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Kevin, you've gotten nothing to lose.
Won't to take you on the seacoon?
All right, everybody.
And some news out of the cruise industry today, Viking Holdings filed confidentially for an initial public offering as the travel industry continues to rebound from its pandemic era slump. Viking's listing could raise five hundred million dollars or more. Bloomberg News reporting that earlier Today, Our.
Next guest knows quite a bit about the industry. And she actually didn't go to an Ivy League school, she writes in her new book. In fact, she describes herself in that book as quote floundering her twenties, seemingly without direction. She did, though, go from selling cruises door to door to becoming the CEO of the company. That company we're talking about, his Celebrity Cruises, the subsidiary of Royal Caribbean Group. All this kerrel in a brand new book. It's called
Making Waves. A Woman's Rise to the Top Using Smart's heart and courage.
Lisa Lutuf Prolo is the author. She's also the vice chair of External Affairs at Royal Caribbean and, as we said, former CEO of Celebrity Cruises. She joins us from Plantation, Florida. Lisa is so nice to have you here with us. We feel like there's a million ways to start with you. I hope you will indulge us a little bit because I have reported on Royal Caribbean, I've reported on some of your I am.
A sailor as well.
But it's been interesting to watch the cruise industry in general pre pandemic, make it through the pandemic, which was remarkable, and then come out and seemingly be stronger than ever. Talk to us about the cruise industry, the trajectory that we've seen over the last few years here of okay, really tough times and then coming out of those tough times and doing just okay better than okay. Yeah.
Yeah, well you know better than me because you're reporting on us all the time and interviewing many of the executives there, and I think it's pretty well determined and known that, yeah, we're past those dark days and we're full steam ahead.
Where the industry is doing great.
I heard what you just said about Viking, and that's just another indication that it's a pretty robust industry right now.
Why do you think the industry is doing so well right now? What is it about cruising that really continues to attract people year after year.
I guess what I would say is that it's the same as all travel. People want to experience the world, they want to get out there. The industry is robust, it's growing, it's exciting a lot of wonderful new ships out there, and you know, the cruise industry is capitalizing on people's desire to experience things and travel, and people spent two years not being able to do that, and now they're coming back in earnest pretty much in all forms of travel.
For sure, Lisa. We got to ask because in the beginning of your book, you say you never considered writing a book is the first thing from your mind, never thought you had an interesting enough story to tell. And yet, FYI, any woman who becomes a CEO is a story. And I can't wait for the day where it's not a story. Because my whole trajectory in journalism, and it's several decades like it has been a story, and so kudos to
you forgetting there. But what ultimately said, Okay, I'm going to write this book.
Well, first of all, a couple of things.
If I if I could, Carol, I agree with you, it will be wonderful when it's not a story anymore. And what was interesting is that when I was first appointed to the role back in December of twenty fourteen, it was such a big story and I was overwhelmed
by it. And what I say in the book is I was actually quite annoyed by by it because I was getting a disproportionate amount of attention because I was a woman, not because I had worked the years and accomplished so much that actually got me into the position. But what I decided, and one of the reasons that I ended up writing the book, was that so.
Many people told me it was a big deal.
And I decided at a certain point in time, I was going to lean into that and I was going to use this disproportionate voice that I had because I was a woman who made it to the CEO position to tell my story. And it's really a story about a young woman in my twenties who started at the bottom and ended up at the top, and it's it's really if I can do what you can do with story?
Well, I love that, right, And we do talk about often you start at the bottom, and in media often a lot of people do. Whether you start as a production assistant, bringing somebody coffee, and you just work your tail off and you work your way up. Having said that, Lisa, right, it was really easy to work your way up.
Are you being facetious?
Kach? I am?
I am?
Take us back to the early days and getting into the industry and what it was like to be a woman in the industry forty years ago, any industry, I think, I fail, like even forty years ago was kind of tough.
Sure sure, sure, well, you know, my career started in sales and marketing, so for twenty one years I was in a very gender neutral environment.
Didn't think a lot of it.
Never never thought about being a woman, or the fact that it was maybe something that wasn't working to my advantage, or there weren't a lot of us because in sales and marketing there are quite a few women, even in leadership roles. I realized there was a gender disparity in two thousand and five when I went into operations because that's a very male dominated part of our business. And again, our industry is old. You just said it yourself, Peril.
It was forty years ago. It's still very much predominantly men in operations, and clearly in the CEO roles and running these brands and companies, it's still predominantly men. I never felt like being a woman impacted my ability to grow or achieve what I achieved in my career. I did find it somewhat of an issue in some of the I had three roles in our company where I was the first woman to ever do it, and I guess I would use the word skepticism.
When I was put into those roles.
A lot of the men that were in those areas of the company were skeptical as to why I was there and if I belonged there, And I just had to build my credibility one interaction at a time.
