ABOUT DIANE

Diane Dixon spent 40 years in the private sector as a business executive before being elected to the Newport Beach City Council in 2014. She is serving her second term as Mayor, and has served as Chair of the Water Quality and Tidelands Committee and as Chair of the Finance Committee.

Fiscal responsibility and government transparency have been the hallmarks of her time at City Hall. Diane’s leadership has helped her city deliver budget surpluses, pay down pension liabilities, improve public safety, and complete infrastructure projects on time and within budget and greater cooperation between residents, businesses, and government to resolve community problems.

Diane has actively engaged city residents, holding more than 30 town hall meetings, working closely with local business owners and residents to solve community problems, and initiating numerous neighborhood and community improvement programs. She has worked to successfully add citizen members to the City’s Finance Committee and other council committees and launch independent audits of City projects.

A regional leader, Diane is the immediate past President of the Association of California Cities-Orange County. She is a current member of the regional council of the Southern California Association of Governments (SCAG) and a board member of Orange County Council of Governments (OCCOG).

Diane has been an active member on several philanthropic community-based boards of directors for nearly four decades, including United Way Orange County, YMCA, public television, USC Board of Councilors and Alumni Association, educational institutions, child service agencies, and health-related organizations.

During her 40-year business career, she spent 30 years as a senior executive at a Fortune 300 public company, where she was responsible for the company’s global communications, marketing and financial communications, and corporate philanthropy. She managed the intersection of business and government, forging connections among business, government, communities and nonprofit organizations.

She earned her Bachelor of Arts with honors in political science from the University of Southern California.

Diane has been married for 46 years to Pat Dixon, a career prosecutor who currently serves as Special Counsel to the Orange County District Attorney. Diane and Pat’s daughter, Colleen, is a former prosecutor with the Manhattan District Attorney’s office. Colleen and her husband, Graves, are the parents of Diane and Pat’s three grandsons.