Journey with us! Combine your career goals and sense of adventure by joining our incredible team of employees at Royal Caribbean Group. We are proud to offer a competitive compensation and benefits package, and excellent career development opportunities, each offering unique ways to explore the world.

We are proud to be the vacation-industry leader with global brands — including Royal Caribbean International, Celebrity Cruises and Silversea Cruises — the most innovative fleet and private destinations, and the best people. Together, we are dedicated to turning the vacation of a lifetime into a lifetime of vacations for our guests.

Royal Caribbean Group’s Celebrity Cruises Team has an exciting career opportunity for a full time Manager, Discovery & Innovation, Experience Development reporting to the Director, Product Development

This position will be working onsite from Miami.

Position Summary:

Based in Miami, FL and reporting to the Director of Product Development, the Manager of Discovery & Innovation will lead a high-performance team that is responsible for all concept development efforts for Celebrity Cruises. This role will be responsible for providing leadership over the team that defines the innovation strategy and develops concepts that directly respond to consumer insights, understands white space to innovate, and defines what’s next in terms of the vacation experience while strengthening the equity of the brand. This person will also lead and influence cross-functional teams across the organization to gain alignment and gain buy-in from executives.

The ideal candidate will possess a combination of strategic and creative thinking as well as strong analytical, written and verbal communication, storytelling, and presentation skills. This role requires that the candidate have a proven track record of leading teams through ideation and design of guest experience products.

Essential Duties & Responsabilities:

• Lead a team of professionals responsible for concept development and innovation.

• Define strategy of concepts creation to be grounded in consumer insights and latter up to the brand promise.

• Create process for the development of innovative ideas that surprise and delight and create for differentiated and superior experiences.

• Partner with the Consumer Insights & Analytics leadership to align on learning and research plans and overcome barriers in order to strengthen the equity of the brand and deliver exceptional consumer experiences supporting Celebrity’s long-term strategy.

• Identify clear short and long-term concept development roadmaps and strategies.

• Partner cross functionally to gain alignment on concepts and strategic vision/direction.

• Foster a highly collaborative cross functional team, where cross-discipline dynamic communication is paramount to success. Partner with newbuild, operations, strategy, analytics, and product development, to socialize design guidelines and strategic vision.

• Design and establish seamless approval process with senior leadership, marketing, operations, and architects.

• Build and develop the critical thinking and concept development skills of team members.

• Develop audit tools and processes to ensure concepts keep their essence and magic over time.

• Ensure concepts are marketable, drive satisfaction and revenue.

• Build consistency of signature concepts across the fleet.

• Identify synergies across projects to maximize resources and create best in class experiences.

Duties:

1. Core Responsibility: Take approved concept strategies and business cases and own them through launch — breaking them into detailed, actionable plans and driving cross-functional execution to achieve the north star vision as fully as possible.
2. Product Definition: Leads all aspects from experience ideation, development, documentation, and execution with cross-functional partners including, but not limited to, Design, Operations, F&B, Entertainment, Onboard Revenue, Revenue Management, Marketing, Finance, Procurement, Legal, etc.
3. Product Definition: Create guest experience briefs and playbooks (in the form of detailed presentations) outlining the detailed guest journey and direction on each component needed to bring the vision to life. Creative thinking, strong storytelling, attention to detail and a data-driven approach are essential the successful delivery of this work.
4. Product Definition: Serves as the primary source of the product vision and requirements for leadership, partners and stakeholders, ensuring they have a deep understanding of the indented guest experience.
5. Product Definition: Partner with our cross-function teams to define the requirements needed to deliver the ambition and ensure every need to support the experience is being accounted for throughout the development execution.
6. Product Definition: Work with our partners to assess the operational, technical and financial feasibility of the product, identify solutions to address any feasibility challenges, and drive the forums and material creation to gain alignment on the way forward – balancing experience, operations and business needs.
7. Product Definition: Identify opportunities throughout the development process to further the products being created.
8. Product Definition: Lead the documentation, review and approvals of briefs and any support material throughout the development process.
9. Product Delivery: Understands and delivers to the project management framework such as communicating changes and updates or priority shifts to cross-functional teams while keeping their direct management up to speed on progress with regular pro-active check points.
10. Product Delivery: Work closely with operations and design teams on run-of-show events to showcase programming and ensure the guest experience will be delivered in line with the product vision.
11. Product Delivery: Collaborate with Marketing, Public Relations, and Revenue Management to ensure the latest information is accurately depicted in the brand’s communication and systems.
12. Product Delivery: Establish startup plans and training materials to ensure each concept/experience is flawlessly executed.
13. Product Delivery: Tracks and monitors startup plans by developing training materials, SOPs or playbooks to ensure each concept/experience is flawlessly executed onboard our ships.
14. Product Standards: Ensure onboard and onshore product delivery is consistent with the vision and playbooks of new products.
15. Product Standards: Own and manage the product and experience audit and post-delivery success monitoring of new products and experiences.
16. Product Standards: Lead the efforts to ensure the product standards, practices, and experience design guidelines of the product are consistent across the brand.
17. Product Standards: Defines success criteria for products and experiences and coordinates post-delivery audit of the product through metrics and KPI. Willing to travel up to 20% of time onboard ships or shipyard.
18. Operational Excellence: Support the process and governance for guest facing product changes in line with the Operational Excellence standard assigned to Product Development. Personnel Management: Responsible for all aspects of personnel management (e.g., hiring, training, and development) of direct reports, if any.
19. Personnel Management: Enhance and evolve the Product Development team direct reports, if any, by coaching and developing the required skills, roles, and responsibilities needed to concept and execute experiences for the brand.

Qualifications, Knowledge and Skills:

• Bachelor's degree required; MBA preferred
• 8+ years business, product/brand marketing or strategy experience
• 8+ years of experience in the hospitality/consumer product
• Past management experience leading multiple teams
• Strong creative thinking with ability to develop innovative ideas and creative problem solutions
• Ability to apply strong analytical, conceptual and strategic thinking
• Experience developing strategic framework and design experience concepts
• Ability to grasp the complexities of the business to effectively translate that into a strategy
• Ability to analyze data and research results to make recommendations
• Able to manage and prioritize multiple projects simultaneously
• Experience in managing internal and/or cross functional teams
• Ability to assemble, lead and influence cross functional teams to develop strategies that include input and buy-in from all stakeholders
• Proven ability to collaborate with others, plus the ability to build strong and sustainable relationships, and the capability to interact with all levels of the organization
• Willingness to take personal initiative
• Deep knowledge and extensive track record in leading teams in the development of vacation experience concepts
• Strong business acumen
• Strong storytelling and presentation skills, experience presenting to executive leadership
• Candidate must possess strong written and oral communication skills, including the ability to communicate effectively at the senior most executive levels of a company
• Attention to detail and follow-through
• Strong key computer skills (Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook)

We know there's a lot to consider. As you go through the application process, our recruiters will be glad to provide guidance, and more relevant details to answer any additional questions. Thank you again for your interest in Royal Caribbean Group. We'll hope to see you onboard soon!

It is the policy of the Company to ensure equal employment and promotion opportunity to qualified candidates without discrimination or harassment on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, age, national origin, disability, sexual orientation, sexuality, gender identity or expression, marital status, or any other characteristic protected by law. Royal Caribbean Group and each of its subsidiaries prohibit and will not tolerate discrimination or harassment.

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