kowana
ragland, cmp
Vice President of Meeting Operations
Really good at: Remaining calm in emergency situations.
Known for: My love of the color purple (not the movie but the actual color)
Loves: My mommy, of course!
Guilty as charged: Watching reality TV!
About Kowana
As vice president, Kowana Ragland, CMP, is responsible for the day-to-day management, operations and development of the meeting planning staff. Kowana’s ultimate goal is to ensure that we produce world class meetings, events and incentives that delight and inspire our customers.
Since joining Meeting Expectations in November 2000, she has done extensive work within both the meeting planning and association management sectors, including managing budgets of $100k-$5m and overseeing programs with 30-100 speakers, 50+ exhibitors/sponsors and 250-5,500 attendees.
Kowana began her career in the meeting planning industry at the International Society of Automation (ISA), an organization serving instrumentation, systems and automation professionals. The majority of her 10 years there were in the Conference & Exhibit department planning city-wide conferences in many major US cities.
She was named a “Meeting Professional to Watch” by ConventionSouth magazine in 2009 and 2020. She also served on the 2009–2010 board of directors of Meeting Professionals International – Georgia Chapter as vice president of education as well as VP of Communications for the Atlanta Branch of the Senior Planners Industry Network (SPiN).
Kowana holds the designation of Certified Meeting Professional (CMP) and a Bachelor of Science in business administration from North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University.