the Eromo family on a single conviction: that communities do not need perpetual aid; they need the capacity to sustain themselves. CHCI builds that capacity through technology-focused education, healthcare training that develops a community's own doctors and nurses, and investment in sports and culture. Its work spans California, the United States, and underserved communities worldwide. Learn more at conciergehealthcareinternational.com.

Heather Richmond
Illuminate Life Gala
+1 323-425-4633
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