Senior Manager, Experience Design

About the Role

Join the Ritz-Carlton Yacht Collection, an exquisite extension of the renowned Ritz-Carlton brand, dedicated to redefining ultra-luxury hospitality at sea. As a "Lady or Gentleman" of our esteemed team, you'll be entrusted with delivering the impeccable "Gold Standards" that define the Ritz-Carlton experience globally.

The Gold Standards are the bedrock of the Ritz-Carlton experience, embodying the values and culture that set us apart in the industry. The Employee Promise at The Ritz-Carlton empowers and nurtures talent through trust, honesty, respect, integrity, and commitment, fostering a culture where all are valued and individual aspirations are fulfilled.

Responsibilities

• Partner with Voyage Experience teams to translate voyage vision, experience intent, and product strategy into tangible guest experiences.
• Define how guests should experience key moments across the journey, ensuring experiences are intuitive, differentiated, and aligned to desired outcomes.
• Develop guest experience concepts, service models, interaction frameworks, experience requirements, and engagement strategies.
• Design signature moments and differentiated experiences that strengthen the overall product.
• Lead concept refinement, prototyping, and pilot development efforts.
• Build guest experience flows and identify opportunities to improve engagement and reduce friction.
• Define how experiences connect across touchpoints and moments, establishing frameworks and standards for consistency and quality.
• Partner with newbuild teams on physical design initiatives, evaluating how environments influence guest behavior and experience quality.
• Identify opportunities where venue design, guest flow, activation opportunities, and environmental design can enhance experience outcomes.
• Ensure physical spaces, programming, and service models function as a cohesive experience ecosystem.
• Collaborate with Journey & Insights teams to identify opportunity areas and translate guest needs into experience solutions.
• Support pilot programs and concept testing initiatives.
• Monitor emerging hospitality, travel, entertainment, and lifestyle trends to identify future opportunities.

Success Metrics

• Product vision is consistently translated into meaningful guest experiences.
• Experiences feel intentionally designed rather than operationally assembled.
• Service models, programming, and physical environments work together seamlessly.
• New concepts strengthen differentiation and guest engagement.
• Friction points are systematically identified and addressed.
• Experience standards create consistency while preserving creativity and innovation.
• Physical design decisions increasingly support intended guest behaviors and outcomes.

Requirements

• 8–12+ years of experience in experience design, service design, hospitality innovation, product development, customer experience, experience strategy, or related disciplines.
• Proven success designing consumer-facing experiences, services, or hospitality products.
• Experience developing concepts from strategy through implementation.
• Experience collaborating with multidisciplinary teams and stakeholders.
• Experience influencing complex projects without direct authority.

Skills & Capabilities

• Exceptional experience design and service design capability.
• Strong concept development and innovation skills.
• Ability to translate strategy and insight into tangible guest experiences.
• Strong systems-thinking mindset.
• Deep understanding of how service, programming, and physical environments influence guest behavior.
• Experience collaborating with architects, interior designers, or product development teams.
• Strong facilitation, storytelling, and communication skills.
• Ability to balance creativity with operational practicality.

Ideal Backgrounds

• Service design and experience design consultancies.
• Luxury hospitality brands.
• Theme parks and immersive entertainment organizations.
• Travel and leisure experience development.
• Lifestyle and membership brands.
• Product innovation teams.
• Customer experience strategy organizations.
• Experiential retail and destination development organizations.