Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio News.
Speaker 2: You're listening to Bloomberg BusinessWeek with Carol Messer and Tim
Speaker 2: Stenebek on Bloomberg Radio.
Speaker 3: Kevin, you've gotten nothing to lose.
Speaker 2: Won't to take you on the seacoon?
Speaker 3: All right, everybody.
Speaker 4: And some news out of the cruise industry today, Viking
Speaker 4: Holdings filed confidentially for an initial public offering as the
Speaker 4: travel industry continues to rebound from its pandemic era slump.
Speaker 4: Viking's listing could raise five hundred million dollars or more.
Speaker 4: Bloomberg News reporting that earlier Today, Our.
Speaker 2: Next guest knows quite a bit about the industry. And
Speaker 2: she actually didn't go to an Ivy League school, she
Speaker 2: writes in her new book. In fact, she describes herself
Speaker 2: in that book as quote floundering her twenties, seemingly without direction.
Speaker 2: She did, though, go from selling cruises door to door
Speaker 2: to becoming the CEO of the company. That company we're
Speaker 2: talking about, his Celebrity Cruises, the subsidiary of Royal Caribbean Group.
Speaker 2: All this kerrel in a brand new book. It's called
Speaker 2: Making Waves. A Woman's Rise to the Top Using Smart's
Speaker 2: heart and courage.
Speaker 4: Lisa Lutuf Prolo is the author. She's also the vice
Speaker 4: chair of External Affairs at Royal Caribbean and, as we said,
Speaker 4: former CEO of Celebrity Cruises. She joins us from Plantation, Florida.
Speaker 4: Lisa is so nice to have you here with us.
Speaker 4: We feel like there's a million ways to start with you.
Speaker 4: I hope you will indulge us a little bit because
Speaker 4: I have reported on Royal Caribbean, I've reported on some
Speaker 4: of your I am.
Speaker 3: A sailor as well.
Speaker 4: But it's been interesting to watch the cruise industry in
Speaker 4: general pre pandemic, make it through the pandemic, which was remarkable,
Speaker 4: and then come out and seemingly be stronger than ever.
Speaker 4: Talk to us about the cruise industry, the trajectory that
Speaker 4: we've seen over the last few years here of okay,
Speaker 4: really tough times and then coming out of those tough
Speaker 4: times and doing just okay better than okay. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well you know better than me because you're reporting
Speaker 1: on us all the time and interviewing many of the
Speaker 1: executives there, and I think it's pretty well determined and
Speaker 1: known that, yeah, we're past those dark days and we're
Speaker 1: full steam ahead.
Speaker 3: Where the industry is doing great.
Speaker 1: I heard what you just said about Viking, and that's
Speaker 1: just another indication that it's a pretty robust industry right now.
Speaker 2: Why do you think the industry is doing so well
Speaker 2: right now? What is it about cruising that really continues
Speaker 2: to attract people year after year.
Speaker 1: I guess what I would say is that it's the
Speaker 1: same as all travel. People want to experience the world,
Speaker 1: they want to get out there. The industry is robust,
Speaker 1: it's growing, it's exciting a lot of wonderful new ships
Speaker 1: out there, and you know, the cruise industry is capitalizing
Speaker 1: on people's desire to experience things and travel, and people
Speaker 1: spent two years not being able to do that, and
Speaker 1: now they're coming back in earnest pretty much in all
Speaker 1: forms of travel.
Speaker 4: For sure, Lisa. We got to ask because in the
Speaker 4: beginning of your book, you say you never considered writing
Speaker 4: a book is the first thing from your mind, never
Speaker 4: thought you had an interesting enough story to tell. And yet, FYI,
Speaker 4: any woman who becomes a CEO is a story. And
Speaker 4: I can't wait for the day where it's not a story.
Speaker 4: Because my whole trajectory in journalism, and it's several decades
Speaker 4: like it has been a story, and so kudos to
Speaker 4: you forgetting there. But what ultimately said, Okay, I'm going
Speaker 4: to write this book.
Speaker 3: Well, first of all, a couple of things.
Speaker 1: If I if I could, Carol, I agree with you,
Speaker 1: it will be wonderful when it's not a story anymore.
