Princess Cruises today announced that Jan Swartz has been promoted to president of Princess Cruises, effective December 1, 2013.

Reporting to Holland America Group CEO Stein Kruse, Swartz will oversee the Princess line’s worldwide operations which includes 17 ships, 22,000 employees serving more than 1.4 million passengers annually. Princess Cruises has sales, marketing and operational efforts in over 60 countries around the world.

“Jan has been at the forefront of industry innovation for a number of years and is highly regarded amongst her peers,” Kruse said.

Carnival Corporation & plc CEO Arnold Donald added, “I met Jan a number of years ago when she first presented to the board and I knew right then she was destined to do great work at Princess. She has my full support as she embarks on her new role.”

Swartz was appointed to her prior role of executive vice president, sales, marketing and customer service in January 2009, having previously served as senior vice president of customer service and sales for both the Princess and Cunard brands since 2004.

In 2001, she was appointed the company’s vice president of strategy and business development, and worked on the P&O Princess/Carnival corporate acquisition. Before joining Princess, Swartz worked as a management consultant with Bain & Company, where for five years she worked with leading consumer and service companies on growth strategies. Also while at Bain, she led a team to evaluate and enhance Princess’ call center programs and distribution initiatives prior to Princess’ dramatic expansion.

Directly prior to joining Princess, Swartz served as chief executive officer of MXG Media, an interactive entertainment company, where she oversaw online, catalog, magazine and television ventures.

Swartz holds a master of business administration degree from Harvard Business School and earned a bachelor of arts degree in economics and English from the University of Virginia. She and her husband live in the Los Angeles area with their two children.