Kelly Knowlen is Vice President, Sales Engagement and Special Events for Hilton. She leads the execution and strategic direction of more than 200 customer and industry events each year, along with Hilton's internal conferences and incentive trips ranging from 200 to 9,000 attendees.

Following the onset of the COVID-19 crisis, Kelly led the commercial workstreams responsible for creating and launching Hilton EventReady with CleanStay and the EventReady Playbook, a proprietary resource for teams and event planner customers.

In 2025, Kelly helped launch Hilton's World's Most Welcoming Events initiative. Built on original research into the future of meetings and events, the initiative provides tools and solutions designed to create welcoming experiences that encourage attendees to return. Kelly believes events should give people compelling reasons to come together, particularly at a time when technology can make it easier to stay apart.

For the past 10 years, Kelly and her team have led Global Week of Engagement, helping bring team members together to strengthen collaboration and customer relationships. Kelly began her more than 30-year Hilton career as a Sales Manager at DoubleTree Concourse in Atlanta before progressing through sales, operations and engagement leadership roles across the company.