Maria Murphy is CEO and Market Master of the award-winning Carmel Christkindlmarkt. Maria has served in this role since the Market’s opening in 2017. Maria spent a year in Germany as recipient of the Congress-Bundestag Youth Exchange scholarship supported by Senator Richard Lugar. While there, she developed a fluency in German and met a wide network of contacts that she still keeps in touch with today.  Prior to her work at the Market, Maria spent 10 years in the banking industry. In 2017, she was selected by Carmel Mayor Jim Brainard to serve at the helm of the Carmel Christkindlmarkt, thanks to her love of German culture and language, as well as her business expertise.

Under Maria’s direction, the Market has been named the Best Holiday Market by USA Today’s 10Best competition twice, in 2019 and 2021. In 2021, the Market welcomed more than 400,000 visitors, and total Market sales eclipsed $4.5 million – an almost 50% increase from the previous year. In future years, Maria hopes to increase programming geared at children and families, as well as recruit a steady stream of various German artists to do presentations of their art forms for guests.