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Lisa Lutoff-Perlo, former CEO of Celebrity Cruises, discusses being named President and CEO of The FIFA World Cup 2026 Miami Host Committee. Sanjay Poonen, CEO at Cohesity, talks about the proliferation of artificial intelligence.
Hosts: Carol Massar and Tim Stenovec. Producer: Paul Brennan.
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Welcome to well. Back in February, last time she was on with us, she said she had some news about her next move that she wasn't quite ready to share. Well, now she's ready. We've got back with us. The former CEO of Celebrity Cruise is Lisa Lutof Perlo. She's the one who went from selling cruises door to door to becoming the CEO of the company, all detailed in her book, Making Waves, a Woman's Rise to the Top using Smart's heart and courage. Now Lisa Lutoff Perlo is taking over his CEO of World Cup Miami. She joins us now from Fort Lauderdale. Lisa, how are you?
I'm great, Tim and Carol so nice to be back with you. How are you?
We're doing well. Congratulations. You had got to give us a hit. You would have some news, so we're so glad that you're back.
Well.
Congratulations. Tell us about World Cup Miami and being named CEO and kind of how it came together and why you wanted to do it.
Yeah.
Oh, that's the last question is probably the most interesting, right Carol. You know the World Cup is coming, The Men's World Cup is coming to North America in twenty twenty six. Probably most people already know that. In the United States. There are eleven cities that will be hosting matches and the final on New York as the final. Miami is one of the cities. We were awarded seven matches, and one day, just out of the blue, I got a text from a woman that I know I met under different circumstances, and she texted me and said, got a minute and had no idea why she was asking that, and I said, for you. Of course. She called me and talked to me about this, And I wasn't sure that I really wanted to jump in.
And what was there?
What was the trepidation?
You know, I was just stepping away after a crazy career and working really hard and being so busy, and I knew I wanted to do some things. I just wasn't sure I wanted to take on something so big and and something I really didn't know anything about, you know, men's soccer and the World Cup. But the more I talked to people, the more excited I got. And just like everything else I've done in my life and career, I said, what the heck, I'm a lifelong learner. I'll figure it out. And here I am.
I was. I was going to say, it kind of sounds like your path to becoming CEO at Celebrity, which was, you know, taking advantage of the opportunities that I don't want to say we're given to you, but that you had earned. There was a reason people you were asking you to do these things, going from you know, essentially a salesperson all the way up to CEO.
Sure, and there was a reason that she reached out to me, and she because she was in a meeting. Here's the Here's how the story went. She was in a meeting and she's representing a big stakeholder in the Miami Day Miami World Cup, and they were describing the attributes of the ideal CEO that they wanted to run it, and she said, every time they mentioned an attribute, which one of them was actually being a CEO, she said, my name kept popping into her head and she just had to reach out to me to do this. And as I've learned, as I've gone through this, I realized that understanding and knowing soccer isn't what they were looking for. They were looking for someone who ran a serious business, because this is a serious business, someone who could bring communities together. And there's no more bringing of communities better than the cruise industry collaborating because we have to collaborate across many different cities and counties to pull this off, and running extraordinary events, which and guest experiences, which I did, and also really challenging logistical issues that you have to deal with. And you know, we're going to have six one hundred thousand to a million visitors in South Florida during those five weeks. So those were all the reasons that I think I was some on their list and why they chose me.
Well, wait, so how quickly did you say yes? After some like trepidation, Like how quickly did you say yeah, I'm on it?
It took me a little while. You know, First of all, it was a long process, as you probably know, as these things go. The more people I talked to, though, the more excited I got about it. Listen, this is historic, This has never been done before. It's the biggest World Cup in the history of the World Cup. There are forty eight teams, one hundred and four matches, three different countries. This is big. You know, the world stops when the World Cup happens. I thought about all the people I was going to meet and all the opportunities that I was going to be a part of that are historic and that have never happened to me before. And it's a two year gig. So I'm like, all right, you can do this. You can sign up for this, and it has a beginning, it has an end.
So I'm in You're so real And I got to ask you, did you, like, I don't know bingeon ted Lasso. Did you do a lot of googling online? Since this wasn't necessarily something you were so familiar with, what did you do to kind of be like, yeah, this is kind of cool.
