The Connecticut Convention & Sports Bureau (CTCSB) named Susan Koczka, CMP as a director of national accounts. Koczka, has close to three decades of experience in the conventions, meetings and hospitality industries.
“Sue Koczka is an experienced conventions, meetings and hospitality sales executive who is extremely knowledgeable about Connecticut’s assets, has longtime relationships with industry professionals across our state, and will hit the ground running in her new role,” explained CTCSB President H. Scott Phelps. “She brings a unique perspective to this job, as her career has included convention bureau sales initiatives, new business sales and marketing for an array of hotel properties in the Northeast, and she managed the many aspects of meeting planning for a variety of associations.”
“In addition, Sue was a national sales manager at the former Greater Hartford Convention & Visitors Bureau (GHCVB) for eight years, before the State expanded our reach to cover all of Connecticut,” added Phelps, who also was employed at the GHCVB. “So she works well with several members of our staff and with our Board.”
A Certified Meeting Professional, Koczka comes to the Connecticut Convention & Sports Bureau from Association Resources, Inc. in West Hartford, Conn., an association management firm that provides a wide range of management resources and services to professional associations. She most recently was the director of corporate relations & meetings for the company’s largest client, the International Association of Campus Law Enforcement Administrators and previously was the firm’s director of meetings, serving many of the other clients.
Koczka was a national sales manager for the GHCVB from 2003 to 2010. Her focus markets were meeting planners at associations that are based in Chicago and to its west. Two years later, the GHCVB’s reach and responsibilities were expanded to cover all of the state as the current Connecticut Convention & Sports Bureau.
Earlier, Koczka provided corporate sales direction for multiple hotel properties as the Northeast District Director for the Shaner Hotel Group, and then as Northeast Regional Director for GF Management, Inc. in Philadelphia. She began her career as director of sales and marketing and director of catering for the now Radisson Cromwell Hotel in Cromwell, Conn.
Koczka holds a bachelors degree in Business Administration from Central Connecticut State University, with a major in Management and a minor Marketing Management.
Working in partnership with the state’s businesses, institutions, nonprofit organizations, and their surrounding communities, the CTCSB markets all of the state – convention and meeting venues, hotels and attractions, and sporting venues – as a premier destination for international, national, regional and statewide conferences, conventions and major sports events events.
