Senior Manager, Product Development

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The Royal Caribbean Group’s Silversea Cruises brand has an exciting career opportunity for a full time Senior Manager, Product Development on the Destination Development Team reporting to the SVP, Destinations, Expeditions, and Itinerary Management. 

This position will work onsite in Miami, Florida

Position Summary: 

In this position, you would be responsible for managing the people and teams that ideate and deliver high quality products for our guests. This role champions the product and experience vision to every stakeholder and partner, ensuring the product / experience is manifested through amazing vacation products. 

You would lead the implementation and execution of all new products, concepts, experiences, and spaces for Silversea as well as manage various strategic rollout efforts on new products. You would lead all the elements of the guest experience, from brief, through design and execution ensuring that concepts are brought to life in line with the strategic goals and with a full understanding of feasibility (operational and construction). To be successful, you must work collaboratively with other teams within the brand and key partnerships across the corporation including Hotel Operations, Design, Marketing, PR, Technology, Sales, Risk Management, Revenue Management, Legal, and Corporate Development. In addition, you would work closely (in a dotted lined relationship) with the Royal Caribbean International brand’s Product Development Team and will be required to manage and/or influence 3rd party consultants, contractors and owner’s representatives.

Essential Duties and Responsibilities: 

Product strategy: Provide ongoing leadership for the strategic direction of the product/experience. Ensure strategic alignment between all stakeholders and partners throughout the entire product development process. Leverage consumer insights and secondary research to bring forward the voice of the consumer and ensure we are improving the overall vacation experience with every new product. Provide guidance over the strategic direction for the new concepts and experiences. Partner and collaborate closely with key stakeholders from the various departments across the organization to understand how to adapt and evolve the strategy as necessary.
 
Product definition: Provides direct leadership with all partners and stakeholders ensuring that the products being created are viable, feasible and desirable for our guests. In addition, the Senior Manager must foster a highly collaborative team dynamic and approach that connects various disciplines from the brand and across the corporation and all partners to ensure a successful product. Ensure that concepts are marketable, drive guest satisfaction and ultimately drive revenue. Manage all aspects of design and execution while continually enhancing our products. Create stories (in the form of presentations) outlining the business environment, current product positioning and details, partnerships, competitive landscape, insights and data findings, program updates, risks & issues to share recommendations and updates with senior management as well as partners and stakeholders.
 
Product delivery: The Senior Manager is accountable for the products and experiences that are developed and is ultimately responsible for helping internal and external partners (often independent 3rd parties) prioritize to ensure final delivery of the product realizes the strategic vision and brings to life the desired experience for our guests and is delivered on time and within budget. Work with Hotel Operations, Marketing, Sales, other relevant partners, and senior leadership to ensure proper awareness, collaboration, approvals, and planning is not only in place, but seamlessly integrated into a repeatable process. Work closely with operations and design teams on run of show events to showcase programming and ensure the guest experience will be delivered on strategy/vision. Establish startup plans, operating and experiential playbooks, and training materials to ensure each concept/experience is flawlessly executed. Work closely with architectural/design/construction partners, and other internal stakeholders, to ensure physical products meet brand expectations. Drive, through careful collaboration with creative partners, naming/branding, create visual identity and craft narratives to bring the concepts to life.  Work closely with the Marketing, Communications, Public Relations, Creative Agencies and Revenue Management to ensure the latest information is being accurately depicted in the brands communication and systems. Deliver quality products by leveraging data from Insights & Analytics to influence development of the product.

Align on key product differentiators with the Go to Market teams to ensure buy-in and future marketability of new concepts and experiences.

Product standards: Leads the collaborative effort of establishing, evolving and maintaining our “experience DNA”, ensuring the product development standards, practices and experience design guidelines are consistent across all products, projects and teams. Establish and maintain design experience guidelines to ensure Creative Agencies, Hotel Operations, and other teams (along with new hires within the team) have the needed information to develop proper branding, customer centric programming and are able to design and build venues that deliver against the desired guest experience.
 
Product roadmap: Works in close collaboration with various teams and functions (project management, 3rd party partners, owner’s representatives, etc.) to develop product and operating plans for development lifecycle of a product/experience, including advocating for the appropriate funding as necessary to meet the proper design quality standards while ensure the aspiration for each product is delivered. Identify clear short and long-term goals and effectively project manage complex timelines and deliverables.
 
Personnel management: Responsible for all aspects of personnel management (e.g., hiring, training and development, etc.) of her/his direct reports and overall team. Directly manage 3rd party and other external consultants, contractors, owner’s representatives, and misc. other external teams to ensure that the overall product is successfully delivered. Enhance and evolve the joint team by defining required skills, roles and responsibilities needed to concept and execute experiences for the brand. Develop the critical thinking and concept development skills of team members.

Qualifications, Knowledge and Skills:

• Bachelor’s degree in a closely related field of study.
• Minimum 8-10 years of experience in a product, design, communication or other similar role developing experiences for consumers.
• Significant experience in leading teams/organizations/programs/projects in bringing high quality products/experiences/programs to market both on time and on schedule with a focus on an attention to detail. Experience working with creative disciplines, including but not limited to designers, architects, art directors, innovation consultants, etc. required. Experience in the travel industry ideal but not required.
• Deep knowledge and extensive track record in leading teams through the development of physical products and experiences, with an understanding of how to get consumer-centric solutions to market with a high degree of success.
• Experience in developing creative programs from start to finish, including schedule and budget oversight.
• While not a technology role there should be a basic understanding of consumer technology trends (mobile device capabilities, wearables, VR, etc).
• Experience developing products grounded in strategies driven by consumer insights.
• Ability to effectively provide overall vision and leadership across a large ecosystem of partners and builders, that spans product definition, design and construction.
• Exceptional verbal and written communication and project/program leadership skills, including the ability to communicate effectively at the senior most executive levels of the company.
• Ability to assemble, lead and influence cross functional teams to execute against a vision.
• Able to craft and tell a compelling, if not influential, story for audiences of all levels including senior executives.
• Able to document and package detailed operational requirements and experiences.
• Proven ability to collaborate with and achieve actionable results through others, plus the ability to build strong and sustainable relationships along with the capability to interact with all levels of the organization
• Ability to think strategically and drive ideas into action, with a positive outlook and willingness to take personal initiative 
• Significant travel may be required depending on the product / program.

 
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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