In this installment of the Derrick Kinney Podcast, former Celebrity Cruises President and CEO Lisa Lutoff-Perlo shares actionable strategies for business growth, leadership, and navigating risk. Drawing on her 39-year career, Lisa discusses the importance of vision, building strong teams, leveraging digital strategies, and incorporating generosity into business models. She offers insight into overcoming skepticism, embracing courage, and making bold decisions—like redesigning game-changing cruise ships—that lead to lasting success. Lisa also provides personal financial advice and encourages listeners to seek expert help and take calculated risks to achieve both career and personal goals.
Transcript
Derrick Kinney:
Welcome to the Derrick Kinney podcast on Modern American Advisor. Each week we revisit one of my most valuable conversations to bring advisors practical ideas to grow their businesses, serve their clients, and make more money to do more good. You know, it’s time to take your business to the next level. Maybe that means hiring your first full time employee or your 20th employee, but right now, every decision feels like a risk. How do you make the bold moves necessary for growth without jeopardizing what you’ve already built?
My guest today is Lisa Lutoff-Perlo, former President and CEO of Celebrity Cruises. Lisa is not just about big ideas. She’s about actionable strategies that drive success. Today, Lisa Lisa is revealing her playbook for turning potential pitfalls into opportunities to grow. In this episode, Lisa breaks down the steps you must take to move your business forward. She shares the importance of building a network of experts you can rely on. Plus why generosity in business creates more money and how to effectively communicate your vision to get your team on board. It’s time to turn your business challenges into your biggest wins. Lisa’s going to show you how. Lisa, welcome to the podcast.
Lisa Lutoff-Perlo:
Derrick, it is an absolute pleasure. I am so much looking forward to our conversation today.
Kinney:
Well, I think it’s a timely conversation, but it’s one that you have really been such a great example to so many women of what’s possible. And I think that’s really the theme today of if you have a dream, if you have an idea, a goal, it’s up to you to make it happen. And I think you’re the great person to give that message some power today. And Lisa, I’m curious about what has been your strategy that has fueled Celebrity Cruise’s financial success?
Lutoff-Perlo:
Oh, my goodness. Derrick, it’s a multifaceted strategy, how’s that? It was an intentional vision to elevate the brand to a stature and status within our industry that it had never held before by creating meaningful experiences for a certain category of guests, designing and building transformational and innovative ships, separating ourselves from the pack through different marketing and articulation of our brand, and by doing all of those things, we were able to really break through, increase our pricing, appeal to the right guests who wanted what we offered and were willing to pay for it, and it helped transform our financial performance. But it wasn’t one thing. It was a myriad of things that we all thought about that we all worked hard together to accomplish.
Kinney:
Talk about how you set the vision for that because, as we talked about, I know it wasn’t just you doing this, it was a team around you. How did you articulate that with such clarity? And how did you keep them motivated to achieve such a big accomplishment?
Lutoff-Perlo:
Well, what’s really interesting, Derrick, is my career was a very long one, right? I’ve been in our company for 39 years, almost four decades. And one of the things that I attribute our ability to do this well too is all of the experience I gained along the way. And what I would say is that, sometimes people underestimate patience and experience in terms of the wisdom it gives you as you are, then find yourself in certain positions to make meaningful change.
So as an example, I entered the world of operations in 2005 after a 21 year career in sales and marketing. And I worked on the celebrity brand in operations as the head of hotel operations for seven years. And during that time, I really learned the brand. I learned about the specialness of the brand, the magic of the brand, the positioning of the brand, what our customers loved about the brand. And I always hearken back to my days in marketing where I did a lot of consumer insights and research; that really helped understand what consumers wanted and were looking for. So by the time I came back as President and CEO a couple of years later in December of 2014, I truly understood what the brand needed as it related to breaking away from the pack and achieving what we achieved. But the other thing is that I was working with people that were either already on the brand or that I brought with me onto the brand that were like minded and shared the same vision, and knew the potential of Celebrity [Cruises]. So the vision wasn’t hard to sell. Everybody bought into the vision and then we all just had to get to work to make sure it happened and focus on the things that really mattered, to find those and make sure we focused on those.
