Diana Reid, president and founder of Conscious Communications, is a veteran communicator and public affairs practitioner, skilled in strategic planning, framing complex business and social issues, building strong constituencies, and developing and communicating persuasive messages across a wide variety of stakeholder groups and media.

Diana has more than 14 years of strategic communications and marketing experience across a variety of industries and sectors, including technology, consumer products, travel and hospitality and non-profit. Diana launched her career at Waggener Edstrom Public Relations and Microsoft Corporation, driving marketing programs, community and public relations strategy for Microsoft Internet Explorer, Visual Studio, WebTV and the Developer Relations Group. Diana also served as President & Executive Director of the Bay Area Chapter for the Forum for Women Entrepreneurs, a non-profit organization serving the needs of women-led businesses in the high technology and life sciences sectors. As Senior Director of Developer Marketing at BEA Systems, Diana led the creation of a new marketing function for the company and developed a variety of focused marketing and customer evangelism programs, helping more than double the company’s developer customer base in just over a year. In 2003 she was honored with BEA’s President’s Club distinction.

Most recently, Diana worked in Public Affairs at Starbucks Coffee Company where she was a key business partner to Starbucks Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) team, focusing specifically on the areas of coffee sourcing, Fair Trade, access to credit, business practices, supply chain and responsible sourcing. At Starbucks, Diana developed and implemented communications strategies and initiatives to protect and enhance the company's image and reputation, developed outreach programs designed to build and cement relationships with key stakeholder groups, created and launched Starbucks Social Responsibility Newsletter, and generated position statements, issues papers, presentations, speeches, awards campaigns and other communications tools for the company.

Diana is an active volunteer in her community and currently serves on the Board of Directors for Girls on the Run of Puget Sound. She was recently selected to participate in the 2005-2006 Leadership Tomorrow Seattle community leadership development program. Diana is a Spanish speaker and spent 2003-2004 traveling, volunteering and studying Spanish, culture and politics in Central and South America.

Diana graduated cum laude with a degree in marketing and business administration from Western Washington University, and completed graduate work at UCLA Anderson School of Management and the Carroll School of Management at Boston College.

Published Works

The Skoll Foundation/Social Edge
- Reid on Marketing

MountainZone
- “A Newbie’s First Summit”
- “Backpacking the Lost Coast and Other Misadventures”
- “Christmas on Aconcagua”
- “Volcano Climbing in the Guatemalan Highlands”
- “Hiking Northern Patagonia’s Lakes District”

Transitions Abroad
- “A Sustainable Vacation”
- “Extended Travel Planning – The Devil is in the Details”

Taca Airlines “Explore” Magazine
- “Traveling Through Time in Managua”