2023 Details:

61st Annual Distinguished Lecture & Awards Dinner 
November 30 in NYC

The 61st IPR Annual Distinguished Lecture and Awards Dinner honors our best and brightest leaders and students in the field with lifetime achievement and research awards. Come celebrate and support IPR’s biggest fundraiser of the year with 250 leaders in our industry, including our Board of Trustees and ELEVATE members. All proceeds go to support IPR’s research-focused mission.

Dating back to 1961, the IPR Annual Distinguished Lecture and Awards Dinner is IPR’s biggest fundraiser to honor those who have made a difference in the profession. Past speakers have included Cheryl Boone Isaacs (Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences), Geoff Colvin (Fortune), Lee Rainie (Pew Research), Harold Burson (founder of Burson-Marsteller, now Burson Cohn Wolfe), Dana Perino (former White House Press Secretary, now Fox News), Neal Shapiro (President of WNET, former President of NBC News), Beth Comstock (former General Electric), and Mark Leibovich (The New York Times Magazine). More than 320 people attend this annual event, including our prestigious Board of Trustees that includes senior-level leaders and executives from global organizations.

Tickets and Registration
Tickets for the Distinguished Lecture & Awards Dinner, which sells out every year, are available for individual purchase at $550. Tables of 10 can be purchased for $5,500 and premium tables of 10 are available for purchase at $10,000. The price includes a networking cocktail reception, the awards ceremony and dinner, and the lecture. Learn more here. 

Past Distinguished Lectures

[2022] Alan Murray, Fortune Media

[2021] Ravi Agrawal , Foreign Policy Magazine

Photo Gallery Here

Gainesville, Fla. — Ravi Agrawal, Editor in Chief of Foreign Policy magazine and host of the Global Rebootpodcast, has been named the 2021 Institute for Public Relations Distinguished Lecturer. He will speak at the 2021 IPR Annual Distinguished Lecture and Awards Dinner, IPR’s biggest fundraiser, on December 2 at Current at Chelsea Piers in New York City.

Before joining Foreign Policy, Agrawal had a long career as a TV journalist, including roles such as senior producer of CNN’s Fareed Zakaria GPS and as the network’s South Asia bureau chief based in New Delhi. He is the author of India Connected: How the smartphone is transforming the world’s largest democracy, a book The Wall Street Journal has named among the top five books on the country. Agrawal is a regular guest commentator on BBC, NPR, CNN, and MSNBC, and frequently moderates discussions at events such as the World Economic Forum and the IMF’s annual meetings.

[2019] Mark Leibovich, The New York Times Magazine

The 2019 event featured Mark Leibovich of the New York Times Magazine as the IPR Distinguished Lecturer. Leibovich specializes in national politics, media and profiles of public figures. He is the author of four books, the bestselling This Town and his most recent one from 2018, Big Game: The NFL in Dangerous Times. In Big Game, Leibovich went deep inside the world of the NFL, from the owners’ meeting to the draft to the sidelines of crucial games, revealing the existential fear lurking underneath an era of explosive growth.

Leibovich has previously worked for the Washington bureau of the New York Times where he covered the 2008 and 2012 presidential campaigns, the Obama presidency and more. Before joining the New York Times, he wrote for The Washington Post and the San Jose Mercury News. He is the recipient of a National Magazine Award, and The Atlantic called him Washington’s “most important journalist.”

2019 Photo Gallery

[2018] Cheryl Boone Isaacs, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences

Cheryl Boone Isaacs, the immediate past president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, was interview by IPR Trustee Leslie Gaines-Ross (Weber Shandwick) speak at the IPR Annual Distinguished Lecture & Awards Dinner on November 28 at the Roosevelt Hotel in New York City.

Boone Isaacs served the maximum of 4 one-year terms as president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, known for its annual Academy Awards.  During her 24 years as a board member, Boone Isaacs held every officer position as well as producing the Academy’s 2012 4th Annual Governors Awards.

2018 Photo Gallery

Cocktail Reception Sponsored by The University of Florida’s College of Journalism and Communication


[2017] Lee Rainie, Pew Research, “Truth, Politics and Culture in a Hyper-Connected World”

Lee Rainie, director of internet, science and technology research at Pew Research Center, has been selected as the 2017 Annual Distinguished Lecturer for the Institute for Public Relations Annual Distinguished Lecture & Awards Dinner on November 29 at the Roosevelt Hotel in New York City. His lecture is titled, “Truth, Politics and Culture in a Hyper-Connected World.”

