Helen McCabe-Young on Why You Don’t Need to Know Everything Before You Raise Your Hand

Helen McCabe-Young has never been especially interested in simply maintaining what already exists.

She helped build Silversea and One&Only into global luxury brands. She was the opening CMO of Atlantis The Palm, Dubai. At age 50, she left corporate life to pursue an idea she had been carrying around for more than a decade. Later, she returned to Kerzner, started another business of her own and eventually joined Virtuoso, where she spent five years leading global marketing.

Then, six years into Virtuoso, she changed lanes again. McCabe-Young, now SVP, Global Product, stepped into a role outside her traditional area of expertise because she saw what AI was making possible and wanted to be part of it.

“I thought, what I don’t know, I’ll figure out and I’ll learn.”

That sentence says a lot about how she has approached her career. We talked to Helen about building brands from scratch, why she prefers ownership over “buy-in,” taking risks later in your career, the support system behind a global career and why she believes AI could become a powerful equalizer for women.

You started in advertising. How did you end up in hospitality?

Very early in my career I was in advertising, on the account management and strategy side, and I had the good fortune of working for an agency with the Princess cruise line account.

That was my introduction to travel. I thought I wanted to stay in advertising, and I did for quite a while. But I also met incredible people through that work, and discovered one of the things I love most about the travel industry: its sense of community.

Eventually, former clients recruited me to Silversea Cruises, so I moved from the agency side to the client side. Then I was recruited by Kerzner International when they were preparing to launch One&Only. I remember thinking, What an interesting name. What is this about?

That role involved moving from Ft. Lauderdale to London with my family and becoming SVP of Sales and Marketing for Kerzner. I felt strongly that sales and marketing should sit together because I had seen what happens when they’re separated and things don’t connect.

I was also asked to develop and expand the global network of regional sales offices. We were this small brand announcing ourselves to the world, and we were building the structure and teams around it at the same time. That was really the beginning of my hospitality career.

What was it like building One&Only in those early days?

It was thrilling because we were genuinely creating something. Kerzner already had resorts that became part of One&Only, but we were very deliberate about what the brand would stand for. We didn’t want to acquire or brand existing properties simply to grow.

If it was going to be called One&Only, it had to have distinction. It needed a sense of place, a certain craftsmanship, the right location and a very particular service style focused on creating moments of joy. 

Sol Kerzner was a visionary. Location was absolutely critical to him. If we couldn’t have one of the top three locations in a destination, we wouldn’t do it. We were creating criteria for where the brand should go, how it should operate and how it should make people feel.

That’s when I realised something about myself: I’m a builder and a developer. I like seeing the white space, understanding the vision and then figuring out: How do we make this real? How do we bring people with us? And how do we create something that will last beyond the people who built it?

Then you also became the opening CMO of Atlantis The Palm. That must have been an entirely different challenge.

Completely different. One&Only was about building a corporate brand and global sales and marketing infrastructure. Atlantis The Palm was this enormous operational machine with 17 restaurants, a water park, marine experiences and thousands of moving parts. It was central to the commercial opening of The Palm Jumeirah so we also needed to introduce it to the world.

But what we had built internationally through One&Only helped enormously. Atlantis Bahamas had traditionally been very US-focused. Dubai needed global markets, so we could leverage the relationships we had developed with travel advisors, tour operators, wholesalers and other partners around the world.

That period also taught me how much I enjoy working around people with a huge vision and shared passion. There was a philosophy at Kerzner that if you decide something is possible, you find a way to make it happen. The focus was “blow away the customer”. It was intense. You had to be on your game. But I loved it.

At age 50, you left Kerzner to start your own wellness business. What gave you the courage?

I had been thinking about the idea for 10 or 11 years. I wanted to create an integrated health centre and spa where different wellness and medical modalities could exist within the same ecosystem.

My friends eventually said, “Either stop talking about it or do it.” And I knew they were right. I was terrified. I remember thinking, Am I crazy? Am I too old to be doing this?

Sol Kerzner became an important mentor at that moment. I showed him the idea and basically asked for a thumbs up or thumbs down. I told him I was worried because I was later in my career.

He said, “Helen, I started Atlantis Bahamas in my 50s.” That was all I needed to hear.

I thought: If I don’t try, I will deeply regret it. If I try and fail, I can live with that. So I did it.

We created Place 360 in Del Mar, California. Eventually I realised that being the owner of a small business in a small town wasn’t enough for me. I missed the corporate environment, the scale and the complexity, so I returned to Kerzner and sold my interest to my business partner.

But Place 360 is still there. Sometimes I go back and it’s emotional because I created that baby. I’m proud that I built something that endured.

When I look back at my career, the things I’m proudest of are the things that continue after I leave.

What did working with the Kerzners teach you about leadership?

Confidence. Not confidence in the sense that you always know the answer. Confidence that you can move without having every answer.

I’m a data nerd. Data is enormously important. But you can study something to death and never move. You can also spend all your time studying your competitors and never blaze a new path. You’re not going to lead by following.

