Celebrity Cruises to recruit female bridge officers from West Africa

Celebrity Cruises is to become the first to recruit female bridge officers from West Africa thanks to its new Celebrity Cadet Program, which is being run in partnership with the Regional Maritime University (RMU) in Ghana.

The partnership with RMU was formed after Celebrity’s president and CEO Lisa Lutoff-Perlo met with students from the Mandela Washington Fellowship at Florida International University (FIU), including Nicholine Tifuh Azirh. Although Tifuh Azirh holds two degrees and cadet experience, as an African female she had struggled to find opportunities in the maritime industry. On 27 August 2017, Tifuh Azirh will be the first from the RMU programme to join the bridge team onboard Celebrity Equinox.

“After hearing Nicholine’s story, I met with our senior vice president of global marine operations, Patrik Dahlgren, to see what we needed to do in order to give her, and others, the opportunities they’ve earned,” said Lutoff-Perlo. “A year later, I’m so excited to share the news of our partnership with RMU and to welcome Nicholine onboard. Nicholine isn’t just a new hire, she symbolises hope for women around the world who dream of working in a very male-dominated industry; she’s the face of our industry-leading partnership; and she is an incredible example of Celebrity’s commitment to opening up the world.”

According to Dahlgren, the goal of Celebrity’s partnership with RMU is to ‘inspire and disrupt’ the social norms that ‘burden’ female officers in western African nations.

“Nicholine is our pioneer cadet and a pioneer for women in her country; moving forward, we will continue to evaluate candidates and continue to push the envelope in developing a growth sector for marine officers in a part of the world that traditionally underserves female officers,” he said.