Kinney:
Well, I think that’s a great model for simple and effective communication, especially when you’re leading big initiatives like that. You know, now you led what’s been just deemed a digital transformation at Celebrity Cruises. And our listeners are what I call “advice givers.” So think about financial advisors, realtors, business owners, others that provide advice for a fee. How would you advise them on a one to one basis or more of a small business level to leverage discovery digital strategies?
Lutoff-Perlo:
My goodness. You know, I, think about where the business has come and in general, not just in our business, but just in the world in general. Digital strategy, social media. I mean, Derrick, you know as well as I do that these are the things that really connect us with people, right? And finding a way to tell your story in the right way that humanizes you and that creates an emotional connection to you—and I think when people have their own small businesses or even a big brand, people still want that personal connection. They want to understand who you are, why they should do business with you, why they should work with you, why you’re the right brand for them, whether you’re a person that’s selling your own brand or a brand-like celebrity that was selling their brand. Finding that one trigger that is going to help people make a decision that you’re the person they want to engage in is really critically important in terms of how you transform your business digitally. Again, it is really using all of these technologies and all of this opportunity to get in front of the right people in the right way. And it’s not always how many, it’s who they are that’s really important to promoting your brand or any service that you might provide.
Kinney:
You shattered the glass ceiling in the cruise industry, which is traditionally male dominated. Tell us about your mindset and talk about what has driven you to achieve the highest levels of success.
Lutoff-Perlo:
Well, I believe that what drives me is really innate in my DNA. It’s just, I’m—that’s just me, right? I am driven, I’m ambitious, you know. I have been brought up in a way that was, you can really do anything, your gender doesn’t matter. I never thought about my gender as a barrier anyway; I was never treated that way in our company, I was, you know, I had three positions at our company where I was the first woman to ever hold those positions. Certainly my President and CEO role, Derrick, was the most visible and the highest position I achieved. And that’s phenomenal, but when I was Head of Hotel Operations for Celebrity, I was the first woman to ever do that. When I was Executive Vice President of Marine and Hotel at Royal Caribbean, I was the first woman to do that. And all of those positions were appointed to me by men because it’s a very male dominated industry. And I think the reason it probably took women so long, even in our company, is that women really weren’t opting into these roles and into these areas of the company in the past. Where I did find some, maybe a little skepticism—let me call it skepticism—It was never, you know, I never felt that it was really gender. It was more about, why are you here, why are you my boss? You’ve never been a captain, you’ve never run a hotel. Why did you get this position? And what I learned in my journey is that we’re all going to face skeptics. No matter how many, you know, if you shatter the glass ceiling or not, sometimes whatever rule you’re in, you’re going to hit up against skeptics. And I just worked really hard to prove them wrong. And I also tried to create an environment of mutual respect where you need to respect me because I was put in this position obviously for a reason, and I respect you for everything you know that I don’t. And hopefully we’re going to be able to help each other be successful.
Kinney:
I like that, and I think that attitude is one that really endears people to leaders like yourself. There’s a confidence, but also there is a healthy dose of humility of, “hey, we’re all in this together and we’re better together going through this.” I really like that approach. Now, for a person listening who wants to scale their business, they really want to grow, what are actionable ways that they can incorporate generosity into their business model.
