Arnold Donald stepping down from CEO position of Carnival Corp

Table Of Content

• Innovation Expanded Under Donald
• How will your company and the cruising industry recover?
• More From Travel Weekly
• What impact has the delta variant of COVID-19 had on bookings and cancellations?
• Arnold Donald Stepping Down From Carnival Corporation's Boards of Directors
• Carnival CEO Arnold Donald steps down as cruise industry aims for a refresh

Christine has served the company in this role since 2015 after a successful tenure as president and CEO of the Cruise Lines International Association (CLIA), which represents the $120 billion global cruise industry. He will take the helm as the cruise industry tries to recover from the pandemic, which caused ships to be mothballed and cut off revenue for the companies. Carnival expects each of its nine top cruise brands to return their full fleets to sailing by the end of the year.

Innovation Expanded Under Donald

He is responsible for all of the company’s financial, accounting and information technology functions. Heaney is an experienced financial executive with more than 30 years in the cruise and hospitality industries. I do try to stay away from politics when you get to parties and that kind of thing because we have Democratic guests and we have Republican guests and they’re both entitled to their points of view. But I do believe in standing up for things that are fundamentally right, and in that particular case I did sign on to that (a petition protesting the Georgia election law) with other leaders in the business community. Under the leadership of the New Orleans native, Carnival prospered for several years, posting a $3 billion profit in 2019.

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How will your company and the cruising industry recover?

A 20-year veteran of Carnival Corporation & plc, Weinstein has a long history of success in critical senior-level roles for the company. In his most recent assignment for the past two years as Carnival Corporation & plc’s Chief Operations Officer, Weinstein oversaw all major operational functions including global maritime, global ports and destinations, global sourcing, global IT and global auditing. During this time, he also oversaw Carnival UK, the operating company for P&O Cruises (UK) and Cunard, which he previously managed directly for three years as president. He was the chief executive officer (CEO) of Carnival Corporation & plc from July 2013 to August 2022, when he became vice-chairman.

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The Carnival Corporation faces a mountain of debt (35 billion euros at the end of May). After that he's hoping to have a bit more "me time" which he said he plans to fill with commitments to several external boards throwing out several names including The National WWII Museum and Bank of America, among others. New data from the Cruise Lines International Association trade group also shows that the desire to cruise now exceeds pre-pandemic levels.

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There's a lot to do on the financial front to right the ship that is Carnival Corporation in the coming years. But the company will win or lose in the long term by how well it delivers wonderful vacations, he suggests. During the hour-long interview with TPG over Zoom, it's clear that that will be his focus at the highest level. "We have all the data in the world that show that incidents of COVID on cruise ships ended up being far less than what you saw on land."

The company hopes to have the entire fleet of nearly 90 ships back sailing by next spring, but regulations aimed at limiting the spread of COVID-19 on board have meant slow going so far. The good news for cruising fans who love new ships is that several of Carnival Corporation's biggest brands including Carnival and Princess still have new ships on the way — vessels that were ordered before the pandemic began. But the pipeline of new ships on order for Carnival Corporation brands is quickly running dry. The company has just seven ships on order across its nine brands, all but two of which will arrive by the end of next year. Perhaps more significantly, cruise lines historically haven't seen as severe a downturn in business during recessions as other travel providers. Weinstein notes that's because cruises tend to be perceived as value options in the travel space.

Arnold Donald Stepping Down From Carnival Corporation's Boards of Directors

But soon he was heading to ships regularly — not just for work but increasingly for fun. Weinstein, his wife and his three children became cruising enthusiasts early on in his tenure at Carnival Corporation and made it a regular thing. Last fall, he described running the company after revenue fell to essentially zero. Carnival Corporation earned $1.6 billion in revenue for the first quarter of 2022, a massive jump from $26 million in Q1 2021, when the entire industry was shut down. Recovery is still a long way away for the cruise giant which posted a $1.9 billion loss for the quarter ending on February 28. Currently, Carnival has liquidity exceeding $7.2 billion on its balance sheet.

"Arnold makes the work fun, and he sets the bar high, but he sets the bar high for himself, and then he helps you achieve it," said Roger Frizzell, Carnival Corp.'s senior vice president and chief communications officer. At the six day professional development event, which took place April 16-21, travel advisors attended educational seminars, chatted with industry leaders, networked with each other and learned more about a wide array of cruise companies and their offerings. Many also worked toward achieving CLIA certifications and helped celebrate the 2024 Hall of Fame Cruise Industry Award winners. Steering the flagship brand of Miami-based Carnival Corp., and the world’s most popular cruise line, Duffy leads more than 48,000 Carnival Cruise Line team members who deliver fun and memorable cruises to more than 5.5 million guests each year. Duffy is at the helm of all operations across Carnival’s fleet of 27 ships sailing from 14 U.S. homeports and two homeports in Australia, where she also oversees the operations of three ships that sail for P&O Cruises Australia.

