Name: Christine Duffy
Job Title and Description: President of Carnival Cruise Line; Founder of Meeting Professionals International Women’s Leadership Initiative
What does your current job entail? Is there such a thing as a typical day?
Christine Duffy: I don’t think there is such a thing as a typical day. It’s one of the things that I like most about my job—that it is different every day. It’s definitely 24/7 with 24 ships in our fleet and another one under construction. It certainly keeps me busy.
What is the best part of your job?
CD: I think what I love best is actually going on board on our ships and spending time with our crew members and our guests on board. Really seeing the impact that a great vacation has on people. I mean, really the passion and joy our team members have being the ones able to deliver such memorable experiences to our guests. We have something that we talk about as “positive surprises.” It’s about, how do we surprise people—delight them and exceed their expectations? I have to say, being on board and watching that in action is really the best part of my job.
What inspired you to found the Meeting Professionals International Women’s Leadership Initiative?
CD: For me, it was interesting that women are the majority of workers in the travel industry—certainly more broadly than cruise or meeting and conference professionals, but overall women are the majority workers in travel. Yet, when I was very involved in corporate meeting and convention planning [and] served on a number of industry boards, I quickly noticed that there were very few women that actually served on those boards or really, few women who were in senior level positions at the time—whether you looked at hotel, cruise or airline. There were lots of women entrepreneurs but not many women in senior level organizations. So, I really wanted to set about understanding why that was and seeing what we could do to promote a network and provide women with those opportunities who were interested in seeking them.
What is one mistake you made along the way and what did you learn from it?
CD: I keep making the same mistake over and over so sometimes I wonder how much I do learn from it. I probably don’t have as much patience as I should. Part of me believes that’s a good thing in my role, but as I’ve taken on leadership in larger and larger organizations over my career, sometimes you believe that you’ve made a decision and everyone’s on board, and you check back only to find things haven’t really progressed as you’d expect. It’s really this issue of balancing expectations and making sure that you follow up and don’t take anything for granted. A lot of times, silence doesn’t always mean consent. It’s worth taking time to make sure people are truly aligned, committed and that there’s great clarity in terms of expectation and who has the ball, who’s responsible and accountable versus those who may be sitting around the table agreeing with the decision but don’t really have their skin in the game.
What advice would you give to a 20-something with similar aspirations?
CD: One of the things I see repeatedly in the generation that’s coming out of school today, and this includes my own children—[they] are really focused on how do they get to the senior levels? They’re very focused on what steps they need to take and what position or title they should have at a certain point otherwise they feel they’re not being recognized or they’re not succeeding or meeting their own objectives. My main advice is you should mainly focus on doing what you love, doing the very best job in the role you’re playing today and being more open to the fact that a career is very much a journey—much like life. Sometimes, you may have to move lateral or even backwards to get ahead. So, this idea of a very linear career ladder, I think really is not consistent with the way businesses are operating today and I would encourage people to really take a step back and focus on each step that you have in front of you, and probably to have a bit more patience and appreciation for things that you can learn sometimes by moving in a different direction than you may have anticipated or thought was the best move for you.
What has been the most surreal moment of your career thus far?
CD: I think, for me being in the travel industry for over 30 years now, it’s been an amazing journey. If anyone would’ve told me when I started my career that one day I’d be President of Carnival Cruise Line, I really couldn’t have imagined that. My best advice is just really stay open to what opportunities show up because they are often those that are least expected.