Occasionally, a 10-year-old Maricel Joy Dicion looked up from the book she was engrossed in to wave at her dad. It was part of her after-school routine that Dicion’s father would stop by the local mall to catch up with friends. The meeting spot was always outside of the bookstore so his daughter could enjoy her favourite pastime: cultivating a love of words.
It’s the same love — with skills, credentials, and expertise picked up along the way — that the two-time Centennial College graduate now uses in her career. But instead of reading stories, she’s telling them to help clients of her full-service public relations, marketing, and communications firm, DICION INCC., strengthen their brands.
“Word can be incredibly powerful, and I innately always loved reading and writing” says Dicion, who graduated from Centennial’s Journalism program in 2007 and the Public Relations – Corporate Communications program in 2008. “It is a really positive experience when you find a place to nurture your natural gifts, surrounded by people who believe in your ability to succeed. Centennial gave me that.”
While Dicion initially intended to study nursing, a persistent gut feeling set her on a different path. Equipped with a high school guidance counsellor’s introduction to Centennial’s Journalism program, impressed by the calibre of the college’s faculty, and attracted to the integrated real-world opportunities, Dicion enrolled in the offering.
“I still use the skills I gained at Centennial every day,” Dicion says. “You have your hard skills, such as writing or interviewing skills, but you also learn soft skills. They’re harder to quantify but just as important in measuring human emotions and what moves us.”
After graduating, Dicion began her career as a 680 News reporter before stacking her resume in the agency side of marketing and communications. Dicion, who became a Centennial Alumni of Distinction in 2014, received industry awards for campaigns and programs she worked on for high profile clients such as Procter & Gamble and Ford.
“The foundation Centennial gave me included a lot of mentoring, which shaped my career,” Dicion says. “Professors in the Public Relations – Corporate Communications, for example, really encouraged me to explore agency internships because they saw I had the ability to excel in that area before I even saw it in myself.”
In 2016, years into a successful career, Dicion encountered a challenging time when her father lost his sight. With a lack of flexibility at her job, the moment served as a wake-up call for Dicion to seek employment where she was given the room to be a whole human. But instead of finding this dream job, Dicion created it. In 2018, she launched DICION INC. The boutique firm specializes in working with entrepreneurs and small business owners — while striving to holistically understand its employees.
“We are a relationships-first business,” she says. “It’s my intention to provide a place of employment that understands people wear hats other than ‘employee.’ As for my clients, I know their business and industry, but I also know them.”
Dicion is also strengthening her relationship with the place that helped turn her love of words into a marketable skill set — while simultaneously honouring her parents. She recently launched the José and Araceli Dicion Scholarship at Centennial, which will support first-generation Canadian students enrolled full-time in the Public Relations and/or Journalism program.
“I’m in a position where I have the ability to send the proverbial elevator back down to those who are making their way up,” says Dicion, who is currently pursuing her MBA. “My hope is that anyone who hears about or benefits from the scholarship will keep in mind that there is always a way to invite someone to have a seat at the table.”
Written By: Izabela Shubair