Ready for the remarkable story of a talent all-star who rose from cleaner to C-level leader… in the very same office?
Bettina Deynes, Global CHRO at Carnival Corporation, leads a 160,000-person team in one of the world’s most dynamic industries. In this episode, she shares her incredible journey from janitor to HR executive, the importance of self-learning, and how she champions HR as a strategic function inside the C-suite.
Bettina also discusses:
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[00:00:00] Bettina Deynes: We take in a lot of bad reputation, like the people that just hire and fire. And that is so far from the truth. This is a function, a field, a profession that can be transformative to any organization, to its culture. And the one function that puts people first.
[00:00:21] Dave Travers: So what does it really take for your business to attract world-class talent today?
I'm Dave Travers, president of ZipRecruiter, and on Talent All Stars, we shine a light on the people and the day-to-day processes behind recruitment and retention at some of the world's most influential businesses. Today's Talent All-Star is Bettina Deynes, the Global Chief Human Resources Officer for Carnival Corporation.
The world's largest cruise operator. Carnival employs about 160,000 crew members around the world, plus a team of 20,000 onshore. So Bettina's team is responsible for attracting and developing everyone from chefs to housekeepers, to comedians to engineers and navigators. It's an incredibly complex operation, and we're lucky to have Bettina on the show to break it down.
And share her own remarkable talent journey with us. Bettina Danis, welcome to Talent All-Stars.
[00:01:13] Bettina Deynes: Thank you so much for having me.
[00:01:15] Dave Travers: So happy to have you. And so there's so much about your job and your journey. Um, that is so interesting. I want to get to the, the carnival and the global mobile, uh, workforce that you help manage, but your story is incredible.
So I would love for you to just talk a little bit about. When you started your career and your journey from being an immigrant to coming to the United States, tell us a little bit about your background.
[00:01:43] Bettina Deynes: Okay. So in five minutes, I'm going to try to summarize. I came to the States when I was 17 years old with my mom from Uruguay, a very small country in South America.
Most people don't know where we are. But we're a very little country of 3 million people between Argentina and Brazil. And people that know us is because of soccer or football, but I came at 17 right after I had finished high school. Uh, like every immigrant, the first thing that we needed to do was to secure jobs.
And my first job, I was a commercial janitor and I cleaned office buildings. One particular building in Washington, DC that had an amazing view of the Capitol, and I remember daydreaming while cleaning the office, pretending to be an executive, sitting and, you know, taking the phone and getting in trouble by my supervisor that would say, stop daydreaming, it's time to clean the bathrooms.
But that was my very first job and I had great aspirations, even at that young age, I didn't speak any English. I kind of self taught myself by listening to the Eagles. I love their music and I will memorize the lyrics and talk to people like in songs. I did that for about six months and apparently I did a great job that they offered me to be a receptionist at the, at the office.
Uh, and that was before they had voicemail. So you had to take handwritten notes. And because my English was really poor, I really, really struggle spelling names, but, um, they stuck with me and I stuck with them. I worked with them for seven years. And got introduced into the HR function in personnel management first, and then in HR, but back to that office, uh, you know, one of my dreams was eventually to, to work in a place like that.
And, and 10 years later, through various opportunities and after going to school and being able to build a career, I got my first big break and I got this job that was for a multinational company, uh, didn't know where the office will be because it was a confidential search. I arrived, got into the building, felt a huge deja vu, like I had been here before, got on the elevator and going into the office, you know, I was following this individual and I just started crying, realizing that that was the same office that I had cleaned 10 years earlier.
And so that was a moment of breakthrough for me, believing that, you know, that I, I was going to make it and I was going to be fine. And that as long as I could set my eyes on, on dreams and put in the work, uh, that I was going to be able to achieve everything or anything, you know, I don't want to tell anybody that it's been easy, uh, but it's been rewarding.
And it’s been worth the journey for sure.