Well, first of all, Carol, I have binged on ted Lasso. Probably we're all three times for all three seasons, right, the greatest show ever, and so sure, and listen, I'm in Miami. We've got Messy, We've got backdam This is the soccer capital, the football capital of the United States. It's the gateway to Latin America. Miami is a sexy, wonderful city. Everyone wants to be here, so there were so many great things about it. It's not going to be easy, but nothing in my career has been. But I just thought about how cool and exciting this was going to be. And my husband is a huge soccer fan, loves soccer, loves the World Cup. And I worked with twenty thousand crew members from all over the world who all played football. That was their sport and that's what they loved. So I do have an affection for the sport, even though I don't know a lot about it.
Well, and my understanding you really kind of lay it out really well. Why you it doesn't make sense for you to be doing this. My understanding is that this is going to bring in more visitors in the Super Bowl. So it's a lot, right, I mean, this is just massive. We all know it, We've I've all I just remember when it's going on, like it doesn't matter what company you're at, there's like viewing rooms because everybody is watching it. So tell us a little bit about like how you're thinking about how do you put your own spin on it, your own mark on it.
Well, we're in the planning stages of that right now. So you know, I have two ambitions as the CEO of the FIFA twenty twenty six Miami World Cup. One is to be the envy of every other city in North America that's hosting these matches. And the other is to ensure that it performs financially, because you know, I want to surplus. I don't care if it's a dollar. And so we're in the planning process right now. Over the next ninety days, we're going to put our plan together about you know, what we need to raise and how we need to offset the costs. And I really want to think about what's going to attract companies to sponsor this. I will tell you every time that I am talking to someone and they say, so, what are you doing, and I mentioned what I'm doing, their eyes light up. Everybody wants to be a part of this. It's families, it's companies, it's employees, it's communities, it's everybody. Soccer is just you know, nineteen billion viewers. Now it's over a period of five weeks, but there are nineteen billion people watching all of these matches all over the world. When the World's Cup happens. One point five billion watched the Super Bowl, so this in order of magnitude is ginormous.
Well, you know, and I'm just thinking about Tim and I are lucky enough that we've covered the US Open here in New York City and it's you know, yes, it's about the matches and the players, no doubt about it. But it is such a hospitality experience in terms of the food and the venues. And we've got about forty seconds then we'll come back and talk more. But is that are you thinking a lot about that? You understand hospitality?
Yeah, that was one of the big reasons they liked me for the role. And I do understand hospitality. And absolutely we are looking at every venue in Miami Dade County. We're looking at outside of the county because we're gonna have to spread out with all those people, as you can imagine. But yeah, we're gonna we're going to figure out some fantastic events and hospitality for everyone, for sure.
Do you think we should go down there Carol for the rematch?
Lisa, I think you make that part of like you know, you broadcast, bring us down and we'll do a live broadcast along with everybody else's going to be there.
Well, you two are my favorites, so I'll figure if we can figure that out for sure.
Score it's official.
I mean your home of New Jersey will be pulling you that way too for matches.
Hey, listen, New York, New Jersey.
Has the final exactly, That's what I mean.
Let's get back to our conversation. We're talking with the former CEO of Celebrity Cruise is Lisa lutov Perlo. As we mentioned, she did join us earlier this year. We talked about her book Making Waves, A Woman's Rise to the Top using Smart's Heart and Courage. As we've said, she's taking over as CEO of World Cup Miami and she's still with us from Fort Lorderdale. Lisa, one thing I wanted to ask you, and I was looking through in prep for this, there was an Instagram post and it reminded us that you are the first former CEO from outside the world of sports to lead a FIFA World Cup twenty sixth host committee. Do you feel pressure as a result of that?
No different than I felt my entire career, Carol. It's you know, when it was when the announcement was made the local announcement and the I think it was the Miami Herald. Yeah, it was the Miami Herald. My husband took the page and he put it on my desk and I took a photo of it and I posted on social media that day. And I have had so many opportunities to be covered by the press, whether it's business press like yours, lifestyle press, travel press, consumer press, magazines, newspapers, but I have never until now been headlined in the sports section. And I just thought that was hilarious that I've actually made the sports section. And yeah, you know, you always feel a little bit of pressure because you're doing something new and you're in unshartered waters, if you will pardon that bad cruise pun. But I'm also invigorated and excited by it as well.