Under Rainie’s leadership, the Center has issued more than 500 reports based on its surveys that examine people’s online activities and the internet’s role in their lives. He also directs the Center’s new initiative on the intersection of science and society. The American Sociological Association gave Rainie its award for “excellence in the reporting on social issues” in 2014 and described his work as the “most authoritative source of reliable data on the use and impact of the internet and mobile connectivity.”

Rainie is a co-author of Networked: The New Social Operating System and five books about the future of the internet that are drawn from the Center’s research. He gives several dozen speeches a year to government officials, media leaders, scholars and students, technology executives, librarians, and nonprofit groups about the changing media ecosystem. He is also regularly interviewed by major news organizations about technology trends. Prior to launching Pew Research Center’s technology research, Rainie was managing editor of U.S. News & World Report. He is a graduate of Harvard University and has a master’s degree in political science from Long Island University.

2017 Alexander Hamilton Medal for Lifetime Achievement | Wendi Strong, Retired EVP of Corporate Comm., USAA

Wendi Strong, retired executive vice president of corporate communications at USAA, will receive the Institute for Public Relations Alexander Hamilton Medal for Lifetime Achievement. Each year the Institute for Public Relations presents its highest award to someone who has made major lifetime contributions to the practice of public relations, including effective use of research. Strong recently retired from USAA, a Fortune 200 financial services company serving more than 12 million current and former members of the military and their families. From 2000 to 2016, Strong served as executive vice president for enterprise affairs, chief communications officer and a member of the senior leadership team directing the strategy and operations of the company.

2017 Pathfinder Award Winner | Dr. Jim Macnamara

Jim Macnamara, Ph.D., Professor of Public Communication at the University of Technology Sydney and a Visiting Professor at London School of Economics and Political Science, will accept the Institute for Public Relations Pathfinder Award at the 2017 Annual Distinguished Lecture & Awards Dinner. Dr. Macnamara is internationally recognized for his cutting-edge research into measurement and evaluation as well as organizational listening through social and market research, consultation, stakeholder engagement, digital technologies and other methods.

2017 Jack Felton Medal for Lifetime Achievement | Dr. Don Stacks

Don StacksDon W. Stacks, Ph.D., is Professor Emeritus of Strategic Communication at the University of Miami. Dr. Stacks has authored and coauthored numerous books on communication topics, to include the Primer of Public Relations Research, and he has received the National Communication Association’s PRIDE award. He edited and co-edited three editions of the IPR Dictionary of Public Relations Research and Measurement. His awards include the IPR Pathfinder Award, the University of Miami Provost’s Award for Outstanding Research and Theory, the PRSA Outstanding Educator of the Year Award, the University of Miami Outstanding Professor Award, and the PRSA Jackson, Jackson & Wagner Behavioral Science Prize.

Take a look at the 2017 Photo Gallery

[2016] Geoff Colvin, Fortune

Geoff Colvin, Senior Editor-at-Large of Fortune magazine, delivered the Institute for Public Relations 55th Distinguished Lecture on November 30 at the Roosevelt Hotel in New York City. Colvin has authored several books including his most recent, “Humans are Underrated: What High Achievers Know That Brilliant Machines Never Will.” His award-winning, international best-selling book, “Talent Is Overrated: What Really Separates World-Class Performers from Everybody Else” received the Harold A. Longman Award for Best Business Book of the Year.

UntitledColvin is an award-winning thinker, author, broadcaster, and speaker on the most significant trends and issues impacting business and the economy. He can be heard daily on the CBS Radio Network, where he has made over 10,000 broadcasts and reaches seven million listeners each week. He has appeared on Today, The O’Reilly Factor, Good Morning America, CBS This Morning, ABC’s World News, CNN, CNBC, PBS’s Nightly Business Report, and dozens of other programs. His “On Leadership” series, which appears online on CNN Money, provides a compelling look at what top leaders are doing to navigate uncertain times.

image_1254078767_9774Celebrating its 60th anniversary, the Institute for Public Relations hosts the Distinguished Lecture & Awards Dinner annually, a tradition and an honor that dates back to 1961 to help raise money for research that matters to the profession. Past speakers have included Sir Martin Sorrell (chairman of WPP), Harold Burson (founder of Burson-Marsteller), Dana Perino (former White House Press Secretary, now Fox News), Neal Shapiro (President of WNET, former President of NBC News), and Beth Comstock (General Electric).

[2015] Julie Hansen, Business Insider, “The Modern Newsroom: How Research and Data Insights Have Shaped the Rise of Business Insider”