Lisa, do you think your story is still possible in twenty twenty four? And the reason I ask is because it's so rare to find somebody who's been at one company for pretty much their entire career. And yes, you did start working at a very young age, in your
family business, in the restaurant. But I'm wondering if you still see this of somebody starting at one company and then working their way completely to the top of that company, because so often the only way to actually get a promotion or get more money is to jump to another company when you get another offer.
Well, there's you know, there's a lot of truth in that, Tim. I don't know if I know the answer to your question, because for thirty nine years I was in one company, and in our company, I see a lot of what happened with me. I see a lot of people who work their way up for decades. Our company is very committed to hiring from within, developing people, helping.
Them grow, moving them around so they learn more.
So I was in a wonderful situation and it continues to be that way.
However, if I think about.
The new generations and I think about how people are right now, I'm not sure that that's going to happen. And I think part of one of our issues is people so many people being remote and it's difficult to be noticed. One of the things I talk about in the book is conducting your own PR campaign so that you do achieve what you want to achieve and make it to the top, and it's hard to do that you're not there invisible and interacting every day.
Hey, one day, I want to go back to when you talked about building your own credibility and that you said it was kind of okay that maybe people had some questions about your ability to do some of these leadership roles. Having said that, because you said people had some hesitation about my leadership and that was fair, Why is it fair, because you know, no offense. If you were a guy, they would be like, I got this. Yeah, I don't have all the.
Experience.
I haven't done it all, maybe exactly, but I got this, don't worry about it, and it would be okay. Is it just men women in your view and your experience and what you've seen of us just kind of wired differently, or the world thinking that we're wired differently.
Good question. You know I didn't think about it that way, Carol.
You know when I went into it and people I so here's how I looked at it. I looked at it as Okay, there really have not been any women that have been your boss.
There are very few women.
There were three percent women on our bridges when I started, and there were thirty three percent when I stepped down last April, and maybe I cut them too much black in that regard. I was never a captain, I was never a chief engineer. I was never a hotel director, never drove a ship, fixed fixed an engine. So I'm like, all right, maybe they think I need subject matter expertise, and yes, I'm a woman and there aren't.
There are none of us around.
I'm looking left and right, and maybe I, you know, cut them more slack than they might have deserved.
I didn't think about it that way.
But what I decided to do when I met with that skepticism is just to you know, to turn it around. I come at everything from a very positive angle, and that's that's how I looked at that. I said, Okay, I don't have subject matter expertise, but I guarantee you there's a lot of other reasons why I'm here, and I'm going to show you that in a very short period of time.
All Right, Lisa, sit tight, We're going to come back continue the conversation. We've got more time with Lisa LUTEV.
Parlow.
She is the author of a new book, Making Waves of Women's rise to the Top using Smart's heart and courage, And just.
A little tease, We're going to start our next segment with the dark days of March twenty twenty, especially for the cruise industry, because that's where the book opens.
I feel like, you know, you go back there and just that moment of the unexpected of Yet we're going to shut down the global economy. Folks, We're doing it all right. Everybody want to get back to our guests with us is Lisa lutev Perlow. She's the author of a new book, Making Waves of Women's Rise to the Top using Smart's Heart and courage. She's also Vice chair of External Affairs at Royal Caribbean. She's the former CEO of Celebrity Cruises, which is of course a brand within
the Royal Caribbean Group. And she's still with us from Plantation, Florida. So so good to have you here. We want to talk att bit about COVID.
Yeah, I mean, you found yourself at the helm of the company, Lisa, at a time that was incredibly challenging, to say the least. So take us back to March eighth, twenty twenty, which is where your book opens.
What happened then, Well, March eighth of twenty twenty was actually a really exciting day for me.
I boarded Celebrity Edge.
We were we were celebrating International Women's Day, which is March eighth actually, and we were celebrating a history making, barrier breaking event where one hundred percent of our bridge on that ship was manned by women, and Captain Kate was at the helm. So it was a glorious event. We had worked really hard to improve our gender balance on our bridges. We were able to do this. Our
guests were excited, our team were excited. I left the ship on Wednesday, flew home, went back into the office on Thursday, left for the weekend on Friday, and then, as you know very well, no, we had a global chef down that weekend and ceased operations four fifteen months. So what I talk about in the first chapter of the book Sailing through the Storm is I went from the highest of highs in my career to the lowest of lows within seventy two hours.
And I will never forget that.
I mean, yes, I think about for us like kind of going through the financial crisis and reporting on it.
Were there, I don't know.
We just felt like the world probably felt this way. But the dark days of oh my god, is this system going to come undone? How did you think about like you were feeling, like you said, from a high to a low, but you're like, I'm responsible for this brand and the people who are connected with it. We got to figure out our way forward. And you obviously have a corporate parent who was.
