Karen Orr, MBA

Stepped in after Director’s departure to lead Facilities oversight and payroll forecasting while continuing to drive Finance Business Partner support for Shared Services, ensuring uninterrupted operational and financial performance. Oversight expanded to $130M+ in G&A and capital budgets. Led and developed a team of 4. • Developed and reviewed monthly forecasts, annual operating plan, and long-term strategic plan. • Met with various business leaders to communicate budget trends, ensuring business decisions were reflected in expected spend. • Reported and communicated monthly, quarterly, and annual spend to identify any risks, opportunities, or trends. • Performed ad hoc analysis for the Executive leadership team and communicated any P&L impacts. • Optimized budget and improved cost controls by eliminating and deferring non-essential costs and ensuring business leaders adhered to budget for expected initiatives.

Managed $77M+ G&A budget supporting corporate Human Resources, Corporate Affairs, Corporate Communications, and ESG departments. Led team of 2 Analysts. • Developed and reviewed forecasts, actuals, and variances on monthly, quarterly, and annual basis. • Worked closely with finance and department leaders to communicate budget outlook versus expectations. • Prepared and reviewed ad hoc financial analysis for various business areas to identify risks, opportunities, and trends related to respective budgets.

Corporate partner in developing and planning brand’s future itineraries and fleet deployment to maximize profitability and optimize guest satisfaction. • Served as brand lead regarding strategic itinerary planning and solutions as it related to COVID contingencies and Return to Service operations for Celebrity Cruises brand. • Proposed new destinations and itinerary opportunities through various financial modeling, operational feasibility, competitive research, and consumer insights. • Collaborated with leaders in operations, sales, marketing, revenue, and finance, ensuring proper business plan put forward to optimize current and long-range deployment decisions. • Liaised with ports, governments, and other stakeholders in global destinations to guide continual improvement in quality of destinations offered and stay informed about upcoming new destinations.

Managed $500M+ portfolio of various Caribbean product lengths and itinerary content for Celebrity Cruises brand. • Analyzed and monitored global, competitive, and economic data to determine pricing decisions based on demand trends while consistently delivering accurate forecast yields. • Developed and coached team of 4 Analysts responsible for pricing and inventory optimization, ensuring achievement of forecasted revenue targets. • Collaborated with Marketing, Sales, and international teams to develop commercial and promotional roadmaps and identify risk and opportunity areas to achieve forecasted yield targets. • Prepared and presented bi-weekly revenue estimates, communicated forecast upside/risk, strategic pricing, and annual revenue operating plan to the commercial executive leadership team.

Reported to the Director of Inside Sales, Training, and Communications. Analyzed current learning management systems. • Recommended improvements, including questions and presentation methods, to the current learning management system which will strengthen travel partners’ motivation to promote the Celebrity brand. • Examined metrics used to measure the effectiveness of training in terms of return on investments. • Researched and identified potential travel partner incentive programs that could be introduced at Celebrity Cruises. • Researched current successful on-boarding techniques to help facilitate the hiring process of new sales representatives.

Reported to the Financial Controller. Studied Bacardi current effective pricing and noted any discrepancies. • Analyzed variations in pricing by region, brand family, size, and customer across North America, South America, and Transportation regions. • Identified potential uniform price increase levels for the House of Bacardi, House of Grey Goose, House of Bombay Sapphire, and Dewar’s brand families. • Reconsolidated effective price lists to reflect the most up-to-date price levels.

One Year MBA with a concentration in Marketing and Finance