Diana Degan, ABC, MC, IABC Fellow

International Honour For Guelph Communications Leader           Diana Degan

Guelph Today, May 11, 2026 — Diana Degan, an award‑winning communications leader, educator, and strategic advisor based in Guelph, has been named a 2026 Fellow of the International Association of Business Communicators (IABC), the association’s highest global honour.

The IABC Fellow designation recognizes exceptional leadership, impact, and contribution to the communication profession worldwide. Fewer than 120 professionals have received the honour in the association’s 50‑year history. For more information about this year’s recipients, please go to https://www.iabc.com/awards-and-recognition/fellows.

Degan, who has spent more than 35 years shaping strategic communication across agency, client‑side, public sector, and educational environments, was selected by an international committee of peers. The designation acknowledges her long‑standing commitment to elevating communication as a strategic leadership function, her mentorship of emerging professionals, and her advocacy for ethical, inclusive, and accessible communication practices.

“I am deeply honoured to receive this recognition,” said Degan. “Throughout my career, I’ve been committed to helping organizations communicate with clarity, integrity, and purpose. This designation reflects not only my work, but the many colleagues, students, and clients who have inspired and challenged me along the way.”

As founder of Diana Degan & Associates, Degan built an award‑winning integrated marketing communications agency recognized five times as IABC/Toronto’s Small Agency of the Year. Now celebrating 25 years, her firm has supported clients across sectors — from entrepreneurs and nonprofits to celebrities like Beyoncé and national and global organizations — delivering programs that earned 36 industry awards. She has also been honoured as a Guelph Woman of Distinction.

The 2026 Fellows will be formally celebrated at IABC’s World Conference in Toronto, ON in June 2026.

I love teaching.

For the past six years, since September 2019, I have been sharing my knowledge and expertise with students at Conestoga College in Kitchener-Waterloo, ON.

It was on my bucket list to teach. I’ve taught many industry workshops and spoken at conferences for years. So, the opportunity to get into the classroom was exciting. But, the start of this journey was also a little sad. The night before I started my teaching journey, my younger brother passed away. He had been sick for awhile fighting a heart issue, in and out of the hospital, and during one stay, he caught a superbug. On what was supposed to be my first day in the classroom, I was speaking at his funeral. So, each year on the anniversary of my starting to teach—I remember.

I want to be a good teacher. My goal is to share what I have learned through my more than 30-year career in public relations and marketing with my students; to provide real, practical, hands-on information that will be useful, not just dry theory.

I want to be able to connect with my students, to let them know that I care about how they do in my class and that I see them as a person, not just as a student number and a grade.

Many of my students have been international students, far from home. Alone, without family, they deal with culture shock and need to adapt to differences in the education system. They have not done assignments or group work before as their style of schooling was different; it was based on exams. I found that I needed to adapt my class curriculum to include topics to help them adjust. The result: my students did better.

My work was recognized with the first Conestoga College Faculty Innovation Award for the School of Business in recognition of reworking the Public Relations course to better prepare students for their major assignment: writing a Client PR Plan.

Last year, the Canadian government decided to cap the number of international students it would allow into the country. It is a decision that has had a devastating ripple effect on the post-secondary education system in Canada. Universities and colleges in Canada have been underfunded for decades. It was, in fact, the government, that told these institutions to go look for students in places other than Canada originally. There was not going to be enough population in Canada to drive student enrollment, they would have no funding and they would have to close schools. This was a case study I taught in one of my marketing classes. The schools did what they were told and they did it well. Now, they are being cut off and penalized.

As of this semester, September 2025, I have no contracts to teach. I will no longer be in the classroom. The program I have been teaching in, Strategic Marketing Communications in the School of Business—a fantastic two-year, post-graduate certificate program for international students—stopped intaking students in January and will see the last students pass through in the Winter 2026 semester.

I’m heartbroken.

I know I’ve made a difference. My students have told me so. In emails to me and in conversations. They’ve told the school in anonymous semester reports where I score above the Business School average. So, I did reach that personal goal.

In this midst of all this upheaval—as I was thinking yet again, enough already!—I actually thought okay, what if I reframe this…what if I look at this extra time I am being given as a gift? Maybe the universe is telling me that I need to start writing that book you’ve always wanted to write. Start now! Use this time you’ve been given. Poke poke. Prod. Hmm…

For many years, I was invited to speak to a PR class at Loyalist College. I would always close out my presentation with 20 Life Lessons. One of my tips was about how when one door closes, another one always opens. Sometimes you can’t see it through the tears, but you have to look for it, because it is there. Keep looking, I would say to the students.

So, I’m looking.

Change is hard. What is coming is more of the unknown. I’m hoping that by sharing where I have been, I can help others that are trying to forge their own journeys. Maybe I will have carve a bit of a path for them. Maybe I will have some lessons that they can learn from.

Wishing you love and learning,

Diana