Lutoff-Perlo:
You know, when I was coming into my role as President and CEO of Celebrity, Derrick, we had just had the board approve five new ships for the brand the Edge Series. And as I was sitting in that chair, you know, my—one of my chapters in my book is, be careful what you wish for—I remember thinking, “oh, my goodness, how the heck am I going to do this? How am I going to scale this? How am I going to grow this?” We were facing a 72% growth over a five or six year period of time. Okay, Covid came in the middle of that, but let’s, you know, we’ll put that aside for a moment. I was looking at, all right, how am I going to build this brand, rebuild this brand, reposition this brand, charge more money for this brand, change the trajectory of the financial performance and accomplish all of this growth? And I think a lot of what I did was through generosity. And it was not only generosity within the organization that I was a part of and the team I was leading, and, you know, being generous with them in terms of how I brought them into the strategy and developing it, but also generosity in the broader world, which, by the way, really helps your business. I learned that very early on that, you know, by being generous in the bigger world outside of just that one that you sit in every day, you create your own brand equity, which helps the brands that you’re representing in your business’s equity. And I think people underestimate the value of that.
Kinney:
So what’s the first thing for somebody wanting to make an impact in their career, to really make a difference right now that would impact both their career and really improve their life?
Lutoff-Perlo:
That’s certainly going to be a different answer for everybody, right, based on where they are and also where they want to go. Because not everybody wants to be President and CEO. But one of the things I was doing when I was signing some books for an event I was going to go through is now I thought about, all right, I’m not going to be sitting there in front of people being able to write a personal message, so what is the message that I would like to send to everybody in a personal signature that’s going to read Making Waves? And what I said was a life making waves is a life well lived. And what I would say to people is don’t play it safe. You know, so many people let fear dictate what they do or what they think or what they want to accomplish. And my advice is get that out of the way. I’m not saying people aren’t afraid and that risk doesn’t bring a certain amount of fear. But you have to put that aside and you have to make waves and you have to take risks. And one of the other things that I always say is that my rise to the top was a combination of smarts, heart and courage. And what I would suggest is, of the three of those, the one that I think is most important to make a difference and really get ahead is courage. And I think sometimes people don’t use as much courage as they need to to really make an impact and change the trajectory of their career, their business, or their lives.
Kinney:
Lisa, would you be willing to share a personal story about something that you faced where there was fear, but where you showed courage and how it turned out?
Lutoff-Perlo:
Oh, my goodness, I have so many examples of that. Okay, I guess what I will speak to is the story of introducing the Edge Series of ships and again going back to when I was first appointed to President and CEO of Celebrity. So, Derrick, people often ask me when I’m having conversations like you and I are having today is, “what’s the proudest moment of your career?” The proudest moment of my career was when we launched the Edge Series of ships, and it started with Celebrity Edge. There are going to be five of them. Celebrity just introduced Celebrity Ascent just a few months ago, the fourth in the series. And these ships transformed our brand, and they transformed the industry. And they have performed better than any of us would have imagined in our wildest dreams. And we had very high expectations and aspirations for these ships. But what I remember very vividly is when I first took on my role as President and CEO, the decision had already been made to build these ships, and the design of the ships was already done. I basically believed when I started in my role that I had no influence or impact on these ships or their design because they were done. They were in the can ready to go to the shipyard. And I remember our head of sales, who is as persistent as I am, telling me every single day from the moment I was appointed that I needed to go look at the general arrangement of the ship. She kept telling me, “you need to go look at Edge, you need to go look at Edge.” Well, it was December. It was the holidays. I’m like, “why should I bother?” And then in the middle of January, when we came back from our Christmas and New Year’s break and she kept nagging me to do it, I finally said, fine, I’m going to go look at the general arrangement. And, Derrick, when I walked in the room and I looked at the wall, I was like, we can’t build this ship. This is never going to do what we need it to do for the brand. I looked at it. There was not that, you know, it didn’t have the excitement, the energy, the it. The. The guest flow, in my humble opinion, was not right. And I went to the head of New Build and I went to our chairman and I said, we really need to start over. I don’t think this is going to be the ship for us, and I don’t think this is the ship we want to build.
