Associations don’t need convincing that the world is shrinking. Members move across borders, and professionals worldwide increasingly need the same skills, which means an association’s real market is already global, whether or not its credentials have caught up.
By 2030, close to 40 percent of workers’ core skills are expected to change (WEF Future of Jobs Report 2025), and the alternative credential market is projected to nearly quadruple, from $25.49 billion in 2026 to $99.96 billion by 2034 (Fortune Business Insights). The opportunity is real. So is the risk of getting it wrong.
At the MCI Global Growth Workshop in Washington, DC, Holmes Corporation’s Josh Slayton led a conversation with Katrina Holland of the Medical Library Association (MLA) and Kavitha Prabhu of MCI’s Dubai office, two people who’ve each pushed credentials across borders from opposite ends of the table. What follows isn’t a recap of everything said. It’s what’s worth carrying forward.
1. Validate Before You Expand
Kavitha put it simply: “Start with market validation, not market expansion.” Too many associations treat international growth as simple adaptation, exporting a U.S. model and assuming it will resonate globally. Real validation means testing whether the business actually needs the certification, whether buyers are willing to pay for it, whether it’s culturally aligned in language and imagery, and whether local regulations have genuinely been checked, not assumed.
Katrina’s own situation at MLA is a useful case study. The AHIP credential dates back to 1949 and is well respected within health science librarianship, but it’s barely known outside that world, and almost untested beyond the U.S. and a sliver of Canada. Rather than jumping straight to new geography, she’s focused on proving the credential’s value outside its home base first.
2. A Local Partner Isn’t a Nice-to-Have
Asked directly whether associations can go it alone internationally, Kavitha didn’t leave room for ambiguity: “I’ll straight away say it’s the partnership that matters.” A partner on the ground brings something no amount of research replicates, a live read on a market that shifts month to month. She described briefing one client on regulatory and demographic changes every single month, because in her region, the rules, the competition, and the audience can all shift within a matter of weeks.
She also made the case for relationship-building, a step that’s easy to skip from a distance. “I’ve sat with visitors and clients and potential stakeholders. I’ve had over six cups of black tea and have not discussed business at all.” Her point was about trust, and the fact that an association based on a different continent, with a different weekend and an eight-hour time difference, has to earn local credibility before the business conversation even starts.
3. Price for Value, Not Exchange Rate
Kavitha’s reframe on pricing cut right to the point. “It’s not whether the U.S. pricing works. It’s not the conversion of a dollar to a rupee or to a dirham. It’s what is the value that converts to the end user.” That thinking is why her team recommends tiered, economically-adjusted pricing in some markets, like India and Egypt, while pushing clients to hold firm on price in others, like the U.A.E. and Saudi Arabia, where the credential’s value supports it. She also flagged a subtler trap: stripping a benefit like local chapter access from an international membership tier without realizing there’s no equivalent to offer in its place, which can quietly zero out the perceived value.
4. Let the Market Dictate Delivery
It would be easy to assume digital-first delivery is the global default. Kavitha’s experience says otherwise. In her region, face-to-face training remains common, often because employers are the ones funding certification and want structured, in-person preparation for their teams. That preference has turned into its own revenue channel through training partners and universities, sometimes formalized as a registered service provider model.
Access matters just as much as format. She cited an association that added exam centers in India and the U.A.E. after realizing candidates simply couldn’t reach one, a fix that measurably increased certification volume. And on the harder problem of validating international degrees and licensure against a U.S.-built credential, her advice was straightforward: there’s no shortcut, but the credibility it earns is worth the effort.
5. Authority Gets More Valuable, Not Less, in an AI-Driven Market
An audience question about AI’s threat to credentialing turned into one of the session’s most direct exchanges. Josh’s response reframed the concern: “Authority is going to matter… there’s a badge, a verification that carries significance in the market. It’s happened before, it’s going to continue in the future.” His analogy was simple. The same history class content can come from Harvard or a community college, and the market still values them differently. For associations, that means AI is less a threat to the credential itself and more a new layer for delivering the knowledge behind it, provided the content stays protected and the source stays trusted.
Katrina’s closing advice tied the threads together: “Think about how you can make the biggest impact… don’t be limited in one way.” Global growth isn’t a single formula. It’s validation, partnership, pricing, and delivery, each rethought for the market in front of you.
Where to Start
How ready is your organization to take credentials and education global? HC’s Global Readiness Snapshot is a quick survey and analysis for association leaders, scoring where you stand today across the six things that make or break international credential and education expansion, and where to focus next. If these lessons sound familiar, or if you’re not sure which one applies to you first, take the Snapshot and find out.
