Norwegian Cruise Line senior vice-president of international sales, marketing and operations Francis Riley has left the business.
Riley first joined NCL in 2005 as general manager of the UK office, and after a break from the company between 2008 and 2010, he rejoined the operator and has been based in Miami since 2014.
Sources confirmed he had left the business “suddenly” on Thursday, and an automatic response from Riley’s email account confirmed: “Francis Riley is no longer with NCL”.
A statement from the company said his departure was linked to a restructure of its international management team announced this morning.
It added: “In the process [of the restructure] Francis Riley is leaving Norwegian Cruise Line with immediate effect. We thank Francis for his valued, extensive and long-standing contribution and wish him all the best in his future endeavours.”
During his time at NCL, Riley held a range of positions including vice-president of international business development and vice-president and general manager international.
Prior to NCL, he was head of rewards at Loyalty Management Group and was previously director of supplier management at AIR MILES.
Executive vice president of international business development, Harry Sommer, said: “Francis has been a huge contributor to the company and I can’t say enough good things about him. Not only was he one of my main lieutenants, I also counted him as a friend. So I am extremely sorry to see him go, but the business has evolved. There was a time, after the businesses merged almost three years ago, that my focus was on setting up offices all over the world in places like China, Brazil and Australia. During that time, Francis looked after the European market for me, which is our biggest international market and very important, with over half of our ships based there in the summer, and very complicated with lots of different languages and cultures.
“The global offices are now up and running, under very competent people, so I don’t need to put as much time into them as before, meaning I can focus more on Europe. I have complete confidence in Nick Wilkinson and Christian Boell who will continue to do a fantastic job for the company and be the face of NCL in their respective markets.”