Beth Diamond Memorial Endowment: Inspiring the next generation of communicators
NATIONAL along with family, friends, and colleagues of senior communications leader Beth Diamond, announces the creation of a memorial endowment at the Southern Alberta Institute of Technology (SAIT) to honour her outstanding contribution to communications, following her passing on November 22, 2021.
This student award has been established in memory of Beth’s lifelong commitment to learning and mentorship. Beginning in the fall of 2022, the award will support emerging journalists in SAIT’s School of Information and Communications Technologies by providing an annual entrance award bursary of approximately $1,000 to an incoming first-year student determined through application, with an established assessment criteria of demonstrated financial need and past academic performance.
Beth Diamond spent more than 20 years with NATIONAL Public Relations as managing partner of the Firm’s Calgary office. The endowment has received generous seed funding from NATIONAL Public Relations / AVENIR GLOBAL, complemented by individual gifts from those who knew and worked with Beth over the past twenty years.
Donations to the Beth Diamond Memorial Endowment can be made online via the SAIT’s website
Beth’s legacy
For over 30 years, Beth worked as a communications and public relations practitioner in Calgary. Her career included roles in corporate, agency, post-secondary, non-profit, and government communications (including a past communications instructor position at SAIT). Beth and longtime friend Judi Gunter co-founded the Diamond-Gunter Group—a public relations agency based in Calgary—in the late 1980s. When the Diamond-Gunter group joined forces with NATIONAL Public Relations in 1997, Beth became the managing partner of the Firm’s new Calgary office, and later was honoured to hold a board position with the Firm’s holding company, RES PUBLICA (now AVENIR GLOBAL).
As the head of the Firm’s energy practice, and with her penchant for creative, collaborative solutions, Beth helped build the Canadian Centre for Energy Information, the Energy Policy Institute of Canada and the Canadian Oilsands Innovation Alliance, among others. She provided counsel for most major transactions and acquisitions, trusted by CEOs on all sides of any deal for her common sense and uncommon strategic acumen. Beth was also active as a volunteer and philanthropist in support of a variety of community causes, including Calgary Opera, the United Way’s Calgary chapter, the Calgary Foundation, and the International Women’s Forum. She was the mother of three boys: Joseph, Matthew and Andrew.