At Kerzner, we were held accountable, make no mistake. But we were also given room to take swings. I learned that I don’t need analysis paralysis or perfection before moving. Whatever we ultimately deliver needs to be exceedingly good, but you find that greatness through the team and through momentum – and I had an amazing team.

You used an interesting phrase when we spoke: you’re a “seed planter.” What does that mean?

I don’t really believe in getting people to “buy into” my vision. If I have a vision and I’m trying to sell everybody on my ride, I don’t think you get the same result. My style is more about planting seeds.

How do you inspire people to make the idea their own? How do you create enough space for them to contribute their own thinking and build something better than the original idea?

Once people own it, momentum comes much faster. Then it belongs to the organisation and the people in it. It isn’t mine.

You joined Virtuoso as Global Head of Marketing. What did you see that needed building there?

Interesting timing, as I joined during the darkest depths of Covid. One opportunity was around CRM and understanding the network and the traveller more intelligently so we could use our collective knowledge to deliver stronger results for members, advisors and partners.

There was also a compelling brand challenge. Virtuoso doesn’t create the travel experiences. Its advisors and partners do. So how do you tell the Virtuoso story without making everything about Virtuoso?

That eventually became “So Virtuoso.” We saw it as a platform, something larger than an advertising campaign. It gave advisors and partners a way to tell their own stories and was designed to work across different audiences and markets around the world.  But a driving reason for joining Virtuoso is the power of its community and the importance placed on human connection. I could see the vision of Matthew Upchurch manifesting in a future I just had to be part of.   

After five years running marketing, you volunteered to move into product. Why make such a big shift?

Because I could see what was happening. The person leading the function left, and I raised my hand.

I knew Virtuoso. I understood the complexity of the business model. And I could see what AI was suddenly enabling us to imagine and build.

Do I come from technology? No. But it isn’t fundamentally a technology job. It’s a product job. I thought: What I don’t know, I’ll figure out and learn.

My job is to inspire great talent, develop leaders, remove blockers and help the team build. And there has never been a faster or more interesting moment to do that.

Six months ago, we weren’t developing products the way we are now. Today, product teams can use AI tools to prototype things and co-create with engineers rather than writing a brief, handing it to engineers and waiting to see what comes back.

Every week, the team is discovering new ways to do things. Some of them will fail. That’s okay. Fail fast and move on.

Do you think AI could help close some of the technology gap for women?

I do. In many respects, I think AI could be a great equaliser because the barrier to entry has become so much lower.

You don’t necessarily need engineering skills. You can take what you already know, the way you think, the way you communicate, and begin building with it. The power is at our fingertips if we start.

I think AI could be a great equaliser because the barrier to entry has become so much lower.

Think about how many women are already managing ten plates at once, whether they’re running a household, a team or a company. Now imagine creating agents to help manage some of those plates. You don’t need to know how to code.

So where does that take us? I think it has enormous potential to accelerate both women and men, but women should absolutely be leveraging it now.

You’ve taken a lot of risks. What have you learned about failure?

Failure is inevitable. If you can’t fail, admit it and learn how to move on, you’re never going to take meaningful risks.

I’m a driver. Of course I want to perform and deliver. But if you’re never failing, you’re probably not stretching very far. I’ve had big disappointments, things I worked incredibly hard on that got very close and didn’t cross the line. You learn from them.

And in the world we’re in now, particularly with technology, we have an opportunity to try, test, adapt and sometimes pull something back very quickly. That gives us permission to experiment.

You’ve had an enormous career. What did it take to make that work as a family?

I’m not sure I was particularly smart about balance when I was younger. I love to work. And when you have a lot of energy, you think you can keep doing everything.

Looking back, I probably travelled too much. I didn’t always stop and ask myself, Do I genuinely need to take this trip? I make different choices now. I’ve learned that preserving time for myself and my family makes me a better leader too. I show up better for my team when I show up as a whole human being.

There is also absolutely no way I could have done what I did without my husband. We made the decisions together. When opportunities came up to move from Los Angeles to Florida, then London, he was always open to the adventure. When I hesitated about London, he was the one saying, “I think we should do it.”

We decided that one of us always needed to be around for our daughter. We had help, but having a parent present was important to us, and he provided enormous support. I sometimes say it takes two people to handle one of these jobs.

Part of the reason I eventually returned to California and started Place 360 was because I wanted my feet on the ground in the same town as my daughter while she was in high school. My husband gently encouraged me. He never made me feel guilty, but he said, “I’m worried you’re going to miss it.”

Emily and Helen at Virtuoso Travel Week in Las Vegas

And I knew he was right. It was one of the best decisions I made.

Careers are long. That period of your child’s life is short. Everybody tells you how quickly it goes and you don’t believe them until suddenly it has gone.

After everything you’ve built, what still motivates you?

The next thing. I like the moment when something doesn’t exist yet and you can see what it could become.

I like building the structure around it, bringing people into it and then watching it take on a life of its own. That has been the thread through my whole career.

I want to build things that last.