Lutoff-Perlo:
So we had to start over. It took us another year to completely redesign the ship. I would say 80% of what was on that wall. And in that general arrangement we redid. We rewrote the strategy, we redesigned the ship, and those are the two big things, because the ship needed to make sure that it delivered against the strategy. And that was a big risk and it took a lot of courage and it cost more money to build the ship than originally the board approved. But everything that I knew, everything I knew about the customer, everything I knew about the brand, every instinct inside me said we can do better. And we did it. But I will tell you, I felt an additional tremendous amount of pressure to make those ships deliver. But it paid off. It paid off in spades. It was it again. It, it ended up being better than we ever imagined it would. But you have to be able to convince people to follow along with you. You know, the best answer that I’ve ever heard about, you know, a leader, what’s the best definition of a leader that you have is someone people want to follow. And I think what I realized at that point was how lucky am I that all of these people are going to follow me into what I believe is the right direction for this ship. Not only the chairman, but the board, the head of New Build, the shipyard had to wait for the design for another year. My team, yeah. But we all rallied around it and it was an extraordinary result. But without that courage and without taking that risk, it never would have happened.
Kinney:
And you probably would not have had the success that you’ve had now and we wouldn’t be talking. And it’s interesting how one bold move leads to a whole lot of other opportunities for you and other people.
Lisa Lutoff-Perlo:
Yes! Yes, yes.
Kinney:
Well, Lisa, you know, we’ve talked about how our listeners can build their business. And I really like just your mentality of courage and thinking about hard things, making those tough decisions. Now I want to talk about money and help our listeners build their wealth. And so question for you, what is a money move that you’ve made that your 18 year old self would be proud of?
Lutoff-Perlo:
Investing and finding a really good financial advisor and letting my money stay there. When I was my—I wasn’t even my 18 year old self—it took me quite a few decades to say “you need to make sure you have some money for the future, so make sure you’re investing it wisely.” And I also diversify. So, you know, whether it’s stock in the company that I was in, I happened to be in a publicly traded company, so that was an option for me. However, not everybody has that. But definitely I would have told my 18 year old self and I tell my 25 year old niece to start saving some money because she’s just like I was at her age. And yeah, you need to really invest, invest wisely and, and also when you’re investing, you have to understand what type of volatility you’re willing to accept at different stages of your life so that you can set yourself up, you know, to have some wealth when you’re, you know, ready to call it a day.
Kinney:
Right. You know, one thing I want to point out for our listeners, I mean, obviously, Lisa, you are fully capable of managing your own money. Ran all the money for the whole company, for goodness sakes.
Lutoff-Perlo:
Yeah.
Kinney:
But I think it’s a great example of how smart people know the lane they’re going to excel in and then they hire other people that are good in that lane so that they can be really good. Would you agree with that?
Lutoff-Perlo:
Absolutely. Derrick. I have a few different people, maybe a handful, that really helped me understand where, you know, not only now, because I’m older now and certainly the decisions I need to make are different. But listen, I built my career on asking for help. I’m proud of it. A lot of people think asking for help is a sign of weakness. I believe it’s a strength. So every one of those positions where I wasn’t the subject matter expert, I always asked for help from people who were smarter than me and knew more than me so that I would make sure I was successful. And it’s the same thing about financial planning. That’s not my expertise. I need help and I want to make sure that my family and I are taken care of, you know, because I see with my parents what’s going on with my parents. And I realized how critically important it is to plan for your future in the right way and get advice from the right people who do this for a living.
Kinney:
Well said. What investment are you most excited about right now?
Lutoff-Perlo:
Well, as I’m writing my next chapter because after 39 years I will be leaving the company in a couple of months and I decided it was time for a new chapter, literally and figuratively, Right? I got my book that’s kind of a new chapter I want to do some other things that really excite me and energize me. And one of the things I’m most excited about is a little bit of real estate development that I’ll be doing in the state that I’m from, which is Massachusetts, and also doing it with a family member, and we’ve got few fun projects. And I love building things. Like, the favorite part of my position was building ships and designing ships and creating something. So this is something that I’m very excited about.
Kinney:
Well, it sounds like it matches your skill set, but also it’s a nice creative outlet for how you like to build things as well. I love that. All right, so last item. You get the last word, Lisa. What’s one thing you would like to leave our listeners with today?
