Women Communicators of Austin elects its officers to serve one-year terms beginning in June of each year. Please feel free to contact any member of our board of directors with your questions about the organization.  Applications for board service are accepted year-round; the board service term is June 1 – May 31. 

2026-2027 Board of Directors

June 1, 2026

I skipped the beach for this. Would again.

I’ve been a member of this organization since my senior year at Texas State, back when it was SWT and WCA was still WICI. That year, I skipped a spring break beach trip to South Padre to attend a WICI event at the Four Seasons Hotel in Austin. I wore real shoes. I took notes. I introduced myself to just about everyone. I never regretted it for a single second.

I joined because I needed what WCA has always offered: real connections with women who were doing what I wanted to do, and who were generous enough to let a nervous and eager college senior pull up a chair. That’s still exactly what this organization is, and it’s why I’m honored and genuinely excited to step into the role of your WCA President. I’m not here just for nostalgia, though. I’m here because of what WCA has always been, and I’m staying because of what it can still become.

I also want to say this plainly: I know this is a hard moment for a lot of communicators. Layoffs, contracting budgets, an industry that keeps shapeshifting. If you’re navigating that right now, whether you’re early in your career or somewhere across the spectrum of “in the middle of it,” I see you, and I want you to know that WCA is exactly the right place to be.

That’s not a platitude. This organization spans college students to women well into retirement, and every last one of them has something the others need. That depth and breadth of experience across journalism, marketing, PR, content, design, internal comms, social media, and everything in between is genuinely rare. And it’s here.

One more thing worth saying: if you communicate in your job, WCA is for you. Full-time, part-time, freelance, contractor, in-between-things. If you think you might be a communicator, you probably are.

So come to things. Bring someone. Introduce them around.

Join us for WCA@Lunch or WCA@Night, our rotating monthly programs that alternate between a midday luncheon and an evening out with cocktails and good conversation. Come to Morning Mingles or a Happy Hour when you just need a low-key way to connect. Bring a colleague to Get Smart, our half-day professional development conference, or to Banner Brunch, our annual celebration of the women and students doing remarkable work in this field. If you’re a freelancer or independent communicator, look into Freelance Austin, a WCA affinity group that’s been connecting independents since 1995. And if mentorship is what you need right now, the Peer Mentor Program is there for exactly that.

The year ahead will be a good one. I’m sure of it, not because everything is easy, but because this community has never needed “easy” to show up for each other.
See you soon.

Kerri Qunell
President, Women Communicators of Austin

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