Guest · B2B brand and storytelling
Victoria Usher
CEO and Founder, GingerMay
Two decades in B2B communications and 16 years running her own agency, on putting the human opinion back into content and why people buy people, not brands.
About
Victoria Usher is CEO and Founder of GingerMay, a B2B communications agency she has run for 16 years. She is known for a psychology-led view of PR and marketing, a refusal to call selling anything other than relationship building, and a sharp critique of the soulless content that AI has flooded the market with.
Usher's route into communications was, by her own description, a wonky one. She began in politics as a researcher for two MPs, then moved into a data analyst role, where she met the woman who became her mentor and is now an adviser and director at GingerMay. That mentor spotted a passion for marketing Usher had carried since childhood, when she watched the adverts more closely than the shows, and helped develop it into a career.
She has spent 20 years in B2B communications, a field she says is her genuine passion and one she prefers to B2C. As founder and CEO of GingerMay, she has led the agency for 16 years, building it around the principles she calls rigour, relationships and remarkable thinking. She argues that personality profiling sits at the core of PR, that PR now runs as a seam through generative engine optimisation, and that the CEOs who thrive are the ones willing to be storytellers.
Career28 years
- 2020 to now Forbes Business Council Official Member
- 2020 to now Bloom UK Member
- 2019 to now International Advertising Association Marketing Committee Member
- 2010 to now Gingermay CEO and Founder
Show earlier roles: Westgate Communications Ltd, Synovate, Palace of Westminster
- 2007 to 2010 Westgate Communications Ltd Joint Managing Director
- 2002 to 2007 Synovate Marketing Director, EMEA (acquired by Dentsu)
- 1998 Palace of Westminster Research Assistant | Sir Geoffrey Johnson Smith MP and Sir Michael Spicer MP
How Victoria thinks3 convictions
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Authenticity beats sales technique
Usher refuses to call selling anything other than relationship building, and says the two skills that matter are asking great questions and active listening. She points to people who genuinely want to help, rather than counting revenue, as the most successful sellers she knows. For her, remembering things about a person because you care, not because you read your notes, is what makes anyone stand out.
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Keep learning or fall behind
Usher says that in 16 years of running a business, even through COVID, she has never seen so much change, and that a lot of the claims made about AI are overstated. Her answer is relentless curiosity: LinkedIn courses, experimenting with ChatGPT and Perplexity at weekends, and internal information sharing. Those who refuse to keep up, she warns, will simply be left behind.
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PR runs through GEO
Usher argues that generative engine optimisation, while early for most clients, has PR running straight through it, with high-ranking publications rated more heavily by the models. She notes there is no single fix, only 200 things done together, from up-to-date site content to a Q&A and a site map. Her proof point is clients still surfaced for Wall Street Journal coverage years after it was placed.