[00:04:54] Dave Travers: Well, it's rewarding just hearing that story. That's incredible. And that story is amazing. And I can only imagine there's so many twists and turns that allowed you to start from being this immigrant with nothing to being a global CHRO at a corporation with over a hundred thousand employees.
Amazing. But if you were to generalize like the, the one or two, like, lessons you've learned through that incredible journey that seems to be against the odds that someone younger than you, who's just starting out, regardless of whether their background's like yours or something different. What do you take away from that?
What's the young person just starting their career advice that comes out of that incredible journey?
[00:05:35] Bettina Deynes: You know, for me, we'll always be never forget where you come from. Always stay true to yourself. Be authentic. I think that, you know, a lot of times we take that for granted being vulnerable to what you know, and you don't know, even more so to the things that you don't know.
Always willing to do the extra and as long as you have the mentality that you can do it, that you can learn, uh, that you can get through it, it is difficult, it is challenging, people may not believe you, you have an accent, you're not from here, you never worked in this industry, how are you going to work in baseball, you never even watched baseball.
And those are all the things that you have to listen and don't be intimidated or feel that you're just not going to be able to succeed. Use that to fuel your inner self and build that strength and that grit that is going to take you to the highest possible places. I am very very proud of where I come from, from my humble beginnings.
I don't shy away from sharing them because I feel they're part of my strength. I don't know if without all of those things, I would still be where I am today. I am here because of the struggles and the challenges and the sacrifices and the many, many stumbles that I have had. Uh, have helped me to build myself in a way that, that is who I am today.
[00:07:12] Dave Travers: Wow. Okay. We could do a whole podcast on just all the lessons you had just there, but let me double-click on one. And so one of the things you talked about was authenticity. And I think that's very counterintuitive to a lot of people where you want to, like intuitively, a lot of people want to sort of stand down their, their pointier, more interesting, more stand out.
Uh, as being different,
[00:07:36] Bettina Deynes: but I think it translates really well, uh, for people that are looking for jobs and they go through the recruitment process and they're trying to put their best self forward. And I'm not saying that's not the right approach, but you know, don't exaggerate. Uh, I, I learned during a, an interview very early in my career, the interviewer asked me if there was a difference between lying and exaggerating.
And I said, no, and I got the job and I, I firmly believe that, uh, in order to be authentic, what he means is that you have to have a lot of integrity. Don't try to pretend to be someone that you're not who you are should be enough. And, you know, it should be celebrated. Not everybody has to be charismatic and extrovert and overachiever.
We want people to be honest and to be their true selves and be comfortable in their own skin.
[00:08:33] Dave Travers: Yeah, amazing advice. Amazing advice for life, not just for a career. Absolutely right. Okay. So you had this incredible career journey and eventually along the way you got into, um, among all the things, you know, directions life could have taken from where you started, you end up in HR.
How did that happen? And how, what about HR called to you, and what part of that felt like a fit?
[00:08:57] Bettina Deynes: So I work for a commercial cleaning company. They had about 500 employees. Most of the janitors were Hispanic or Latinos, and they, you know, it was very helpful being bilingual and I started in payroll, so I did payroll manually.
Counting the hours on this, you know, those time cards. And I was very interested in personnel and, you know, trying to understand all the different regulations. I remember searching, trying to learn like how to complete an 9, a W4, uh, what's the FLSA, FMLA, all these different disciplines within HR. And I came across the Society for Human Resource Management.
And so I started attending some of their workshops. I attended a conference and I was very, very interested. And I also thought to myself back in those days, wouldn't it be cool to work in HR for HR? And as you know, eventually I went to work for Charm and I became their CHRO and it was another realization of something that I thought that maybe, you know, that I could do and wanted to do, uh, but Charm was extremely helpful to my earlier career.
And later on, validating the various competencies that are required to be a successful HR professional.
[00:10:24] Dave Travers: Do you remember the first moment when you thought, wow, this might not be just the job for me, but this could be a career HR really calls to me?