Is there anybody you talk like you want to talk to or you have been talking to though leading up to this, when you think about sport events or just experience, experiential, you know, things for consumers overall.
Well, one of the great things about this, just like other things that I've done in my career, as I'm surrounded by a lot of different types of experience in that regard, so I have. I'm working with a group of people that has Super Bowl experience. I'm working with some people that have Conka Calf experience, some people that have experienced working with FIFA, because that's also very new for all of us. And you know, I you know, the subtitle of my book is A Woman's Rise to the Top using Smart's heart and courage. And I think part of being smart is surrounding yourself with people who have different and more experience than you do in certain ways. So they add a tremendous amount of value. And I hope that I in turn add a tremendous amount of value as well. So it's a good team. We all bring some good experience that we all need. So I think it's I think it's going to work out well. At least that's the intention for sure.
Are you still building the team at this point?
Yes, I am. We are small and mighty right now and over time. You know, the event is in a couple of years, but right now, between now and the first of June, I'd really like to get the core leadership team together. So there's a couple of pieces of that puzzle still left to go. And then and then we'll put our planning together and then we'll start adding the rest of the team in early five.
Are you leaving me too? Are you here?
So?
I mean in the winter? Yeah, I could go down.
There in the way, you know. Yeah, private message too.
Sounds good? Hey, so is it is it? Are is your boss? FIFA? Essentially?
No?
No, Well, listen, all of our boss I guess, all of our host city bosses FIFA, And you know, there are a lot of restrictions. There are a lot of things that we have to follow. There are a lot of FIFA rules. This is a FIFA event in the city of Miami, New York, New Jersey, Kansas City, Seattle, you know, all of the different cities. And we work very closely with FIFA, and they're getting to know the United States a little more and we're getting to know them a little more. The way we work here is quite different. In our experience here is quite different than a lot of these other countries that they work with, and so we're all finding our way together to put on an extraordinary event in twenty twenty six.
Yeah, so cool, no doubt about it. Hey, One thing I was thinking, and I think about this when I'm going somewhere, whether it was a Disney theme park, whether it was the US Open or just a concert like this combination, this balance of willing to like have a great experience, but you don't want to feel like you're constantly being faced with marketing and sponsors and everything screaming money. So I'm curious how you think about that balance, how important that is to you, or how you think about applying it.
Well, Listen, every experience is going to have a branding component. That's just the way it is because these people are paying the bill. But you you know, it doesn't have to be obnoxious, it doesn't have to be in your face. And if you're providing a great experience and a brand is associated with that, then you only would hope that people would have a really strong and good and positive feeling about that brand. So that's always something that's a delicate balance. I always feel like if people are having a lot of fun then and they are joining the experience, you know, just like I said, in the cruise industry, then they're going to want to spend money and they're not going to be opposed to the fact that there's a company that's associated with the experience. That they're having. So we'll make sure that experience above all else, but that brands get the recognition they deserve for the investment that they're going to make.
All right, I got to ask you any players, any fun players you've been able to talk to kind of like the pick their brain about stuff.
Not yet, but I can't wait to meet Lionel Messi very very David Beckham and David Benham two great players right here in my backyard.
I have to say. At Milkin, which was out on the West coast last week where we were doing our live broadcast, uh, there was a line constantly for the main ballroom, which was actually kind of far away, and one of the big lines was for David Beckham, who was there making a presentation. So it was really really cool he was at Milkin. You know, it's that cross section of so much ted Lasso. Their important word was believed. Do you have kind of a word that you keep in your head?
What's going over your door to your office?
Exactly?
Okay, Well, funny enough, Carol and Tim. Over the door in my home office is a ted Lasso belief sign? No, yes, yes, yes, And it's because I believe that I can do this, and I believe it's going to be fantastic. And you know there's a saying, whether you think you can or can't, you're right, and I believe I cam well listen.
