The International Association of Business Communicators or IABC held its first convocation event on Friday, February 1 when a full room of students gathered to hear from Nashville-based IABC board members Kellie Davie, Lynn Yates, and Genma Holmes.

IABC is a non-profit organization established over 40 years ago to connect communications, human resources, and public relations professionals from a wide variety of industries. In 2017, Nashville’s chapter won the International Small Chapter of the Year Award out of more than 100 chapters in 70 countries. Belmont’s involvement with IABC began in the spring of 2018.

Davie, Yates, and Holmes shared about their experiences in IABC as well as their individual careers and advice for young people entering the workforce. Yates, a freelance writer and marketing communications strategist, encouraged audience members to find what makes them smile and look for opportunities to grow those skills wherever they may lead while also emphasizing the importance of internships in competitive fields. Davie, founder and managing director of Keycom PR, told students, from her own experience, that it might take a couple tries to find what it is that makes you smile. She emphasized the importance of allowing yourself grace for inevitable mistakes as you enter the working world. Far more important than not making mistakes, she said, is the importance of “being a sponge,” taking experience, connections, and advice from wherever they may come. Similarly, Holmes, the long-time owner of a Nashville-based exterminating company, talked about the importance of finding professional mentors and listening to other industry professionals with experience.

Each of the speakers shared with the audience what it was about IABC that made them want to be a part of the organization. For Davie, the newest member of IABC, it was the diversity present in the organization’s leadership. The members and leaders of IABC, she said, represent businessmen and women from different generations, industries, and walks of life. Holmes told the audience that she appreciates IABC’s unparalleled willingness to understand the individual businesses its members represent and appreciate their differences. Holmes and Davie also emphasized the personal importance of IABC being the only international communication organization of which they had ever been members.

It was Yates who remembered being invited to an IABC luncheon 10 years ago where she found the organization to be “a home” for her. She told students that, in a professional culture where it is easy to feel controlled by bureaucracy that can shift and restructure, it is very helpful and often necessary to have a support net like IABC to make connections, “to have people to ask questions to or get help from, and to have people who believe in you.”