Ksenija Polla, CMP, CICE, Director, International Development at Talley has been working in the field of international association meetings for almost 30 years and her experience ranges from membership recruitment and retention, product development, event management, sales, marketing and relationship development. Ksenija has most recently spearheaded the launch of multiple Certification Programs at ICCA (The International Congress and Convention Association) from ICCASkills, to the Association Impact Masterclass, Regenerative Event Management Masterclass and the AI-Empowered Event Professionals Masterclass.

Ksenija started her career in Croatia, in the Congress department one of the leading travel agencies at the time, moved to the Zagreb Convention Bureau, where she worked on bidding and site inspections and joined ICCA in 1997, where she started in the Membership Department and has been building the Association Community from September 2013 until December 2020. In January of 2021 Ksenija took on the role of Regional Director for ICCA North America. During her time with ICCA Ksenija played an important role in the education offering of ICCA across all of the events and in developing white papers, which culminated in her leading the new product development of ICCA’s certification programme in 2021 and 2022. In January 2023, Ksenija transitioned to Head of Education and Legacy Programmes of ICCA looking after all education content of ICCA as well as ICCA’s Legacy Initiatives including the Incredible Impacts Awards Programme. As of June 2024 took on the role of Director International Development at Talley Management Group.

She has also been part of the ICCA 2020 and 2021 Global Hybrid Congress as well as the 2022, 2023 and 2024 in person Congress Programme Committee. This role included a variety of activities surrounding the content development of these events whether in the main location, online or in the hubs.

In her free time you can find Ksenija on the golf course following her twins’ rising college golf careers.