[00:10:31] Bettina Deynes: You know, if I said that, yes, I will be lying. I always said that as a child, I wanted to be an astronaut and I suffer from motion sickness.
So that wasn't in the cards for me. And now in days, I think it would have been easier to be an astronaut than to work in HR, but, you know, I always had the mentality that wherever I go, I'm gonna make the best out of it. I'm gonna give myself completely. And since the first real opportunity that I had was in HR.
That became my life and I'm very passionate and very thankful and grateful for the career that he has given me and the opportunities and really realizing the, the American dream, especially for an immigrant.
[00:11:17] Dave Travers: Oh, amazing. So as you rose through the ranks and you know, you went from doing payroll by hand and all of a sudden you're a leader and then you're a leader of leaders.
How did that come about where you saw yourself, not just doing one job, but you saw yourself, you know, being a people who leads people doing their own work.
[00:11:36] Bettina Deynes: So the more I learned about HR and the more conferences I attended, it was right before we had internet and everything else. And I went to my manager and I said, I should be the HR manager because these are all the things that I do.
This is how I can help you. You know, I really care about our teams. I think there are ways that we can engage. We can attract and retain the best possible talent. And they were very supportive of me, especially for a very small company. And they, they saw that I was a soft learner, that I never went to them.
Hey, send me to this conference. I did all of this on my own without telling anybody. And I will come with the diplomas. I attended this conference. I am now a specialist in this area. And so they saw the value added and it really transformed this small, medium-sized organization.
[00:12:33] Dave Travers: Amazing. So now if I'm early in my career and I'm coming to you for advice on how to mimic your success, and I feel like I'm doing a good job, not only in my job, but I'm doing much more than that.
What is going to set me up to have a great conversation with my boss when I'm saying, Hey, I shouldn't just be the payroll HR manager? How do you coach someone to have that, that fidelity conversation that you did?
[00:12:59] Bettina Deynes: Yes. I think that for someone that is earlier in their career, there is a misconception out there that professional development is the responsibility of the employer and the employee has to be in the receiving end waiting.
For opportunities to arise. I think that that is erroneous. I believe that the individual and the company, they both play pivotal roles in the development. In my case, back in the days, I worked for a very small company, which was good in the sense that it gave me an opportunity to become a generalist because I did everything I did.
Payroll, I did recruitment, you know, compensation, training. Uh, the bigger the company, the more focused the role might become. Wherever it is that you work, you need to really understand what are the professional development opportunities. What are the things that you can do even on your own? You know, they say YouTube is the greatest, uh, university these days.
You know, you don't need to go and pay crazy tuition. There's so many different things. Podcast is another way of learning. Uh, there's so many different books and being a self-learning and making sure that the people that you work with, especially your boss, understand that you're willing to go the extra mile that you want to continue to grow and don't come across.
With an expectation that I'm going to do this and you give me that no, you got to come forward with this is what I learned. This is how I'm applying it. This is the difference that is making and how we work and how it's making us a better organization, a better team, a better function. And, and have a conversation about what your future should be like.
[00:14:43] Dave Travers: I love that. And not just, um, taking charge by bringing up the conversation, if your boss isn't bringing it up for you, but by walking into that conversation, already knowing I've learned a bunch of stuff, I'm aware of what the context is around me to make my ask fit in with the broader organizational goals.
I love that. Okay. One of the things you've touched on a couple of times before we jumped to Carnival is you've mentioned the notion of being a self-learner. Can you talk about that? And you talked about yourself in that way as a manager, how do you spot someone who's a self-learner and how do you feel about the importance of that as someone who's managing a big team?
