Page Center to honor Mary Barra, Lester Holt and Jon Iwata at seventh annual integrity awards

Event and registration page: awards.thepagecenter.org.

Recognizing career-long commitment to integrity and truthful public communication, the Arthur W. Page Center is honoring Mary Barra, chair and CEO of General Motors; Lester Holt, anchor and managing editor of “NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt” and anchor of “Dateline NBC;” and Jon Iwata, former senior vice president and chief brand officer at IBM. The seventh annual Page Center Awards will be livestreamed at 7 p.m. ET on Feb. 22, 2023. Registration for the awards experience is free and open to the public.

Each honoree will share remarks and participate in a Q&A session at the event. These discussions are a wide-ranging and powerful look into illustrious careers. Honorees share stories, give advice and explain how integrity fueled their success. Potential questions for one or all honorees can be submitted during registration. Attendees must register to access the livestream.

Honorees receive a Larry Foster Award for Integrity in Public Communication, which is given to professionals who have become trusted leaders in a number of fields, including business, journalism, public relations and the public sector.

“The trust and dependability of leaders in every area of public communication is as important as ever,” said Bill Nielsen, Page Center advisory board chair and former corporate VP of public affairs at Johnson & Johnson. “Not only are Mary, Lester and Jon shining examples of integrity, they are steady voices who lead by example and impact the world with well-deserved authority.”

Hundreds have logged on to hear from a distinguished group of communicators. Past honorees include Dr. Anthony Fauci, NIAID director, Ken Chenault, former CEO of American Express, Christiane Amanpour, chief international anchor at CNN; Eugene Robinson, Washington Post columnist and editor; Judy Woodruff, former anchor of PBS Newshour; Bill Heyman, CEO of Heyman Associates; and Andy Polansky, former CEO of IPG DXTRA.

Visit the awards page for more information about past events and honorees.

This will be the third awards event streamed online. What originated as a dinner in 2017, the Page Center Awards transitioned to the virtual format in 2020 due to COVID-19. Hosting the event online introduced the Page Center to a global audience. Most importantly, it offered a chance for the next generation of communicators to attend. Last year, nearly half of the event’s viewers were college students.

“It’s a great honor for us to provide a forum for students to see and hear amazing leaders discuss integrity and truth-telling,” Page Center director Denise Bortree said. “While our goal stays the same every year, each awards event is captivatingly unique. Our impressive classes of honorees educate, inspire and motivate us in different ways.”

Visit the event page to register and to learn more about this year’s honorees.

Meet the 2023 honorees

Mary Barra
Mary Barra is chair and chief executive officer of General Motors. Barra began her career with GM in 1980 as a co-op student at the Pontiac Motor Division. She is chair of the Business Roundtable, an association of chief executive officers of leading U.S. companies. She serves as the chair and founding member of GM’s inclusion advisory board. Barra also serves on the board of directors of the Walt Disney Company, the Duke University Board of Trustees and the Detroit Economic Club.

Lester Holt
Lester Holt is the anchor and managing editor of NBC’s flagship broadcast “NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt.” Holt joined NBC News in 2000. He has served as principal anchor of “Dateline NBC” since September 2011. Most recently, he has conducted interviews with President Joe Biden, former U.S. Attorney General William Barr, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and many more. One of Holt’s trademarks is his on-the-ground reporting and his deep commitment to providing viewers with first-person accounts when disaster and tragedy strikes.

Jon Iwata
Jon Iwata is the founding executive director of the Data & Trust Alliance, a not-for-profit lab that brings together leading businesses to learn, develop, and adopt responsible data and AI practices. He is also the practice leader of the recently-established Program on Stakeholder Innovation and Management at the Yale School of Management, where he is an executive fellow and lecturer. Over a 35-year career at IBM, Iwata held multiple roles, including senior vice president and chief brand officer. According to Interbrand, IBM became the second most valuable brand in the world during Iwata’s tenure as CMO.

About the Page Center Awards

Located in Penn State’s Donald P. Bellisario College of Communications, the Arthur W. Page Center is a research center that advances integrity in all forms of public communication. It was founded by public relations legend Larry Foster, a Penn State alumnus and the namesake of the Center’s integrity award.

The purpose of the Page Center Awards is to celebrate icons of ethics, integrity and truth in public communication. The event supports innovative research by Page Center scholars who represent universities all over the world. The Center’s research projects aim to build the scholarly and public understanding of ethics in communication. To date, the Center has funded nearly 300 scholars and awarded more than $1 million in research funding.

Areas of focus include corporate social responsibility, digital ethics, sustainability
communication, advocacy, fake news and more. Other Center initiatives focus on educational opportunities like regular speaker series, oral history archiving and online educational modules.

Visit the event page for registration, event and sponsorship information.