Speaker 1: And what was interesting is that when I was first
Speaker 1: appointed to the role back in December of twenty fourteen,
Speaker 1: it was such a big story and I was overwhelmed
Speaker 1: by it. And what I say in the book is
Speaker 1: I was actually quite annoyed by by it because I
Speaker 1: was getting a disproportionate amount of attention because I was
Speaker 1: a woman, not because I had worked the years and
Speaker 1: accomplished so much that actually got me into the position.
Speaker 1: But what I decided, and one of the reasons that
Speaker 1: I ended up writing the book, was that so.
Speaker 3: Many people told me it was a big deal.
Speaker 1: And I decided at a certain point in time, I
Speaker 1: was going to lean into that and I was going
Speaker 1: to use this disproportionate voice that I had because I
Speaker 1: was a woman who made it to the CEO position
Speaker 1: to tell my story. And it's really a story about
Speaker 1: a young woman in my twenties who started at the
Speaker 1: bottom and ended up at the top, and it's it's
Speaker 1: really if I can do what you can do with story?
Speaker 4: Well, I love that, right, And we do talk about
Speaker 4: often you start at the bottom, and in media often
Speaker 4: a lot of people do. Whether you start as a
Speaker 4: production assistant, bringing somebody coffee, and you just work your
Speaker 4: tail off and you work your way up. Having said that, Lisa, right,
Speaker 4: it was really easy to work your way up.
Speaker 2: Are you being facetious?
Speaker 3: Kach? I am?
Speaker 1: I am?
Speaker 4: Take us back to the early days and getting into
Speaker 4: the industry and what it was like to be a
Speaker 4: woman in the industry forty years ago, any industry, I think,
Speaker 4: I fail, like even forty years ago was kind of tough.
Speaker 1: Sure sure, sure, well, you know, my career started in
Speaker 1: sales and marketing, so for twenty one years I was
Speaker 1: in a very gender neutral environment.
Speaker 3: Didn't think a lot of it.
Speaker 1: Never never thought about being a woman, or the fact
Speaker 1: that it was maybe something that wasn't working to my advantage,
Speaker 1: or there weren't a lot of us because in sales
Speaker 1: and marketing there are quite a few women, even in
Speaker 1: leadership roles. I realized there was a gender disparity in
Speaker 1: two thousand and five when I went into operations because
Speaker 1: that's a very male dominated part of our business. And again,
Speaker 1: our industry is old. You just said it yourself, Peril.
Speaker 1: It was forty years ago. It's still very much predominantly
Speaker 1: men in operations, and clearly in the CEO roles and
Speaker 1: running these brands and companies, it's still predominantly men. I
Speaker 1: never felt like being a woman impacted my ability to
Speaker 1: grow or achieve what I achieved in my career. I
Speaker 1: did find it somewhat of an issue in some of
Speaker 1: the I had three roles in our company where I
Speaker 1: was the first woman to ever do it, and I
Speaker 1: guess I would use the word skepticism.
Speaker 3: When I was put into those roles.
Speaker 1: A lot of the men that were in those areas
Speaker 1: of the company were skeptical as to why I was
Speaker 1: there and if I belonged there, And I just had
Speaker 1: to build my credibility one interaction at a time.
Speaker 2: Lisa, do you think your story is still possible in
Speaker 2: twenty twenty four? And the reason I ask is because
Speaker 2: it's so rare to find somebody who's been at one
Speaker 2: company for pretty much their entire career. And yes, you
Speaker 2: did start working at a very young age, in your
Speaker 2: family business, in the restaurant. But I'm wondering if you
Speaker 2: still see this of somebody starting at one company and
Speaker 2: then working their way completely to the top of that company,
Speaker 2: because so often the only way to actually get a
Speaker 2: promotion or get more money is to jump to another
Speaker 2: company when you get another offer.
Speaker 1: Well, there's you know, there's a lot of truth in that, Tim.
Speaker 1: I don't know if I know the answer to your question,
Speaker 1: because for thirty nine years I was in one company,
Speaker 1: and in our company, I see a lot of what
Speaker 1: happened with me. I see a lot of people who
Speaker 1: work their way up for decades. Our company is very
Speaker 1: committed to hiring from within, developing people, helping.
Speaker 3: Them grow, moving them around so they learn more.
Speaker 1: So I was in a wonderful situation and it continues
Speaker 1: to be that way.
Speaker 3: However, if I think about.
Speaker 1: The new generations and I think about how people are
Speaker 1: right now, I'm not sure that that's going to happen.