Involved in it too.
But just take us through, like initially, how dark it was and what you were thinking, Well, I.
Was thinking what all of us were thinking, is is this horrible thing that's impacted the world ever going to end? Are we ever going to see the light at the end of this tunnel? There were so many terrible things happening all at once, including our business shutting down. That was not the least of it, but it was just one of a global nightmare that we were all living through.
And yes, our company played a very active role. I was only one of the executives dealing with it, but I did have to think about as a leader, how am I going to pivot and what are the things that I'm going to do that are going to get the twenty thousand people that work under my area of responsibility through this?
How am I going to give them hope? You know?
How am I going to give them confidence that this is going to end and we're going to get back into business and our crew members spread all over the world are going to be able to get back to work and someday I didn't even know that. So I learned more as a leader during COVID than probably the other of thirty seven or thirty eight years of my career in the company.
What are some of those things you could kind of impart on other people now that you learned in such a short time.
I think the most important thing that all of us as leaders need to understand is when we need to pivot and what we need to be doing and the muscle that we need to be building at any given time. I was a CEO of a brand within a corporate s and P five hundred company. Shareholder value, returning shareholder value, transforming the financial performance of the brand was at the forefront of everything I did, how I led, what I
thought about every single day. And when you're out of business, you have to think about different things and you have to downplay those because there is no business to generate but also you have to be able to switch yourself as a leader from a hard driving, results focus driven visionary strategic think or two. Okay, let me give people what they need right now, which is empathy, which is support,
which is compassion, and again which is hope. And so I really think that some leaders have a really difficult time flexing their style and being different on any given day relative to what the circumstances present. And I learned that during COVID, and I learned that as soon as I was able to do that, the way the team was feeling and the way our employees all over the world was feeling immediately changed because they that's what they
were looking to me for. I was that beacon for them, and I needed to remember that every single day when I woke up.
Well, we so appreciate that perspective. And we're going to take you back to the high point just before the pandemic, and you talked about this ship and the role of women and Captain Kate, our Charlie Pellett is a big cruiser, including celebrity cruises, and he wanted to know and we're going to ask you do you follow Captain Kate on Instagram and what has she done for your brand and
being able to put out a ship. She was what first time that an American woman was named captain of a mega cruise ship, so it was a big deal. What has that done for the brand?
Oh, Carol?
Well, you know, she was the first and still only, I might add, American woman to ever be at the helm of a mega cruise ship. She was the captain on Celebrity Edge, which, by the way, was the first ship to sail out of a US port post pandemic January twenty sixth, twenty twenty one. Captain Kate was at the helm of Celebrity Edge and we were the first brand to.
Go back into service.
She was the first woman to take a ship out of the shipyard and send a there France. I would follow Captain Kate everywhere and I follow her on Instagram. And when you think about the things that you're proudest of in your career, appointing her and giving her that opportunity as captain is one of the highlights for me and for her.
And she is beloved.
She's beloved by her crew, her guests, everybody that encounters her. She's an unbelievable navigator. She's extraordinary in every single way. And she's been a great advocate for celebrity, and she's been a great advocate for women mariners and recruiting them into our.
Company here here.
I love it. I'm a I'm a sailor on the net.
Can you tell? Can you tell that Carol spends a good portion of the summer on the high seas? You really?
She really loved that, Carol that You're welcome.
You're welcome, all right, So we want to do kind of a little bit of a rapid fire round with you if we can. We've got about a minute and a half left, just quick answers.
Work from home?
Yes or no? Or how you feel about it? You can be honest, be.
Honest, mixed and both mixed and both.
How about that mixed in both?
Yeah, both work from home? Don't work from home?
Okay?
And I feel mixedls and cons. Okay.
So talk a little bit about your favorite place to cruise quickly?
Alaska, wow? Really?
Or the Galapagos anywhere where nature plays a huge role.
All right, leader, you and my doesn't have you? Can you can excuse your current leaders because we don't want to put that on you.
No, No, no leader Ruth Vader Ginsburg because real quickly, Oh my gosh, what she did for everybody herself.
Women, Yeah, everybody, get to hear you.
Next act, next act, next, oh wait, your next port. Let's stay with the sailing metaphor. And just got about twenty five seconds.
Okay, next chapter. You're gonna have to reinterview me at the beginning of May. And I can tell you.
All right, I like it. See look at that tease, look at that. Oh add it to the calendar.
Oh yeah, I'm not done yet, folks.
All right, Lisa, soa appreciate this. Have a great weekend. Lisa lutav Pro. She is the author of a new memoir, Making Waves, a woman's Rise to the Top, using Smart's heart encourage. I love it, love it, love it, love it.
She's cool, very cool. Check in with her May of the calendar.
There's gonna be more mhm.