We wish you good luck and looking forward to hearing the plans as they roll out, and just looking forward to what you are going to be doing for the next couple of years. I wanted to ask you then, what's next, but I feel like I'm going to give you a break and not go there, at least not yet, because you got a lot ahead of you. We believe in you and really fun to have you back with us. So good luck with everything, and look forward to continuing the conversation.
Be well, Thank you, Thank you, Carol, thank you Tim. Always great being with you.
Chaw all right, take care. Lisa lutav Parlo of course, as we said, former CEO of Celebrity Cruises, now the CEO of World Cup Miami. Just taking that over. And of course check out her book fun Read Making Waves, A Woman's Rise to the Top using Smart's heart and courage. Hey, one thing too, If you check out at Bloomberg dot Com or the Bloomberg terminal, you'll find a story by our team that gets into what Senate Majority Leader Check Schumer is up to. He's got a plan for artificial intelligence. The mission is shielding Americans from the risks posed by AI while promoting the emerging technology with at least thirty two billion dollars in annual government spending to stay ahead of rivals, including China, according to a highly anticipated policy blueprint from a bipartisan group of senators that was released today by Senator Schumer.
So we're figuring it all out, really we are. We're trying to.
Brat stone like and how you make money and how does it impact the startup community when you've got the big behemoths.
You were at Milking last week, was every single conversation how to do with AI?
I don't know that every single conversation was AI. What was interesting is was a real shift to this idea of okay, AI is going to happen. That means a lot of data computations and that's going to use a lot of energy. That really was kind of a shift and focus for me. I think it's safe to say we keep saying we're early on in in the you know, innings. If it was a baseball game, and so we're not quite sure exactly how it all plays out and impacts every industry, although right now every industry feels like they have to have some say in it or some actions in it.
Well, let's see what Sanjay Punin has to say about all this, Sanjay, CEO at Cohesity, former CEO of former COO, I should say a VMware joining us from the Bay Area. Good to have you with us, Sanjay. How are you great?
Thanks for having me, Tim and Carol on your show.
Yeah, good to see you again. How do you see all this? Because you know, we check in with you every few months, and it seems like since last time we spoke with you in the fall, the idea of this sort of new layer of technology, this this new element AI that is just being sort of a put over everything that's out there right now. There aren't AI companies necessarily, It's like every company has to sort of latch onto this. How are you seeing it from your perch over at COHESIVEY.
Yeah, Tim, I think you're absolutely right. Since we last talked, I mean, obviously we announced our big transaction of a deal to acquire Beveritas, But in AI it's been Brewing. I did my computer science work and analytics and at that time predictive systems. I would not have ever thought that this whole move to jennit of Ai. It's probably the most fundamental technology shift I've ever seen in my twenty five to thirty years in the tech industry. We got on very early on into the ways in which jenner of Ai could work to our benefit, which we were kind of a data security company and Ai jeneral a let's us search large forms of unstructured data. You could have millions of PDFs and you can summarize it in video. Came to us last year. Was very intrigued by the technology and not just the site of partners but also invest in US. And that the March keynote of Gensen. I mean, he's that da Vinci. I think of this space right, he talked about it. So I think this is really revolutionizing. I think you have to sort of separate a lot of the hype from the actual substance. But when you can actually turn much of this technology do a productivity enabler, Tim this is amazing technology.
Well, so how does it impact our world?
Then?
If it's so amazing, like that's I think the thing we're trying to figure it out, like, what does it really mean in our day to day operations, either at work at home and play at play.
I think it really depends by the use case. If you look at the analogy I like to example give as an example of spell check. In the early days of a word processor, it was furious to what it would do. But in the old days, before you wrote documents, you may have had somebody else proofreadd a lot of that, whether it's spell checking or grammar checking. A standard word processor, whether it's Microsoft Office or Google Docs does for you. And I think the basis of gender of aichat, GPT, any of these co pilots are the the world's best summarization tool. And if you could have something summarize a vast amount of data, you know, summarize LEO tool story for me in a half page, that idea of summarization or first draft is going to help everybody be more productive. So I actually view this not as a technology that's going to take jobs away. It's going to make us enormously pro productive. Now it will allow jobs to move up the stack. But you know, my value add in writing documents shouldn't be spell checking grammar checking. It should be the ideas that come out of that and hopefully grammar checking and spell same way here, If summarization of large amount of data makes me more productive, I can go do a lot of other tasks. So this is going to be a debate. We have to work through it.