[00:15:18] Bettina Deynes: Yeah, I think it was very earlier in my career and maybe because I'm an immigrant and because every time I open my mouth, the first thing people would ask me is where I was from, because they could pick up the accent. And I always felt like I had to do more than everybody else. And in many ways, I became a hopeless, uh, overachiever because I put that pressure on myself and it wasn't until much later in life that I realized, Hey, the accent is never going to go away.
it's part of who I am. And that means that I'm also bilingual. I speak more than one language. So I think I put a lot of pressure on my, on myself. And if I could go back and tell my younger self, I will say, relax. It's okay. But being a self-learner has also allowed me, uh, to progress in my career. I was never satisfied with the status quo.
I actually gain a reputation. Of being a maverick of HR and a lot of companies value that, especially when they're considering reorganizations, mergers, acquisitions, and, you know, there was a lot of growth that happened in the HR field. There's a lot of growth that is happening now. So I, I was always, I always presented myself with.
The opportunity of what we could do, how we could pivot from where we are. And I think that's something that I really value on employees. And when I hire people that are working with me, I always tell them, please do not be satisfied with the status quo. If you see something that we can do better, bring it to my attention.
[00:17:05] Bettina Deynes: And we'll pivot and that's a great quality that I see and, and, and people that I work with and something that not only helps the organization, but helps the individual to grow.
[00:17:17] Dave Travers: Yeah, I love that idea of being a maverick or a change-maker, because I think, um, from the outside. You know, people who don't know HR well, and just view it from a far within their company or their organization, they often can see HR as the protector of the status quo, when in fact, you get inside the HR department, and these are people who really love helping people through change and leading through change.
And so I think highlighting that, realizing that HR may have a bit of a branding problem outside of its own. You know, function is a really powerful tool to be seen as a real partner to other parts of the organization.
[00:17:58] Bettina Deynes: Yes. You know, we take in a lot of bad reputation with shows like The Office. You know, we are poked fun of, uh, we're also seen as the regulators, the people that just hire and fire.
This is, this is a function, a field, a profession that can be transformative to any organization, to its culture, and the one function that puts people first. And it doesn't matter what business you're running. We're in the business of cruising and as beautiful as our ships are and the amazing destinations that we go.
And it doesn't matter what matters the most is the people that deliver the guest experience. And what people feel and experience is provided by the people. And so I am very, very proud of, of working in HR. I remember when my kids were little and somebody asked them, uh, what they wanted to be in the future.
And one of them said, I want to work in HR like my mom. And they were made fun of. Uh, because of their reputation. And I was very proud that my child understood the value and how wonderful it is to be able to work in HR and to see the growth of people, to see people grow and develop and, and be the best versions of themselves and to be able to provide for their families and for themselves in a way that maybe they wouldn't have been able to, but this is a wonderful profession.
[00:19:36] Dave Travers: Couldn't agree more. Okay, let's talk about Carnival now. So here you are running the people team at an organization with something like 160, 000 employees, most of whom are moving around on the water. Most of them are not, are not fixed in one place at any given time. So I can only imagine the teams managing teams and the size of the, the, and the complexity of doing that for people who've never been in that sort of a situation.
Just walking into work every day, how do you decide what am I going to worry about? How do I allocate time? How do I not just let people who are pinging me and let the urgent overcome the important? How do I even approach it when it's that big and that complex?
[00:20:18] Bettina Deynes: So now you understand why it would have been easier to become an astronaut.
This is massive, I mean, I came in after being the head of HR for the Society of Human Resource Management, being a thought leader in the space, traveling the world, dealing with human rights and, and all kinds of advocacy and HR matters. And I thought I was at the top of my game and I came to a carnival and I realized in five minutes that I was so over my head and this was the most complex role I had ever had in my life.
I mean, I mentioned working in baseball, not knowing anything about the sport. Uh, I thought that was hard. It was nothing compared to what I waited for me. And when I came here in 2019, Carnival Cruise Line was also experiencing their best year on record and HR was kind of back of the house, transactional.