Carnival CEO Arnold Donald steps down as cruise industry aims for a refresh

For starters, he believes a long-held industry myth -- that cruise ships are "floating petri dishes" -- could well be dispelled thanks to the way the industry took on its return to sailing. The cruise industry has been the most stringent of all among travel and hospitality when it comes to safety protocols, requiring testing, vaccinations, physical distancing and masks along the way. Global travel industry champion and Carnival Cruise Line President Christine Duffy’s significant contributions to cruise travel are being recognized with the Cruise Lines International Association’s Lifetime Achievement Award for 2024. Duffy was honored at the 2024 CLIA Hall of Fame Cruise Industry Awards, where she was inducted into CLIA’s Hall of Fame and introduced by Josh Weinstein, president, chief executive officer and chief climate officer of Carnival Corporation & plc. It’s CEO Arnold Donald’s job to navigate uncharted waters for the cruise giant, which operates nine brands that span the globe.

Clifton Wharton became the first Black CEO of a major U.S. corporation when he took the reins of TIAA in 1987. Despite the company’s large size, TIAA was included on a Fortune service companies list, separate from the main Fortune 500 list at the time. "His leadership has been instrumental in helping the Carnival Corp. brands, those who work in the industry and especially travel advisors to stay afloat during the pandemic," said Fee.

As vice chair and a member of the company's board of directors, Donald said his number one job is to "help make sure that Josh is wildly successful." During his tenure, Donald led Carnival Corp. through the COVID-19 – and he said there actually has been some positive outcome of the pandemic that shut the cruise industry down for more than a year. Arnold Donald, CEO and president of Carnival Corp., the parent company to several cruise lines, stepped down Monday, after helming the company for nearly a decade. In addition to new ships, many cruise lines are also investing in their private islands.

Up until the pandemic, Carnival Corporation and its major rivals such as Royal Caribbean Group had long pursued a strategy of ambitious growth that involved ordering new ships almost as fast as they could be built. The arrival of new ships at major brands, often with new features, seemed to be always around the corner, and it drove both excitement and bookings among cruising fans. Among the immediate concerns that Weinstein will need to address is that some of the abovementioned debt will need to be refinanced relatively soon in a market where interest rates are rising and borrowing is getting harder.

Medallion has since been rolled out on every ship in the Princess fleet, and its footprint just keeps increasing. It's taking the friction out of cruising, making embarkation and disembarkation easier, giving passengers faster internet, easing pain-points and even allowing cruisers to use their Medallion disk to make purchases in ports. Donald's final two years were spent keeping Carnival Corp. afloat during the pandemic, during which the company raised $29 billion in new capital. It also embarked on an unprecedented fleet-reduction program, removing 19 of its oldest ships. Donald told the audience that his biggest challenge coming into the job was getting Carnival's nine independent brands to collaborate.

Donald has led Miami-based Carnival since 2013, when he succeeded founder Mickey Arison, and is among a relatively small number of Black CEOs at major U.S. corporations. In late 2014, Donald brought in Ashford (pictured, speaking), who is Black and had never worked in the cruise industry, to head Holland America Line. Under Ashford, HAL saw a new branding campaign that included a logo change, launched two new ships, wholly refurbished its fleet, upped its culinary game and enhanced its entertainment offerings thanks to partnerships with the likes of Lincoln Center. Those who worked for Ashford during his tenure, which ended in 2020, often talked about his ability to lead by example, encourage discussions and break the rules of office politics. But Donald, a New Orleans native who succeeded Micky Arison, the billionaire son of Carnival’s co-founder, after more than three decades, steadied the ship.

Under Duffy’s leadership, Carnival became the first major U.S. cruise line to have its entire fleet back in operations after the industry-wide pause related to the COVID pandemic. Part of that restart coincided with Carnival’s implementation of Liquefied Natural Gas, with Carnival’s Mardi Gras becoming the first LNG-powered cruise ship in North America – as well as bringing cruise ship attractions to new heights with the first rollercoaster at sea. Duffy’s tenure also includes several major milestones in the company’s history, including the year-long celebration of its 50th birthday in 2022 and the moment it welcomed its 100 millionth guest on board in 2023. As president, she leads a company with a fleet of 24 ships, sailing nearly six million guests annually and employing more than 40,000 people who hail from 120 nations around the globe.