Windstar Cruises’ year-round Mediterranean itinerary, which celebrates all of the seasons, wasn’t really meant to be. For Janet Bava, who joined Windstar as chief industrial officer in 2023, the relatively sudden cancellation of its long-planned voyages within the area of the Center East, resulting from geopolitical affairs, gave her an concept: As a substitute of redeploying Star Legend in a extra conventional winter season locale, just like the Caribbean, why not attempt one thing totally different? And winter-in-the-Mediterranean, which has developed right into a year-round idea, was born.
That’s Bava in a nutshell. Having collaborated on cruise-focused missions along with her over a minimum of a decade of her profession that at the moment spans 20 years, I see her as way more than a whirling dervish of power and an modern spirit. She’s centered, inventive, ingenuous and candid. She’s acquired an incredible basis of expertise within the cruise business, studying and rising at cruise traces that vary from huge ship firms to these working smaller ship traces within the sector’s river and luxurious areas.
And but, for these of us who’ve been privileged to work along with her — or have met her onboard a Windstar cruise — what you’ll discover first, and what stays with you, is her large coronary heart. She’s a champion of variety, of alternative. She’s a visionary who considers folks first. I like this quote from an interview in Success Journal: “The group’s imaginative and prescient is to innovate and develop and do issues ‘180 Levels from Unusual,’” she tells author Sara Kuta, quoting Windstar’s tagline. “I really feel as if I’m past unusual as a human being and I need to work for a corporation that values people who find themselves totally different.”
In our newest weblog in Windstar’s Attending to Know You sequence, Bava reveals how her Cuban heritage has impacted her ardour for journey, why her fifteenth birthday put her on her profession path, and what her favourite second is on any cruise.
What position has your Cuban heritage performed in shaping your character and persona?
Every part! I used to be simply 2 years previous when my dad and mom moved to Miami in the hunt for a greater life for his or her kids, and I absorbed a heritage of a household that was very happy with its tradition. Forty years in the past, Miami was a central place the place a whole lot of Cubans exiled, so we had been surrounded by different households who all shared a whole lot of the identical customs, together with music, meals and dancing the salsa and merengue — typically celebrated concurrently. In our household, there’s all the time a cause to rejoice one thing!
Our tradition has all the time been centered across the matriarch and patriarch, and in my household my mom and father have all the time impressed me.
From my father got here my motivation to succeed. He instilled in my sister and me that we had the chance to realize something we desired, so long as we understood we have now to work exhausting for it, as he did. My mother is my construction, my rock. Candy, supportive and all the time there for me. I inherited her ardour and elegance.
Your fifteenth birthday had a strong influence in your life. How so?
In our tradition we rejoice a lady’s fifteenth birthday with a quinceañera, a practice in Latin American international locations that honors the stage of life by which girlhood is transferring towards maturity. The standard festivities embrace a superb social gathering with a lot of music, dancing and consuming. However I needed to expertise my quinceañera a little bit bit otherwise. We ended up reserving a seven-night cruise, for household and associates, to the Caribbean. It was my first style of worldwide journey, and I bear in mind visiting the Dominican Republic, and it felt so just like the Cuban island to which we couldn’t return.
My “aha” second on that journey, and on so many others which have adopted, is remembering, as a younger woman, there was a specific amount of freedom to discover past our common boundaries. How superior is it to have the liberty to journey past your individual neighborhood?
It was additionally the expertise of exploring new locations, assembly folks and discovering cultures. And the conclusion that for all of our variations we share so many similarities. It remodeled me and led me to the trail my profession — and travels — have adopted.
If journey led you down your profession path, it appears like your journeys additionally modified your life from a private perspective
Sure! Whereas touring to Italy throughout school, I met my husband, Luigi. We’ve now been married 20 years and have two teenage sons. And despite the fact that we had been raised in two totally different components of the world, we had a lot in widespread and that’s: Nonetheless life makes you land, house is all the time the place your loved ones is. Staying linked irrespective of the place you might be, my husband and I are tremendous aligned on that, for either side of our households.
I bear in mind assembly Luigi’s household, the primary time; he was raised within the south of Italy. After which he traveled to Miami and met mine. And we each had the identical response: “I fell in love with you with your loved ones.” How humorous that two individuals who grew up in two totally different components of the world had such related values.
From a profession perspective, what would you want your legacy to be?
My legacy is to encourage different individuals who, like me, didn’t have the entry to Ivy League-level colleges. The message being which you could work actually exhausting and obtain your goals. I need to make that doable for others.
Increasing alternative by means of variety can be motivating. By way of our efforts at Windstar we undoubtedly are on a observe to develop as an organization that values inclusivity, to encourage girls to deal with management jobs within the cruise business, from onboard positions to these in company headquarters. And variety goes past the feminine perspective; we’re embracing folks from so many alternative cultures, languages and backgrounds. As one instance, Windstar Cruises just lately was the first-time presenting sponsor of the 2024 Lifetime Achievement Awards 2024 occasion, hosted by Gloria Estefan, for the twenty fifth Annual Latin GRAMMY Awards® Week.
As you may have developed your journey type, what recommendation would you give to vacationers who could also be new to cruising?
I nonetheless have such an awesome ardour for touring, particularly by ship. A cruise is sort of a tapas menu. You possibly can decide and select so many alternative experiences, so many tastes of various cultures. And on the finish of the day, being out on the ocean — whether or not it’s a catamaran, my husband’s fishing boat or a cruise ship — is my consolation zone.
On my to-travel listing? I’ve been all around the Caribbean however haven’t but skilled Central America, notably Panama’s islands and Colombia, which may be very up-and-coming. The excellent news? Windstar has a cruise for that.
