Holland America Line named cruise newcomer Orlando Ashford, an executive for an international consulting firm, as its new president, effective Dec. 1.
The move comes as Rick Meadows moves away from his executive vice president role at Holland America to become president-North America for Cunard Line. Stein Kruse, who had been president and CEO of Holland America Line, took on additional responsibilities about a year ago when he became CEO of the newly formed Holland America Group, which oversees Holland America Line, Princess Cruises and Seabourn.
Ashford joins the cruise line from Mercer, a global consulting company in talent, health, retirement and investments, where he was president of the Talent Business Segment. Before that he was senior vice president-chief human resources and communications officer, of Mercer's parent company, Marsh & McLennan Companies.
Ashford will oversee Holland America Line's sales and marketing, revenue management, deployment and itinerary planning, public relations, hotel operations and strategy.
He will report to Kruse, joining the Holland America Group executive team alongside Meadows; Jan Swartz, president of Princess Cruises; and Ann Sherry, CEO of Carnival Australia. Ashford will relocate to the Holland America Line headquarters in Seattle.
Meadows had been executive vice president of marketing, sales and guest programs for Holland America Line, where he had global revenue responsibility. He is easing away from that role as he assumes his new leadership post with Cunard. Meadows has been president of luxury line Seabourn since 2011 and will retain that position.
"We are fortunate to have Orlando join our team, bringing with him a career's worth of global experience leading high-performance teams that helped innovate some of the most respected and well-known companies in the world," Kruse said. "I am confident that Orlando's leadership will enable Holland America Line to build on its uncompromising Signature of Excellence commitment to deliver a superior guest experience that will continue generating rave reviews from our guests, travel professionals and the industry alike."
Ashford has held several other leadership roles during his career, including group director of human resources for 90 countries in Eurasia and Africa for the Coca-Cola Company and vice president-Corporate Center human resources and cultural transformation. Previously he was vice president of global human resources strategy and organizational development for Motorola Inc.
He wrote the recently published book, "Talentism," which addresses the global disconnect between available jobs - more than one-third of employers worldwide cannot fill all available jobs - and the estimated 202 million eligible workers who are unemployed worldwide.
Ashford is on the board of directors for a global manufacturing company ITT Corp. He is among the National Association of Corporate Directors 2013 and 2014 "Directorship 100" and is a Distinguished Alumnus of the Purdue University School of Technology.
Ashford is on the board of the Executive Leadership Council, a membership organization for the development of global black leaders, and for Streetwise Partners, an organization that brings together low-income individuals and volunteer business professionals to develop workplace skills and employment networks.
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