Kelly Craighead

Kelly Craighead is the President and CEO of Cruise Lines International Association (CLIA), the world’s largest cruise industry trade association and the leading authority of the global cruise community. She is responsible for overseeing the management of the global operations and CLIA leadership teams across its seven regions around the world.

Ms. Craighead comes to CLIA with extensive experience serving in executive leadership positions in the public and private sectors.

As the first executive director of the National Travel & Tourism Office at the U.S. Department of Commerce from 2014 to 2017, Ms. Craighead served as the senior government representative for all travel and tourism matters on behalf of the administration. In addition to providing overarching coordination of federal government tourism policies and programs, Ms. Craighead led initiatives that generated more than $250 billion annually from international visitors to the USA while also representing the United States as the key point of contact with other government tourism ministers in critical travel and tourism policy efforts.