Associate Principal, Transformation

Royal Caribbean Group; Miami (FL); On-site; USD 120,000 - 190,000; Full time

Job summary

Royal Caribbean Group in Miami, FL is seeking an Associate Principal, Transformation to lead cross‑functional transformation initiatives within Global Marine Operations. The role requires bringing firsthand shipboard experience to design practical change that scales across the fleet.

You will partner with the Senior Director and marine leaders to prioritize roadmaps, balance operational constraints, and translate ashore designs into shipboard reality, combining rigor with hands‑on judgment.

Qualifications

• Track record of driving change and improving processes.
• Able to operate effectively in both shipboard and shoreside environments.
• Strong project and change management capabilities.
• Collaborative and influential across teams and org boundaries.
• Genuinely curious and improvement-minded with practical judgment.

Responsibilities

• Lead and contribute to GMO transformation initiatives end-to-end.
• Provide operational perspective from shipboard experience to transformation design.
• Engage shipboard leaders including Captains and Chief Engineers.
• Assist development and sequencing of the GMO transformation roadmap.
• Design rollout plans considering crew rotation and shipboard life.

Skills

Change management

Ship and shore

Project management

Collaboration

Continuous improvement

Education

Bachelor’s degree or equivalent

Maritime certifications (STCW)

Job description

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 Global Marine Operations (GMO) Team has an exciting career opportunity for a full-time Associate Principal, Transformation BPO reporting to the VP, Marine Transformation and Performance.

This is a land-based position will work onsite in Miami, Florida.

Position Summary

Marine operations at the scale and complexity of Royal Caribbean Group’s Global Marine Operations (GMO) does not stand still. The organization must continuously adapt — modernizing how it works, raising its standards, and building the capability to meet the future.

The Associate Principal, Transformation brings firsthand operational experience of life at sea to a team that is designing and delivering change across GMO. Having served aboard vessels, this person contributes a working knowledge of how ships operate — the rhythms, constraints, decision‑making structures, and human realities of an always‑on marine environment. That perspective enriches how the team designs transformation initiatives, particularly those that touch the fleet directly.

This role works alongside colleagues who bring strong corporate, analytical, and process design capabilities. Together the team is stronger for the range of experience it represents. The Associate Principal, Transformation's contribution is not to validate or correct the work of others, but to bring a complementary dimension that improves the quality and practicality of what the team collectively produces.

Working in close partnership with the Senior Director, this role leads and contributes to transformation initiatives across GMO, engages shipboard leaders as part of the change process, and helps ensure that what is designed ashore translates effectively into the operational environment of the ships.

The right person is a self‑directed professional who has built a career around making operations better. They are as comfortable in a shoreside project environment as they are in a conversation with a Captain or Chief Engineer, and they bring both rigor and practical judgment to the work of organizational change.

Essential Duties and Responsibilities

• Lead and contribute to transformation initiatives across GMO. Take ownership of transformation projects from scoping through to sustained delivery. Bring rigor to how initiatives are structured, sequenced, and executed, and contribute an operational perspective to initiatives that touch the fleet.
• Contribute an operational perspective to transformation design. Draw on firsthand experience of the shipboard environment to help the team design initiatives that are practical and well‑suited to the operational context. Contribute to discussions about sequencing, feasibility, and implementation approach with the knowledge of someone who has worked in that environment.
• Engage shipboard leaders as part of the change process. Build and maintain productive working relationships with shipboard leaders including Captains, Chief Officers, and Chief Engineers. Support the engagement and buy‑in process that makes transformation on the ships effective and lasting.
• Support the development of the transformation roadmap. Contribute actively to the prioritization and sequencing of the GMO transformation agenda. Bring an operational lens to decisions about which processes to transform, which initiatives carry the most risk, and where the organization is most ready for change.
• Design implementation approaches that work in the shipboard environment. Contribute to the design of rollout and adoption plans that account for the realities of an operating fleet — crew rotation, operational tempo, regulatory requirements, and the practical constraints of shipboard life.
• Partner closely with the Marine Digital team. Contribute to process design work that underpins digital development. Bring an operational perspective to the design and rollout of tools intended for shipboard use, ensuring they are fit for the environment they are being deployed into.
• Share operational knowledge across the team. Contribute to a team culture where a range of experience and perspective is actively valued. Share knowledge of the shipboard environment in ways that improve the collective quality of transformation design across all initiatives.

Qualifications, Knowledge and Skills

• A track record of driving change. Demonstrated experience leading or contributing to continuous improvement, process redesign, or operational change initiatives. Understands what it takes to make change stick in an operational environment and brings that knowledge to how transformation is designed and delivered.
• Comfortable across ship and shore. Able to operate effectively in both a shipboard and a shoreside corporate environment. Engages shipboard leaders with the ease of shared experience while working productively within a professional transformation team.
• Project and change management capability. Able to structure, lead, and deliver complex initiatives with multiple stakeholders. Brings discipline to how work is scoped, sequenced, and tracked, and follows through to ensure delivery.
• Collaborative and influential. Works effectively across functions, levels, and organizational boundaries. Builds trust through the quality of engagement and consistency of follow‑through. Understands that in a transformation role, influence is the primary lever.
• Intellectually curious and improvement‑minded. Genuinely motivated by finding better ways of doing things. Brings energy and rigor to the question of how marine operations can be improved and is not satisfied with the status quo as a default position.
• Education. Bachelor’s degree or equivalent professional qualification required. Relevant maritime certifications — STCW, Officer of the Watch, Chief Mate or equivalent — are expected given the shipboard experience requirement.

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.

We are committed to providing equal employment opportunities and to providing reasonable accommodation to support candidates with disabilities during our hiring process. If you need a reasonable accommodation, please reach out to us at [e-mail]. This email is for disability‑related accommodation requests only.