Several months ago, I met Carnival’s Micky Arison and Arnold Donald on the Carnival Mardi Gras. My good friends at ThePointsGuy.com is reporting that Arnold Donald is stepping down from his position at Carnival Corp.
“The CEO of the world’s largest cruise company will step down this summer after nearly nine years at the helm.
Arnold Donald, 67, is stepping down as CEO of Carnival Corporation, the parent company of Princess, Holland America, Cunard and six other brands, including its namesake line, Carnival.
Josh Weinstein, 48, currently the chief operations officer for the cruise giant, will take on the role of president and CEO after Donald’s departure on Aug. 1.
Over the years, I’ve gotten to know Donald, starting with a profile I did of him when I was a travel reporter for The Associated Press.
He was one of the few Black CEOs of a large travel company and took over the cruise company in 2013 during a period of turmoil. Donald replaced Micky Arison, the son of Carnival’s founder, who had been the CEO since 1979. Donald was the first person outside the founding family to run the company, although Arison still remained very active in the company, serving as the chairman of the board.
Donald’s first task — very similar to one of his last ones — was to reassure the public that cruising was safe.
Carnival was having a bad streak. First, its Costa Concordia ran aground off the coast of Italy, killing 32 passengers.
Then an engine room fire on its Carnival Triumph left that ship without power. That alone wouldn’t be an issue — but for five days, passengers lacked air conditioning, hot food and use of most toilets. Cable news was fixated on the ship, dubbing it the “poop cruise.”
Donald’s job was to help passengers cast aside their fears and put the fun back into cruising.”
I wanted to take a moment to say thanks to Arnold Donald for the amazing job he did at Carnival and wish him the very best with his future endeavors.
Click on the link below for the full story mentioned in this blog post:
https://thepointsguy.com/news/carnival-corp-ceo-to-step-down/
