Client Overview

Discover Puerto Rico, the Island’s destination marketing organization, is responsible for driving leisure, business, and events travel to Puerto Rico. With tourism on track for a fifth consecutive record year and strong brand platforms such as “Live Boricua,” leadership sought to evolve toward a more data‑driven, product‑like growth engine for the visitor economy.​This created a mandate to look beyond traditional DMO talent and into leaders used to complex, high‑consideration travel journeys.​

The Brief

The search focused on a CMO who would:

• Bring global, consumer‑centric marketing expertise.
• Build an integrated, performance‑oriented marketing organization grounded in segmentation, data, and measurable commercial outcomes.

​Destination‑specific experience was not required; instead, stakeholders prioritized leaders who had modernized legacy brands, scaled digital capabilities, and used insight and technology to personalize the full traveller journey. The successful candidate would need to translate these best practices into a tourism and public‑private partnership environment.​

Search Strategy

Our team mapped senior marketing leaders across the broader travel ecosystem, including cruise lines, adventure operators, attractions, and travel‑adjacent consumer brands with strong digital DNA. Targets were executives who had marketed complex, high‑value products, led multi‑market campaigns, and managed long, high‑engagement purchase funnels.​Assessment centered on four themes: strategic brand leadership, commercial impact, digital and data fluency, and the ability to lead in a multi‑stakeholder context common to tourism. Evidence of measurable revenue growth, modern team building, and differentiated storytelling was critical to shortlist decisions.​

Candidate Selection

Storm Tussey stood out with senior global marketing roles at Hurtigruten Group and other travel and consumer brands, combining brand, digital, and commercial responsibilities across international markets. Her background in expedition and cruise travel gave her a nuanced understanding of long travel decision journeys and high‑yield audiences.​Storm demonstrated a strong ability to translate data and insight into creative and channel strategies, and to modernize incumbent marketing organizations. Stakeholders aligned around her blend of strategic vision, hands‑on execution, and appetite to bring new thinking into the destination space.​

Outcome and Early Impact

Storm was appointed Chief Marketing Officer of Discover Puerto Rico with responsibility for global brand, content, and performance marketing. Early priorities have centered on deeper audience segmentation, more targeted pursuit of high‑purchasing‑power and experience‑seeking travelers, and strengthening the conversion engine behind flagship platforms such as “Live Boricua.”​

Her leadership has already influenced new, immersive initiatives such as the “Mi Casa, Mi Navidad” digital holiday experience, which deepens emotional connection to Puerto Rican culture before travel and showcases the Island’s creative potential. Storm has also become a visible spokesperson for innovation in tourism marketing, contributing to industry conversations on AI, personalization, and the future of destination marketing.