Speaker 1: And I think part of one of our issues is
Speaker 1: people so many people being remote and it's difficult to
Speaker 1: be noticed. One of the things I talk about in
Speaker 1: the book is conducting your own PR campaign so that
Speaker 1: you do achieve what you want to achieve and make
Speaker 1: it to the top, and it's hard to do that
Speaker 1: you're not there invisible and interacting every day.
Speaker 4: Hey, one day, I want to go back to when
Speaker 4: you talked about building your own credibility and that you
Speaker 4: said it was kind of okay that maybe people had
Speaker 4: some questions about your ability to do some of these
Speaker 4: leadership roles. Having said that, because you said people had
Speaker 4: some hesitation about my leadership and that was fair, Why
Speaker 4: is it fair, because you know, no offense. If you
Speaker 4: were a guy, they would be like, I got this. Yeah,
Speaker 4: I don't have all the.
Speaker 3: Experience.
Speaker 4: I haven't done it all, maybe exactly, but I got this,
Speaker 4: don't worry about it, and it would be okay. Is
Speaker 4: it just men women in your view and your experience
Speaker 4: and what you've seen of us just kind of wired differently,
Speaker 4: or the world thinking that we're wired differently.
Speaker 3: Good question. You know I didn't think about it that way, Carol.
Speaker 1: You know when I went into it and people I
Speaker 1: so here's how I looked at it. I looked at
Speaker 1: it as Okay, there really have not been any women
Speaker 1: that have been your boss.
Speaker 3: There are very few women.
Speaker 1: There were three percent women on our bridges when I started,
Speaker 1: and there were thirty three percent when I stepped down
Speaker 1: last April, and maybe I cut them too much black
Speaker 1: in that regard. I was never a captain, I was
Speaker 1: never a chief engineer. I was never a hotel director,
Speaker 1: never drove a ship, fixed fixed an engine. So I'm like,
Speaker 1: all right, maybe they think I need subject matter expertise,
Speaker 1: and yes, I'm a woman and there aren't.
Speaker 3: There are none of us around.
Speaker 1: I'm looking left and right, and maybe I, you know,
Speaker 1: cut them more slack than they might have deserved.
Speaker 3: I didn't think about it that way.
Speaker 1: But what I decided to do when I met with
Speaker 1: that skepticism is just to you know, to turn it around.
Speaker 1: I come at everything from a very positive angle, and
Speaker 1: that's that's how I looked at that. I said, Okay,
Speaker 1: I don't have subject matter expertise, but I guarantee you
Speaker 1: there's a lot of other reasons why I'm here, and
Speaker 1: I'm going to show you that in a very short
Speaker 1: period of time.
Speaker 4: All Right, Lisa, sit tight, We're going to come back
Speaker 4: continue the conversation. We've got more time with Lisa LUTEV.
Speaker 2: Parlow.
Speaker 4: She is the author of a new book, Making Waves
Speaker 4: of Women's rise to the Top using Smart's heart and courage,
Speaker 4: And just.
Speaker 2: A little tease, We're going to start our next segment
Speaker 2: with the dark days of March twenty twenty, especially for
Speaker 2: the cruise industry, because that's where the book opens.
Speaker 4: I feel like, you know, you go back there and
Speaker 4: just that moment of the unexpected of Yet we're going
Speaker 4: to shut down the global economy. Folks, We're doing it
Speaker 4: all right. Everybody want to get back to our guests
Speaker 4: with us is Lisa lutev Perlow. She's the author of
Speaker 4: a new book, Making Waves of Women's Rise to the
Speaker 4: Top using Smart's Heart and courage. She's also Vice chair
Speaker 4: of External Affairs at Royal Caribbean. She's the former CEO
Speaker 4: of Celebrity Cruises, which is of course a brand within
Speaker 4: the Royal Caribbean Group. And she's still with us from Plantation, Florida.
Speaker 4: So so good to have you here. We want to
Speaker 4: talk att bit about COVID.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, you found yourself at the helm of
Speaker 2: the company, Lisa, at a time that was incredibly challenging,
Speaker 2: to say the least. So take us back to March eighth,
Speaker 2: twenty twenty, which is where your book opens.
Speaker 1: What happened then, Well, March eighth of twenty twenty was
Speaker 1: actually a really exciting day for me.
Speaker 3: I boarded Celebrity Edge.
