Jo Rzymowska was just 10 years old when she flew by herself to Nigeria. At 20, during her first season as an overseas rep, she helped the family of a murdered guest and delivered a customer’s unexpected baby.
Aged 40, she came out, conquering long-held anxieties and going on to become a fierce champion for diversity, equity and inclusion within travel.
Next month, Rzymowska faces her latest challenge as she departs a company – and an industry – she has led, called home and held dear for almost two decades.
After a 40-year career, Celebrity Cruises’ vice-president and managing director EMEA is one of travel’s most respected leaders, having battled industry, societal and personal hurdles all the way. But despite her achievements, this latest chapter doesn’t come without some trepidation.
“Of course I’m apprehensive,” she tells TTG, sitting at her desk in Royal Caribbean Group’s Weybridge office. “It’s evolving, not retiring – I want to use everything I’ve learned to give back.”
Hanging above her are origami decorations. Fittingly, it is another Japanese practice – ikigai, or “your life’s purpose” – that is helping Rzymowska get ready for the transition from the corporate world into a new life as a mentor and advisor.
“It’s all about doing what you love and what you’re good at – for me, that’s leadership, coaching and mentoring. I’ve always planned life around work, but now it’s about planning work around life. It’s about changing your viewpoint for the next phase of life – it helps make for a softer landing.”
Sea change
Her departure is the last in a series of senior exits for Celebrity Cruises, with the line’s senior vice-president of sales, Dondra Ritzenthaler, and president and chief executive, Lisa Lutoff Perlo, also leaving the brand. New chief Laura Hodges Bethge, meanwhile, is just a fortnight into her role.
“It is tough for the business and the team,” admits Rzymowska. “But I know they won’t miss a beat [and] Laura is going to take it to the next level. We have a really strong team here, and the brand is in very good shape.”
So what about Rzymowska’s own successor? She’s keeping tight-lipped. “It’s been a very sought-after role,” she teases, although one that’s likely to pose a sizeable challenge given Rzymowska’s tenure. Her advice? “Care as much about our guests, crew and staff and I do.”
A passionate proponent of inclusivity, Rzymowska’s business values are well-known throughout the industry, and were forged during her upbringing. Adopted by a German mother and a Polish father, she lost her maternal grandparents during the Holocaust, while her paternal grandfather and uncle died fighting the Nazis during the Warsaw uprising of 1944.
“Ours was an open house,” she remembers. “I was always told to take people for who they are, not what they are. It didn’t matter what background, nationality or ethnicity someone was.”
Rzymowska developed a love of languages, studying German, French and Spanish. “I used to say I worked in German, ate in French and drank in Spanish, and now I just drink in all of them!” she grins, with the playfulness that has come to typify her public persona.
“Never knowingly dull” is how she tells TTG she’d like to be remembered. “You get far more out of people if you have a laugh along the way.”
Life lessons
Her adventure to Nigeria as a schoolgirl to visit her aunt and uncle was among her most important early travel memories, and paved the way for her future career. “I was always encouraged to think of the world as my oyster,” she explains. “My parents’ philosophy was to enjoy life to the full. After everything they’d been through, they grasped every opportunity.”
She was also introduced at an early age to the world of business. Her father, an electronics engineer, designed walkie-talkies, which Rzymowska used to test at home. She would also help out as his PA, and attend meetings.
“I still have a letter from Nokia offering to buy his company,” she recalls proudly. “He always gave me confidence and could spot I was interested. In a different era, I may well have got involved in the company. I say to young dads now – always, always encourage your daughters.”
His support would prove precious decades later when Rzymowska came out to her father a few years before making her sexuality known publicly – something she never believed would happen. “I couldn’t possibly envisage being out as a gay woman in business,” she says, but even in the early 2000s, her father still had his concerns.
“He was worried about me. He would say, ‘I know you’ll do well, but be careful you don’t make yourself vulnerable’. Now I hope he’d look back proudly on how far we’ve come and say, ‘yes, you can absolutely be who you are’.”
For Rzymowska, regularly named among the UK’s top LGBT business leaders, the benefits of “bringing your true self” to the workplace are invaluable – for both the individual and their colleagues. “When you’re always hiding something, it’s stressful,” she warns. “It’s a pressure that builds. Once that weight is off your shoulders, and the more you allow people in, the better it is for everyone.”
Entering the industry in the early 1980s, Rzymowska was the youngest rep in Majorca working for Harry Goodman’s Intasun. It proved a baptism of fire, from dealing with the aftermath of customer’s murder to helping a holidaymaker give birth suddenly in a hotel bathroom. “I grew up a lot and experienced things I never thought I would.”
In an era seemingly devoid of health and safety standards, when hotels were “somewhat dodgy”, Rzymowska’s formative experiences forged a deep-seated belief in always putting customers first and steeled her to handle whatever came her way.
Cruise control
Over the following two decades, she progressed into senior roles with Thomas Cook, Universal Resorts and Walt Disney Parks – while also dipping into the dot.com bubble at the turn of the millennium with Lawrence Hunt’s short-lived online package holiday specialist Dreamticket.com. “Our strapline was ‘stop dreaming, start packing’ and then when we closed it became ‘stop packing, start dreaming’,” she quips.
In 2005, she joined Royal Caribbean Cruises as director of sales and marketing, UK and Ireland – some move for a self-confessed “cruise rejector”. “Before joining, I had some of those same misconceptions we’re still trying to fight now,” she recalls.
Her maiden ship launch, Legend of the Seas, Royal’s first UK-based vessel, also took some getting her head around. “I didn’t see what all the fuss was about if I’m honest. Why homeport in the UK and not just sail straight to the sunshine?”
In 2010, now Royal’s general manager UK and Ireland, another launch would prove far more eventful when Iceland’s Eyjafjallajokull volcano erupted, forcing the closure of European airspace and turning the industry showcase of Celebrity Eclipse into a full-blown maritime rescue mission.
Rzymowska came to the rescue of stranded British holidaymakers, and their travel agents, as she helped coordinate the collection of more than two thousand people from Bilbao. “When we arrived back in Southampton, there were Union Jacks flying welcoming us home – it was like after Dunkirk,” she recalls fondly.
This agility was called on again in the spring of 2020 as Covid reduced cruise’s busy vessels to ghost ships. Undeterred, it was the complexity of the global challenge that Rzymowska “relished” as she led her team.
It is with that same determination Rzymowska looks to her next phase, with a big part of her new focus on mentoring travel’s next generation.
’Long way to go’
So, looking back on her own career, what advice would she have given herself? “Get comfortable being uncomfortable,” she advises. “It’s important to push yourself. Early on, I stayed in my comfort zone too much. I had imposter syndrome.”
Helping others feel they belong in travel is still high on her agenda, with much progress to be made by businesses on diversity, equity, and inclusion.
“The whiteness within the industry is still a massive hurdle [and] there’s an awful lot to do on disability,” says Rzymowska. “If I think back to the 1980s – if we’d had conversations on the menopause, or mental health, people would have laughed at us.
“But if you look at travel compared with tech, finance or pharmaceuticals, we have such a long way to go. I don’t think enough companies are taking it as seriously as they should. I’ll have more time to work on that, and I’m looking forward to it.”
