Arnold Donald, an African-American who grew up poor in the jazz capital and cultural melting pot of New Orleans to become chief executive of $48bn Carnival Corp, says diversity is the key to success in business.

“It’s critically important,” he tells TradeWinds during an interview in Miami Beach, about 25 minutes from his 120,000-employee company’s Miami headquarters.

“If you get a diverse group of people that are talented, focused on a common objective with work processes to work together, they will out-solution a homogeneous group of people every time,” he adds.