Speaker 1: We were we were celebrating International Women's Day, which is
Speaker 1: March eighth actually, and we were celebrating a history making,
Speaker 1: barrier breaking event where one hundred percent of our bridge
Speaker 1: on that ship was manned by women, and Captain Kate
Speaker 1: was at the helm. So it was a glorious event.
Speaker 1: We had worked really hard to improve our gender balance
Speaker 1: on our bridges. We were able to do this. Our
Speaker 1: guests were excited, our team were excited. I left the
Speaker 1: ship on Wednesday, flew home, went back into the office
Speaker 1: on Thursday, left for the weekend on Friday, and then,
Speaker 1: as you know very well, no, we had a global
Speaker 1: chef down that weekend and ceased operations four fifteen months.
Speaker 1: So what I talk about in the first chapter of
Speaker 1: the book Sailing through the Storm is I went from
Speaker 1: the highest of highs in my career to the lowest
Speaker 1: of lows within seventy two hours.
Speaker 3: And I will never forget that.
Speaker 4: I mean, yes, I think about for us like kind
Speaker 4: of going through the financial crisis and reporting on it.
Speaker 3: Were there, I don't know.
Speaker 4: We just felt like the world probably felt this way.
Speaker 4: But the dark days of oh my god, is this
Speaker 4: system going to come undone? How did you think about
Speaker 4: like you were feeling, like you said, from a high
Speaker 4: to a low, but you're like, I'm responsible for this
Speaker 4: brand and the people who are connected with it. We
Speaker 4: got to figure out our way forward. And you obviously
Speaker 4: have a corporate parent who was.
Speaker 3: Involved in it too.
Speaker 4: But just take us through, like initially, how dark it
Speaker 4: was and what you were thinking, Well, I.
Speaker 1: Was thinking what all of us were thinking, is is
Speaker 1: this horrible thing that's impacted the world ever going to end?
Speaker 1: Are we ever going to see the light at the
Speaker 1: end of this tunnel? There were so many terrible things
Speaker 1: happening all at once, including our business shutting down. That
Speaker 1: was not the least of it, but it was just
Speaker 1: one of a global nightmare that we were all living through.
Speaker 1: And yes, our company played a very active role. I
Speaker 1: was only one of the executives dealing with it, but
Speaker 1: I did have to think about as a leader, how
Speaker 1: am I going to pivot and what are the things
Speaker 1: that I'm going to do that are going to get
Speaker 1: the twenty thousand people that work under my area of
Speaker 1: responsibility through this?
Speaker 3: How am I going to give them hope? You know?
Speaker 1: How am I going to give them confidence that this
Speaker 1: is going to end and we're going to get back
Speaker 1: into business and our crew members spread all over the
Speaker 1: world are going to be able to get back to
Speaker 1: work and someday I didn't even know that. So I
Speaker 1: learned more as a leader during COVID than probably the
Speaker 1: other of thirty seven or thirty eight years of my
Speaker 1: career in the company.
Speaker 2: What are some of those things you could kind of
Speaker 2: impart on other people now that you learned in such
Speaker 2: a short time.
Speaker 1: I think the most important thing that all of us
Speaker 1: as leaders need to understand is when we need to
Speaker 1: pivot and what we need to be doing and the
Speaker 1: muscle that we need to be building at any given time.
Speaker 1: I was a CEO of a brand within a corporate
Speaker 1: s and P five hundred company. Shareholder value, returning shareholder value,
Speaker 1: transforming the financial performance of the brand was at the
Speaker 1: forefront of everything I did, how I led, what I
Speaker 1: thought about every single day. And when you're out of business,
Speaker 1: you have to think about different things and you have
Speaker 1: to downplay those because there is no business to generate
Speaker 1: but also you have to be able to switch yourself
Speaker 1: as a leader from a hard driving, results focus driven
Speaker 1: visionary strategic think or two. Okay, let me give people
Speaker 1: what they need right now, which is empathy, which is support,
Speaker 1: which is compassion, and again which is hope. And so
Speaker 1: I really think that some leaders have a really difficult
Speaker 1: time flexing their style and being different on any given
Speaker 1: day relative to what the circumstances present. And I learned
Speaker 1: that during COVID, and I learned that as soon as
Speaker 1: I was able to do that, the way the team
Speaker 1: was feeling and the way our employees all over the
Speaker 1: world was feeling immediately changed because they that's what they
Speaker 1: were looking to me for. I was that beacon for them,
Speaker 1: and I needed to remember that every single day when
Speaker 1: I woke up.
