Maria Karla B. Balili-Guia is one of IFES' Senior Project Officers. Her job involves implementation, monitoring and coordination of IFES projects in partnership with the Commission on Elections and Civil Society organizations. Prior to joining IFES, she served in the government for more than a decade and has gained extensive knowledge and experience in election operations and management. She worked for the Commission on Elections in 1991 to 1995 as a staff in the Office of the Chairman and later in 2006 to 2007, as consultant to a Commissioner. She gained six years experience in election adjudication serving the House of Representatives Electoral Tribunal (HRET), from 1998 to 2004, as Revision Supervisor to the Canvass Board Service. In addition to this, her tenure as Executive Assistant to the Chairperson of the Civil Service Commission provided her a strategic exposure to Philippine bureaucracy and civil service reforms. Her civil society involvement, aside from electoral reforms work, include advocacy on rule of law, civil liberties, gender issues, public legal literacy and jail decongestion.

Karla finished her undergraduate studies at the Ateneo de Manila University in 1990, and obtained a Masters degree in Public Administration (MPA) at the University of the Philippines National College of Public Administration and Governance in 2003. She was co-publisher of the interactive CD-ROM entitled,  Politico: Everyman s Guide to Philippine Elections released in 1998 and co-author of Trends in Local Elections which appeared in Gender and Governance: Review of Women s Studies, January December 2002, Volume 1.