Now.
There is another side of JENNERI that could have down negative impacts that we have to watch. And that's where this notion of responsible AI allows you not to be able to summarize and search things that are going to have a destructive effect on humanity.
I also do wonder, okay, so it makes us more productive does it make us stupider? And I say that because you know more and more.
I think it's a really good question.
I just think about the things like I write a sentence and it completes it for me. It's like I don't even need to think and have a complete thought. And does it help me? Does it make me write faster and more productive? Yes? Am I sometimes blown away that, like how did you know? That's where I wanted to go? And I understand how it all works, but I just do wonder how much of kind of thought is being taken taken away from us.
Barely have an interesting question. I'm helping my daughter apply for college next year, and in one of the college prep classes where a counselor said, please don't use generator I to write your application because I know when you're doing it, and some people then you do it for the last paragraph. We've got to help our young Is this especially a questions especially after for.
That's terrible that we need to even say that, because that's the whole idea of a college essay, it is to kind of get in your head and get an idea of who you are.
I think for the education sector, this is a very important, profound question asking where do we allow And it's the same question that exist existed in maybe third or fourth or fifth grade math, where you decided this is the stage where someone can use a calculator. They had to learn how to add, get the basics. But at some point in time is our value add knowing how to add three point four, five, six, two, seven and plus four point three two? No, I mean it's lots of decimals. You got the point you can use a calculator now, but that maybe that happened in eight ninth to tenth grade. I think the same thing should apply to the way in which schools universities think about how they're going to use jenerator. And this is something rather sort through as a society. It has profound impact on our young people.
But Sanje, it's not even schools like I think about it. I love my job because every day I'm kind of paid to research people, read their work, you know, do my own research, And like, how cool is that that I'm still kind of learning as an individual. And I do just get a little nervous about whether or not that learning curve later in our world gets taken away.
But Carol, what I would suggest to you as a phone let's just say Tim and you before I came on the show, could ask chat GPT Okay, I mean I've started a little bit of show. What would you want me to putin? Now, that's not going to be the only thing, but that's a good first start. You might augment your research with going a little deeper. And if someone gave me a first good start into your job, you're talking to some of the best people in the world. So I think that's the way we've got to think about this. It has to be viewed as a first start. It's not replacing human ingenuity. You'll never get chat GPT or the co pilots to define a musical, you know, composition that will be as good or better than Mozart or Beethoven. You have that creativity is always going to have a musician on the side. So I think, are you so sure?
Are you so sure about that?
Well, I'm not so sure, but I hope, I hope the human genome of creativity thrives and it doesn't replace that thing, but it hopefully makes us get better at doing some of the things and make some of the mundane jobs go away. And that's how we've been viewing it at Cohesty is there's a lot of our you know, hundreds of exhibites that sit on our platform. We want people to be able to extract value out of data is the new goal, and that's Generati helps our customers get enormous value out of it.
And I will say in terms of healthcare, I think there are people who are saying that it's going to help advance healthcare and either coming up with your drug discovery, their drug discovery.
Drug discovery, and much of the future of drug discovery is large amount of genome sequencing with the algorithms, and if it can save lives, absolutely, you know, it's the same way that you know medical research has helped us get various different forms of vaccines and so on. I think gender AI technologies, more than just general AI, is going to have a profound an impact on those areas of our livelihood.
I'm still waiting for the dishwasher machine. That's all I want, not the dishwasher, but like an actual person humanoid robot to come. Yeah, do all those things.
You know, Well, think about the robot that does the vacuuming, right, what's that technico?
Yeah, there you go.
Right, So it's a matter of time. I mean that that many of these tasks, you know, a small productive at home, I think predictive maintenance. I mean the more that you can roll that something in your car or fridge is about the breakdown because it's detecting.
We got to run. But I always love our conversations, love how how you think and where we get to go with you. So thank you so much for that. Sanjai Punin, CEO at COH City, joining us here right on Blueberg Business Week