We need HR, but do we really value HR? And they had been without a leader for about 18 months. So a lot of the departments were very fragmented. But it was incredibly challenging. I went through periods where I thought I made the biggest mistake. I should have never taken this role. A lot of things happened in 2019.
I lost my dad, my son joined the army. I overplayed the immigrant card. So my kid wanted to serve. And so, you know, I thought I will, I'm never going to make it. It was just. You know, we had Carnival Cruise Line is the largest brand within the corporation, 40, 000 crew members, 3, 000 shoreside employees. Every ship has an HR department.
So you're talking about 300 shipboard HR professionals. About a hundred short-side HR professionals and everybody knows about the industry. And I know nothing about the industry. I have never cruised a day in my life and it was extremely challenging. I remember the, the early days going into meetings and sitting there and not understanding a thing that was happening and feeling incredibly useless and irrelevant.
And, you know, telling my friends and my family, I mean, this is, I'm going to fail. I, there is, there's no question in my mind. This is not for me. There's no way that I can learn all that, you know, this job takes and. And it wasn't until I had a meeting with the CEO at the time, and I had just lost my dad and, you know, he's listening to my experience.
I'd been on the job for three months and then he looked at me and he says, you need to give yourself grace and you need to allow yourself to learn this place. I've been here for 10 years and I'm still learning. It is okay. And at the end of the day, I'm already hearing good things. And because the most important thing that you can do, and you have already been doing, is establishing meaningful relationships, uh, with the various stakeholders.
And eventually you're going to bring the value and you got to trust yourself and allow yourself to get to that point.
[00:23:45] Dave Travers: Having a boss who's that empathetic and wise sounds very appealing. I'm not sure everybody, you know, is lucky enough to have that, but that's an incredible story. You've mentioned a few times about feeling like you're going to fail or feeling like an imposter, you weren't qualified.
That's clearly a feeling that many people have had, and you've overcome it many times. How do you cope with that and get through it so successfully?
[00:24:09] Bettina Deynes: Imposter syndrome is very real, especially for immigrants. I will say, I have learned to talk to myself in a way that I will talk to people that I love. And I learned earlier.
That I will be so, so self-critical and put myself down. No, you can't do this. No, nobody's going to take you seriously. You're not enough. You don't have the degree. You don't have, you know, the certification. And one day I realized I have to love myself. I have to believe in myself. I have to reinforce that every day, and it became a habit.
I will get up in the morning, you got this girl, you're good. You know, even on your worst day, you're better than half of them, maybe most of them. And I will tell these things, and I started believing them. And gaining energy, I will have a big meeting, I will go into the bathroom, pep myself, talk to myself, put my arms up and said, you got this, and it is become part of my strategy.
Do I always believe it? No, but at least I give myself the opportunity. To believe that I can, and most of the times, not always, but most of the times I'm able to get through.
[00:25:36] Dave Travers: That is amazing. Let's talk about a different aspect of being a big executive at a big company, which is you're in the position where you're not just dealing with the people issues, but you're also interfacing across the organization to other functions and having to advocate for.
Policy changes, business strategy, resources to help drive, not just the people team, but to drive from your vantage point, the betterment of the company, tell us how you advocate for resources or advocate for a decision when it's not just the people decision within your team, but you're going across the organization and being effective in doing that.
[00:26:15] Bettina Deynes: You know, uh, in 2022, when I was offered the job. To become the global HR, the global CHRO for the entire corporation. My boss, uh, had a get-together with his new leadership and he gave us all a picture that represented it, how he saw us and he explained the reason. And he gave me a picture of Princess Leia.
And I, I love Star Wars and I was like, wow, this is amazing. He thinks of me like I'm Princess Leia. And I got really excited until he went through the description. And one of the things that he said, he, she is manipulative as you know, what? And I said, not manipulative. You know, I'm very convincing because that's all that I do.
