My Métier d’Excellence
I serve my team as General Manager for Starboard Cruise Services, world’s leading onboard retailer, committed to curate a vibrant world, offering our guests an exclusive retail experience. Here at Starboard, we transform moments and mementos, both real or imagined, for the better, transforming the ordinary into extraordinary to create elevated impact and value.
In my role I lead the company’s efforts to bring our vision to life inspiring and developing a team of managers and sales professionals to achieve and excel, while managing the annual financial goals.
The most important things you need for this métier
In my opinion there are 3 critical elements that must be present in order to be a successful General Manager here at Starboard :
- Visionary leadership: think ahead of time and be able to see things that do not yet exist
- Strategic thinking in order to take vision through to reality. A general manager must constantly keep in mind all the internal and external forces that will come into play as the move from strategic/vision to reality is executed.
- Team-building and interpersonal skills: they run through every element of business management leadership.
What I love most about my métier
Being able to have a real impact on the development of my team, to support them in their growth, their careers. I am particularly passionate about inspiring them to do what they are passionate about, to support them in identifying the right path to follow and advise them in their development. This is why I regularly take time to have conversations to understand their goals, needs, provide competency based feed-back and ensure we create the right environment as well as provide the right tools for them to be successful. We align on what skills they might need for the position they’re aiming for, build specific & customized action plans, as well as provide guidance on what books they could read and actions they could take outside work to improve themselves. This is something that really motivates me.
My advice for someone starting out in this profession
Make sure they understand why they want to embark on this journey and how this aligns with their core values. Regardless of how many years one may have been in a similar position, given the particularity of this world, continuous personal development is key, so be open to developing further your strengths and acquiring new skills.