New Council of Chiefs director

For the first time since 2007, the Mohawk Council of Kahnawake (MCK) will have a director of the Office of the Council of Chiefs, as Abbey Diabo took over the role this week.

“I’m extremely honoured and excited to take on this role,” said Diabo.

The new director has a diverse professional background. She was previously manager of human resources at the Kateri Memorial Hospital Center, as well as property management for privatized military housing, working for the United States’ Department of Defense in Anchorage, Alaska.

Diabo said that what the MCK was looking for out of the director of the OCC matched her professional strengths.

“Typically, when you’re going into a position like this and meeting that strategic driver to move things forward, it’s not about the experience in government affairs, but more so about the drive to be able to push those plans forward, so understanding what the needs of the organization are, and then being able to push that forward,” said Diabo.

She said her work modernizing, optimizing, and aligning the interests of the human resources department at the hospital with the rest of the organization will help her in her new position, which will involve similar tasks.

“I think those key tools gave me the fundamental skills to move into the director of OCC role, to then be able to review the portfolios our teams are currently working on and building up the OCC staff, to be able to better support those portfolios and really move those political files forward on behalf of not only the MCK, but the entirety of the community,” said Diabo.

Dawn Marquis-Deer, executive administrative officer for the MCK, said that the position, and the OCC itself, has changed since the last director of the OCC, the late Andrew Delisle Jr., left the MCK in 2007.

“In 2024, the OCC underwent a review to identify its strengths, challenges, and needs; a restructuring strategy was proposed that included the development of a director position,” said Marquis-Deer.

“In 2007, when the previous director left the position, the core responsibilities were transferred to other roles. The OCC has evolved, and the Council of Chiefs were supportive of hiring a director to provide strategic and operational direction to the OCC staff.”

The director of the OCC will also be taking over managerial functions that would have otherwise been accomplished by the chief political advisor, a position that is currently vacant following the announced departure of Winona Polson-Lahache last December.

MCK grand chief Cody Diabo is very appreciative of having a new director of the OCC as some of her new responsibilities will be coming off his shoulders.

“It is definitely a big relief. We’ve lost members of our team, so now we’re trying to build back up. It definitely helps me, because I’ve had to take on a little bit more of some operational roles, which in my position I should not be,” he said.

The MCK grand chief said that the director of the OCC is separated from the rest of the executive, reporting to him directly. That means communication networks and documentation between the two will need to be created, on top of overseeing the continued restructuring of the OCC - job descriptions, determining the roles and responsibilities of existing staff and, if needed, future staff, for example.

“We have the unit. So, it’s not like we are starting from scratch, but we have to find how to take what the unit is like now and start transitioning it into what it needs to become,” said Cody.

Abbey Diabo is hoping to hit the ground running in the role.

“I wanted to express my gratitude for the trust that’s been placed in me, and I want to just let everybody know that I’m here to listen and to lead with integrity, continuing to support our leaders in the community with professionalism, accountability, and heart.”

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