McKenzie's group of brand experts will assume responsibility for geographical regions on behalf of all nine brands, while also maintaining their reporting lines into the leadership structure of their respective brand.
The goal, Carnival said, is to deliver the best possible excursion and port experiences for the nearly 11m people who sail every year on the company's 100 ships.
'We are excited to have Marie take on this new role, and with her proven track record in her past 19 years at Carnival, we know she will lead this team to great success,' said Alan Buckelew, chief operations officer for Carnival Corp.
A primary focus will be to leverage Carnival's scale and expertise to continue creating exciting shore excursions and port experiences as part of the company's aim to consistently exceed guest expectations.
Buckelew noted Carnival operates more than 20,000 shore excursions a year at 725 ports around the world. 'With this move, we are taking steps to ensure we continue to have deep local expertise working with tour operator partners large and small who offer a wide range of options for our guests,' he said.
McKenzie reports to Josh Leibowitz, chief strategy officer for Carnival Corp.
With the new process, tour operators and port facility partners will now have an opportunity to offer services for all nine Carnival brands, Leibowitz said. He added that in some cases, 'we will use our collective creativity to develop exciting new excursions, or new twists to already popular excursions.'
McKenzie previously served as vp global financial planning and analysis, where she played a key role in engaging all nine brands to prepare the company's executive team for the quarterly earnings guidance and position the overall strategy and financial direction of the company. She also led the process of capturing, consolidating and analyzing data from the nine brands, and the corporation's annual planning process.
McKenzie started her career with Carnival Corp. in 1996 and has held roles including at Cruise Line, where she served as vp fleet accounting, leading nearly 200 people working closely with the shipboard operations team in supporting the execution of the overall on-board guest experience.
