A career built around people, places, and the moments that bring them together

Victoria began in capital markets on Toronto's Bay Street before moving into journalism, first as an editor and reporter at CityNews 680 in Toronto. A newsroom is a daily education in audiences: what people care about, what they misunderstand, how they talk about their own communities and what makes a story land.

Journalism taught her to ask good questions, to explain complicated things plainly, to read public perception accurately, to build relationships with people who have no reason to trust a reporter, and to work fast and well under pressure. Those instincts are exactly what a client needs from the person shaping an event's message, briefing a speaker or handling a journalist at the door.

Victoria spent five years at CityNews Ottawa as an anchor and, for the last two, as Director of News and Programming, leading a newsroom of fifteen while presenting live. Before that came four years in the CityNews 680 newsroom in Toronto. Live broadcasting is unforgiving: timing, transitions, interviews with people who would rather not be interviewed, and the ability to stay composed and keep a programme moving when the plan changes mid-sentence.

CityNews Ottawa won two RTDNA awards during her time there: for Celebrating Pride in a Pandemic, on which she was part of the team, and for The Sam Laprade Show: Live for Truth and Reconciliation Day, the 2023 special she ran on site and helped edit as the newsroom's director. Separately, the newsroom was an RTDNA finalist for its live coverage of the 2022 convoy occupation.

It is the same craft as hosting an event. Reading an audience, drawing out a guest, introducing a speaker properly, keeping to time, and improvising gracefully are not personality traits. They are skills, developed on air over years, and they are why Victoria is as comfortable behind the microphone at an event as she is behind the scenes.

In 2024 Victoria joined the newly created ByWard Market District Authority as its first Manager of Marketing and Communications, building the organization's brand, public voice, media relations and destination positioning from nothing, and supporting a growing programme of public events and activations in one of Canada's busiest historic districts.

In January 2026, after an international search, she was appointed Executive Director, a role she held until August 2026, leading a staff of 39 and working with a board, the City of Ottawa, businesses, residents, cultural institutions, tourism partners, and community organizations. The role covered strategy and governance, budgets, public realm and programming, safety and community wellbeing, and the daily coordination with city services, permitting processes, and operational partners that every public-facing project depends on.

Not all of it was welcome. In a district that has looked much the same for two centuries, change is contested, and leading it through anyway was the hardest and most instructive part of the job.

That is where the pieces came together: the communications instincts of a journalist, the composure of a broadcaster, and the project management, stakeholder coordination, and execution that running a district demands.

Since 2024 Victoria has served on the board of Synapcity, an Ottawa organization that brings residents together across neighbourhoods and backgrounds to understand how the city works and take part in shaping it. It is the volunteer expression of the same conviction that runs through her professional work: that communities are built by people who show up, ask questions, and get involved.

She has also put her broadcasting background to use for the organization, hosting the councillor question-and-answer session at Synapcity's 2025 annual general meeting and opening its civic bootcamp for residents.

A place, a program, or a project brings all of this together. It needs a strategy and a story. It needs partners who do not report to you and a plan that survives contact with the street. It needs someone who understands how people will actually experience it, who can hold the room when it is time to explain it, and who will still be there when the tents come down.

Since September 2026 Victoria has led her own public relations and events practice in Ottawa, trading under her own name. That experience is its foundation, and it shapes the way she thinks about any place, program, or organization she is asked to help with.