Executive: Marie Lee, Chief Marketing Officer
Company: Princess Cruises
Industry: Cruise travel and vacation experiences
Company Snapshot: An iconic cruise brand with deep heritage (including “The Love Boat”), focused on delivering an active, elevated vacation experience built around discovery.
Format: CMO Journeys Interview
Why It Matters
Marie Lee has built a career by following one simple rule: learn the business from the inside out, then use that knowledge to move people. She spent years inside an experience-driven giant, then took a leap into a brand that needed fresh momentum. In this conversation, she doesn’t just talk about marketing—she talks about the guest, the team, and the kind of agency partnership that actually works. For agencies, her viewpoint is a reminder that trust and precision matter as much as creativity.
Their Path, in Short
Marie describes her career as a series of chapters built on variety—and the discipline to turn that variety into a clear understanding of how a business runs.
She started in travel-industry sales, then moved into marketing. Along the way, she worked in international markets, learned how regional differences change what “good marketing” looks like, and took on roles that weren’t purely creative or purely analytical—but demanded both. She shifted into areas like merchandise strategy and broader lines-of-business strategy, which later connected to product development work. That was a turning point for her, because it forced a deeper question: if the “product” is the experience, how do you design everything around the guest?
From there, she moved into direct marketing, and that evolved into customer engagement work that included media and marketing. Eventually, she led strategy planning and integration in the media space and worked closely with media agencies at the executive level.
Then came a pivot that required a leap of faith. She had built a long career inside one company, to the point where she called herself a “lifer.” But she also felt stagnant—like she was asking, “Is this it?” When Princess Cruises approached her, she said she could see a clear path forward: a different media approach that could help grow the business. She took the jump, led media strategy, expanded into partnerships and social, and later moved into the Chief Marketing Officer role—carrying the same thread through every chapter: connect the consumer to the business, and move revenue forward.
Big Themes From the Conversation
One theme kept showing up: start with the guest. Marie’s belief is straightforward—“bet in the guest” and “know your consumer.” In her world, marketing isn’t separate from experience. It’s the front door to it. You attract people by meeting them where they are, and you keep them by delivering something they want to talk about.
Another theme: growth comes from trust—especially trust in people. Marie doesn’t frame leadership as personal heroics. She talks about picking people you can trust, developing them, and “giving them wings.” In her telling, the best outcomes don’t come from one person having the best idea. They come from building a team that can run fast with good judgment.
She also talks about momentum. When she describes stepping into bigger roles, she keeps returning to impact: the need to deliver, the need to move. But she pairs that with something else—building over time. She speaks in “two truths”: the reality of short-term results and the responsibility of long-term brand building. She doesn’t treat those as competing goals. She treats them as the job.
A final theme is her comfort with iteration. When she talks about AI, she doesn’t romanticize it. She says you can’t write a big strategic plan and expect to follow it. You have to try things, learn, and be iterative. But she also adds a practical warning: none of it matters if your foundation isn’t solid. If the data sources aren’t connected, you’re building on sand.
Watch CMO Journeys Interview
How They Choose the Right Agency Partners
When I asked Marie what a collaborative agency relationship looks like, she didn’t describe a vendor. She described a teammate.
Her core philosophy is simple: an agency should be an extension of the internal team. And if you want an agency to make the best recommendations, you have to share what you know. That means context—your biggest challenges, where you’re headed, what you’re trying to accomplish as a brand and as a business. In her view, an agency can’t be helpful from the outside looking in. They have to be brought into the real work.
But she’s also clear that “nice” isn’t the goal. Candor is. She talks about the need to say, “This isn’t going to work,” and to explain the why behind it. It’s not criticism for sport. It’s the honest feedback loop that keeps teams from drifting. She sees that kind of openness as the only way to navigate a media landscape that keeps changing.
She also believes chemistry is not a soft factor—it’s the multiplier. When she talks about what she fears most when hiring an agency, she doesn’t start with capability. She starts with the risk of being pulled down the wrong path, or never finding the spark that allows both sides to grow together. In her words, agencies often have great talent. But talent only turns into “one plus one equals three” when there’s trust and chemistry.
And she wants something else that many agencies claim, but fewer deliver: courage. She explicitly says she doesn’t want a “yes man.” She wants an agency that challenges her ideas, debates, and brings a point of view—especially in an environment where AI is changing the landscape rapidly. She wants partners she can use as a sounding board: “I’ve been given this opportunity—what do you think? How would you move forward?”
Marie also describes how she sources new capabilities in a very grounded way. Often, she starts with existing partners first—asking whether they can provide what’s needed, or whether someone else within their broader network can. She also mentions using a corporate sourcing team to identify potential partners. The point is not that there’s one perfect process. It’s that she evaluates case by case, based on the situation and the capability required—and if speed matters, she may lean on what an existing partner can provide or recommend to get moving.
Now, if you’re an agency trying to earn attention in the first place, Marie’s advice is blunt: do the homework. Understand the brand. Understand the personality. Then show how your work can help drive revenue growth or cost savings, because, as she puts it, business comes down to those two outcomes.
She’s not saying you can’t bring ideas that worked elsewhere. She’s saying you have to adapt them. You can say, “I’ve seen this work for another brand,” but you must connect the dots: why it fits here, based on what you see in this brand.
And then comes her biggest pet peeve—one that sounds obvious until you realize how often it happens. Get the basics right. She says if someone pitches Princess and uses ships from a different cruise line as generic visuals, she’s checked out. In her mind, that mistake signals a lack of care. And if you don’t care in the pitch, why would she trust you with the work?
What Stood Out
What stood out most was how consistently Marie returns to the guest—not as a slogan, but as a decision tool. Even when she talks about heritage, she frames it through a practical lens. She loves the equity of “The Love Boat,” and she calls the theme song an “audio IP” nobody else has. But she also says heritage doesn’t explain why someone should sail with Princess today. That balance—respect for the past, pressure for relevance—captures how she thinks.
And then there’s the personal note that quietly explains her professional one: she’s drawn to discovery. She talks about traveling as a way to make connections, gather memories, and collect stories you can keep telling. It’s an emotional insight, but it also sounds like the same instinct that shows up in her leadership—curiosity, movement, and the belief that the best experiences are the ones people can’t stop talking about.
Inside Scoop
This article focuses on the journey, the leadership philosophy, and how this CMO works with agency partners.
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