Windstar Cruises’ year-round Mediterranean itinerary, which celebrates all of the seasons, wasn’t truly 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, attributable to 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 strive one thing completely different? And winter-in-the-Mediterranean, which has advanced right into a year-round idea, was born.
That’s Bava in a nutshell. Having collaborated on cruise-focused missions together with her over at the least a decade of her profession that at the moment spans 20 years, I see her as rather more than a whirling dervish of vitality and an modern spirit. She’s centered, artistic, ingenuous and candid. She’s acquired an amazing basis of expertise within the cruise business, studying and rising at cruise strains that vary from massive ship firms to these working smaller ship strains within the sector’s river and luxurious areas.
And but, for these of us who’ve been privileged to work together 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 range, 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 Strange,’” she tells author Sara Kuta, quoting Windstar’s tagline. “I really feel as if I’m past bizarre as a human being and I need to work for a corporation that values people who find themselves completely different.”
In our newest weblog in Windstar’s Attending to Know You collection, 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?
All the pieces! I used to be simply 2 years previous when my mother and father 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 pleased with its tradition. Forty years in the past, Miami was a central place the place plenty of Cubans exiled, so we had been surrounded by different households who all shared plenty of the identical customs, together with music, meals and dancing the salsa and merengue — usually celebrated concurrently. In our household, there’s at all times a cause to have fun one thing!
Our tradition has at all times been centered across the matriarch and patriarch, and in my household my mom and father have at all times impressed me.
From my father got here my motivation to succeed. He instilled in my sister and me that we had the chance to attain something we desired, so long as we understood we now have to work onerous for it, as he did. My mother is my construction, my rock. Candy, supportive and at all times there for me. I inherited her ardour and elegance.
Your fifteenth birthday had a strong impression in your life. How so?
In our tradition we have fun a lady’s fifteenth birthday with a quinceañera, a practice in Latin American international locations that honors the stage of life during which girlhood is shifting towards maturity. The standard festivities embrace a superb celebration with plenty of music, dancing and consuming. However I needed to expertise my quinceañera slightly bit in a different way. We ended up reserving a seven-night cruise, for household and buddies, 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 lady, there was a certain quantity of freedom to discover past our normal 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 belief that for all of our variations we share so many similarities. It reworked me and led me to the trail my profession — and travels — have adopted.
If journey led you down your profession path, it feels 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 completely different elements of the world, we had a lot in widespread and that’s: Nonetheless life makes you land, house is at all times the place your loved ones is. Staying related irrespective of the place you’re, 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 completely different elements 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 that you could work actually onerous and obtain your desires. I need to make that potential for others.
Increasing alternative by range can be motivating. By way of our efforts at Windstar we positively are on a observe to develop as an organization that values inclusivity, to encourage girls to sort out 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 various 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 could have advanced your journey fashion, what recommendation would you give to vacationers who could also be new to cruising?
I nonetheless have such an amazing ardour for touring, particularly by ship. A cruise is sort of a tapas menu. You’ll be able to decide and select so many various 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 checklist? I’ve been everywhere in the Caribbean however haven’t but skilled Central America, notably Panama’s islands and Colombia, which could be very up-and-coming. The excellent news? Windstar has a cruise for that.