Lutoff-Perlo:
Well, I know that your listeners and our listeners today, Derrick, are very focused on how to build their wealth, their business, how to drive demand, how to find new customers. And I think one of the things that I would leave the customers with is that, while I was with Celebrity and in my President and CEO role—and now that I’m thinking about what I’m going to do next—what I’ve realized is there is so much opportunity out there and there is so much that we can all accomplish. And if we think about it in the right way and we do the right things and we engage, you know, through generosity, either again through social media or other or networking, it’s limitless. The opportunity is limitless. And that was one of the things I remember, you know, a little story is I was thinking about stepping away after 39 years, I go back to courage. It took courage for me after 39 years to say, you know what? I think I’ve done this. I think I’ve done everything I can here. I’ve done everything I can for Celebrity. Now it’s time to write a new chapter and go in a different direction. And again, I’m not saying I wasn’t a little bit afraid. I was. But I go right back to get that fear out of your way and take the leap and jump. And what I’ve learned is the world is a very big place filled with so many people who, if you have the right proposition and you have the right reputation and you’ve done the right things, you truly can write your own ticket and chart your own course.
Kinney:
I love it. That is such a great way to leave us today. You’ve inspired us. Before we let you go, how can our listeners grab a copy of your exciting new book?
Lutoff-Perlo:
Well, thank you for asking, Derrick. I really appreciate that. It’s called Making Waves, A Woman’s Rise to the Top using Smarts, Heart, and Courage. You can find it on Amazon.com, Barnesandnoble.com, or a local bookstore. If you’re interested in buying multiple copies, you can visit my website, lisalutoffperlow.com, and there are links to different places that you can pick up the book. But thanks for asking and I hope your listeners do pick up a copy. It was a labor of love and I hope it has a lot of lessons they can take away from it.
Kinney:
Great. Well, Lisa Lutoff-Perlo, we’ve really enjoyed our time together today. I think you’ve helped a lot of our listeners. All the best on the book and also all the best in your exciting next chapter. Thank you for being on the podcast today.
Lutoff-Perlo:
Thank you for having me, Derrick. It’s been wonderful. Thanks so much.
Derrick Kinney:
At the end of each podcast, I give you a roadmap to help you get to the top 1% of your field. Sometimes you have to start completely over. I know I’ve had to go through this process myself. You put the time and the energy and the effort into it and you believe it’s going to work, only to hit a wall and realize, nope, I’ve gone completely the wrong direction. You know, Lisa shared a powerful story about having to start the ship’s designs completely over. And in doing so, she knew she was asking for a lot more work from herself and from her team, much less the pressure that would now be on her to prove her decision was worth it. It took a bold and brave move to achieve the success that her vision and redesign ships actually had. So the question for you listening right now, what bold move do you need to make to possibly restart something in your business to get better results? There might be an idea that, you know you need to change and you have resisted for a long time. This is your reason to press the restart button today and go full on in a different direction to get the results you want. Lisa shares a story. You know, she was the first female in a primarily male dominated industry, so all eyes were on her when she made these big moves. But they turned out big because she was bold. And that’s the same thing I want for you today. Thanks for listening to the Derrick Kinney podcast on Modern American Advisor. Do you want to attract more 3 million to $10 million clients and grow your business? Then check out successforadvisors.com that’s successforadvisors.com and remember, if you want a business that’s booming, focus on the human. We’ll see you next time.
Lisa Lutoff-Perlo Bio
Lisa Lutoff-Perlo crafted a multifaceted strategy to elevate her company’s brand to new heights within the industry. Guided by an intentional vision, she focused on creating meaningful guest experiences, designing innovative ships, and differentiating the brand through unique marketing and communication. By working collaboratively and pursuing these various initiatives, Lisa attracted the right customers willing to pay for exceptional offerings, drove increased pricing, and transformed the company’s financial performance. Her leadership turned a bold vision into impressive results, setting the brand apart from its competitors.
