Lead, Product Innovation

Journey with us! Combine your career goals and sense of adventure by joining our exciting team of employees. Royal Caribbean Group is pleased to offer a competitive compensation & benefits package, and excellent career development opportunities, each offering unique ways to explore the world.

Position Summary:

Based in Miami, FL, and reporting to Director, Digital Innovation, the Lead, Innovation will be responsible for the end-to-end development of new early-stage products and services that leverage emerging technologies for Royal Caribbean Cruises, LTD and all associated brands (e.g., Royal Caribbean International, Celebrity Cruises, etc.

The Lead will have demonstrated experience with Experience Design, Innovation sprints, R&D projects, emerging technologies, Accelerators/VC and or other related multi-disciplinary digital-to-physical design. The Lead will lead teams through human centered design methods that begin with empathy for people, guests, crew, and team to inform decisions; solve problems; and make connections others miss.

• Experience Design - Responsible for experience design at varying levels of product maturity, turning everything from nebulous concepts to specific ideas into useful, delightful products and services. The Lead will conceptualize, design, and define user experiences and interactions, holistic systems, flows and interfaces that are simple, elegant, and have maximum impact. Draw insights from direct guest and crew research and know how to turn those insights into tangible solutions.
• Project Execution-- Coordinates with broad interdisciplinary teams on a project basis, facilitating the user experience of a product from conception until launch. Assists in the creation and iteration of processes that improve success.
• Brainstorming & Prototyping - Leads brainstorming sessions that drive to big ideas, facilitates the filtering of those ideas and prototypes chosen directions to make ideas tangible and testable. Keeps us in the Make, Show, Learn cycle through to product delivery.
• Project Advocate - Advances institutional efforts for sharing information about projects; provides project information for distribution.
• Communication - Visible and active member of the Innovation team; advocates the innovation product development process and works toward the further refinement of the development structure. Uses a combination of visual, interaction and experience design skills to communicate a vision
• Technology & Partnership Scouting - Looks for and creates new opportunities to advance Royal Caribbean's use of technology to better solve problems and enhance experiences.

• Minimum 5 years in a digital product dev, project and/or innovation tracking leadership role
• Bachelor's degree required, or other relevant advanced degree preferred
• Experience in leading teams/organizations in bringing high quality digital products to market
• Proven track record of designing solution and running idea pilots for results-oriented validation.
• This individual must have superb verbal and visual communication skills to help teams understand how to describe and conceptualize their solutions in ways that further development.
• Ability to facilitate Design Thinking workshops, Brainstorms, Design Sprints, and work sessions.
• Experience with Accelerators/VC/Start ups is a plus
• High-level interpersonal skills, ability to communicate effectively with many kinds of people, a strong project management focus, time management skills, team management skills.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills; must be able to communicate with a wide variety of audiences; familiar with innovation processes and methodologies desirable; working knowledge of typical materials, tools and techniques for innovation structure, systems, and teams.
• Ability to conceptualize, design and deliver top notch experiences
• Ability to communicate design rationale to internal team and other stakeholders
• Ability to dive into projects at any level of definition with creativity and drive
• Deep knowledge of full user experience design process and ability to contribute at any level
• Applied experience working across all digital and physical manifestations of what we design - from wearables to native applications to the next technological leap
• Extensive understanding of prototyping methodologies and practices, user research methodologies and A/B test planning/execution
• A passion for mentoring designers, product managers, and engineers to deliver a better, more user-centered product
• An acute self-awareness and deep empathy - for both the customer and your team's goals
• Excellent communication and data visualization skills. You can bring internal stakeholders on your design journey and support your decisions with focus and brevity
• A deep curiosity and ability to consider product strategy and vision. You don't just care about how it looks, or what we should design, but why are we designing this at all?