And I advocate and I, I can be very persuasive because I carry the weight. Of our company on my shoulders, and I have to be able to represent all the voices that otherwise will never be heard. And I know that as long as I am advocating with what's the best for the overall organization, and that it is without a doubt, the one thing that we have to do, I will walk through walls to get my points across.
And I, I do that with pride and also with a lot of responsibility, because, you know, I don't want to be an alarmist. I don't want to be considered, you know, here we go again. I go in. With a very well-thought-out plan, business case, and I'm usually in that with more work. So this is not one of those things where, you know, I benefit personally because it's added responsibility, but being an advocate, it is part of the job and that's going to really dictate whether we're going to be successful as an organization, uh, from a people's perspective.
[00:28:23] Dave Travers: What's so powerful about that is you combine that with. Well, you've said about authenticity and being yourself and the way people receive someone who's advocating strongly the way you do. Is so different when you've established upfront that you're going to be honest when it's not perfect, that I have at times when, when you start off a conversation by saying at times, I haven't felt qualified or I haven't felt like I was up to a task all of a sudden, when you then say, but we should absolutely do this, they know you're telling your truth.
And people receive that advocacy with a sense that I would say is not manipulative. It's genuine. And that's what makes a powerful advocate. I love it.
[00:29:05] Bettina Deynes: He was trying to be funny. Yes, of course. But yeah,
[00:29:08] Dave Travers: I love it. Okay. So what I love doing at the end of, of every episode is doing sort of a rapid fire. And what I would love to do is imagine you're in a, you know, at the coffee machine or in an elevator, and it's just you and the CEO, or you and a board member, and you really have to elevate now your level of communication compared to, if you were talking to your team and in, in rapid fire, say, you know, Hey, Bettina, you know, how should I be thinking about measuring the HR team in 2025?
[00:29:40] Dave Travers: What would you say?
[00:29:41] Bettina Deynes: Well, the technical part of me will say, you have to look at attrition rates. You have to look at time to hire all the different metrics that we use, uh, in talent management culture scores. But at the end of the day, you know, I think that the, the most natural, and if I was in a, in an elevator, I will say, are you approachable?
And do people talk to you? Do they smile when they see you? Do you know a lot of them and do they know you and do they know what you stand for? Because at the end of the day, inspiring, uh, your employees is where you're going to get the most value from.
[00:30:18] Dave Travers: You start analytical and bring it back to the human at the end.
That is very episode of the. The duality of human resources. Okay. And then one more. So same situation. I'm the CEO or I'm a board member. Hey, Bettina, what are the biggest challenges the HR team is going to face over the next two years?
[00:30:35] Bettina Deynes: Well, I think we, we seen a lot of advancement in technology, AI. Is, is here is not something into the future, but it's going to dictate the future of work, what we experienced through COVID working remotely really changed the landscape and we have a generation that now has expectations of how they're going to work.
So I think that what brought us to where we are today is now what's going to take us into the future. We have to rely on technology in a way to simplify and make our jobs better. I often said, because, you know, people are scared of AI replacing them or, you know, taking their jobs. And I said, you know, it's going to allow you to focus where you need to focus the most, which is the human aspect of our job, which can never be replaced by AI.
[00:31:29] Dave Travers: Amazing. Bettina Deynes, in addition to being a talent all-star, you are an immigrant inspiration. You're, uh, truly remarkable to talk to and hear about your journey. I really appreciate you taking the time today.
[00:31:42] Bettina Deynes: Thank you so much for having me and sending my love to you and everyone who will listen this podcast.
[00:31:53] Dave Travers: That's Bettina Deynes. The Global Chief Human Resources Officer for Carnival Corporation. We'll put her LinkedIn profile in the notes below. And just a reminder, we put the video versions of these conversations on YouTube, on the official ZipRecruiter channel. If you have feedback for us or ideas for future episodes, send us an email at talentallstars at ziprecruiter dot com.
I'm Dave Travers. Thanks for listening to Talent All-Stars. We'll see you next time.