Speaker 4: Well, we so appreciate that perspective. And we're going to
Speaker 4: take you back to the high point just before the pandemic,
Speaker 4: and you talked about this ship and the role of
Speaker 4: women and Captain Kate, our Charlie Pellett is a big cruiser,
Speaker 4: including celebrity cruises, and he wanted to know and we're
Speaker 4: going to ask you do you follow Captain Kate on
Speaker 4: Instagram and what has she done for your brand and
Speaker 4: being able to put out a ship. She was what
Speaker 4: first time that an American woman was named captain of
Speaker 4: a mega cruise ship, so it was a big deal.
Speaker 4: What has that done for the brand?
Speaker 3: Oh, Carol?
Speaker 1: Well, you know, she was the first and still only,
Speaker 1: I might add, American woman to ever be at the
Speaker 1: helm of a mega cruise ship. She was the captain
Speaker 1: on Celebrity Edge, which, by the way, was the first
Speaker 1: ship to sail out of a US port post pandemic
Speaker 1: January twenty sixth, twenty twenty one. Captain Kate was at
Speaker 1: the helm of Celebrity Edge and we were the first
Speaker 1: brand to.
Speaker 3: Go back into service.
Speaker 1: She was the first woman to take a ship out
Speaker 1: of the shipyard and send a there France. I would
Speaker 1: follow Captain Kate everywhere and I follow her on Instagram.
Speaker 1: And when you think about the things that you're proudest
Speaker 1: of in your career, appointing her and giving her that
Speaker 1: opportunity as captain is one of the highlights for me
Speaker 1: and for her.
Speaker 3: And she is beloved.
Speaker 1: She's beloved by her crew, her guests, everybody that encounters her.
Speaker 1: She's an unbelievable navigator. She's extraordinary in every single way.
Speaker 1: And she's been a great advocate for celebrity, and she's
Speaker 1: been a great advocate for women mariners and recruiting them
Speaker 1: into our.
Speaker 3: Company here here.
Speaker 4: I love it. I'm a I'm a sailor on the net.
Speaker 2: Can you tell? Can you tell that Carol spends a
Speaker 2: good portion of the summer on the high seas? You really?
Speaker 3: She really loved that, Carol that You're welcome.
Speaker 4: You're welcome, all right, So we want to do kind
Speaker 4: of a little bit of a rapid fire round with
Speaker 4: you if we can. We've got about a minute and
Speaker 4: a half left, just quick answers.
Speaker 3: Work from home?
Speaker 4: Yes or no? Or how you feel about it? You
Speaker 4: can be honest, be.
Speaker 3: Honest, mixed and both mixed and both.
Speaker 2: How about that mixed in both?
Speaker 3: Yeah, both work from home? Don't work from home?
Speaker 2: Okay?
Speaker 3: And I feel mixedls and cons. Okay.
Speaker 2: So talk a little bit about your favorite place to
Speaker 2: cruise quickly?
Speaker 3: Alaska, wow? Really?
Speaker 1: Or the Galapagos anywhere where nature plays a huge role.
Speaker 4: All right, leader, you and my doesn't have you? Can
Speaker 4: you can excuse your current leaders because we don't want
Speaker 4: to put that on you.
Speaker 1: No, No, no leader Ruth Vader Ginsburg because real quickly,
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, what she did for everybody herself.
Speaker 3: Women, Yeah, everybody, get to hear you.
Speaker 4: Next act, next act, next, oh wait, your next port.
Speaker 4: Let's stay with the sailing metaphor. And just got about
Speaker 4: twenty five seconds.
Speaker 1: Okay, next chapter. You're gonna have to reinterview me at
Speaker 1: the beginning of May. And I can tell you.
Speaker 2: All right, I like it. See look at that tease,
Speaker 2: look at that. Oh add it to the calendar.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, I'm not done yet, folks.
Speaker 4: All right, Lisa, soa appreciate this. Have a great weekend.
Speaker 4: Lisa lutav Pro. She is the author of a new memoir,
Speaker 4: Making Waves, a woman's Rise to the Top, using Smart's
Speaker 4: heart encourage. I love it, love it, love it, love it.
Speaker 2: She's cool, very cool. Check in with her May of
Speaker 2: the calendar.
Speaker 4: There's gonna be more mhm.