Hi, I'm Vicky. I'm an editor and strategist based in Brooklyn, with roots in Dallas and Shanghai. 𓇼 ⋆.˚ 𓆉 𓆝 𓆡⋆.˚ ꩜
Over at Skin Contact Studio, I consult on business growth through brand, content, and creative ops & systems. Here's my take on narrative strategy.
PRInCIPlES
⟢Follow the people, then the work - keep yourself in diverse company¹
⟢The work is never just the work - it's also building infrastructure and culture
⟢Play with your tools - use FigJam and LLMs as thought partners
⟢Care for the humans - exercise the soft skills beneath the soft skills
⟢Treat companies like public parks - leave them more lush than you found them
Over at hyperdisciplinary², I write about a) business and culture through a raw personal lens and b) field notes as an artist who works corporate.
²Readers span The NYT, Discord, Google, Shake Shack, Adobe, Publicis, Ogilvy, & many indie operators ♥
Here, Secret Granola Club members get 2 limited-edition art pieces and zines a year...
...that I publish through Skin Contact Press, my indie publishing imprint.
In my art practice, I explore language—its form and meaning, bounty and limitations. (And the usual themes: love and loss, war and peace, faith and unbelief.) I primarily work in poetry, printmaking and Chinese calligraphy.
Many thanks to Marco Velasco Martinez of Espacio Pino Suárez
I / have an older sister / love mung bean slushies / care a lot about food systems and equity / studied Finance & International Business at Georgetown University / make a mean granola
¹Experience
Brand Strategy Consultant, Skin Contact Studio
Working with people who inspire me. Partners include: Polygraph, Oyster Sunday, GIR (acq. by Pattern Brands), Stagetime, Another. (Fortune 500 & Michelin teams by extension.)
Senior Brand Manager, NewtonX
CMO's 1st brand hire for B2B research company ($47M funding) advising the Metas, WSJs, & Blackstones of the world on biz decisions.
Founder & Managing Editor, Currant
My baby, or global food media collective featured by Harvard's Neiman Journalism Lab. Intuit Mailchimp published my founder story. Followed by WaPo, Eater, Resy, The Infatuation, The Counter, Care of Chan, Civil Eats, KQED.
Marketing Manager, W&P
Built marketing and creator playbooks for startup accelerator Very Great's ($15M funding) founding consumer product brand. Partnerships spanned Lucas Films, Food52, Williams-Sonoma.
Innovation Intern, HHS, IDEO
Tackled public health comms with 19th U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy's IDEO-appointed Chief Design Officer Ann Kim.
Fellow, The Georgetown Initiative for U.S.-China Dialogue on Global Issues
Between DC & Beijing—traded scholar, student, and practitioner POVs on peace & security, business & trade, climate change, global health, society & culture.
UX Design Intern, Meltwater
Prototyped and pushed pixels at a media monitoring SaaS serving 28,000 global customers. IPO'd in Dec 2020.
Corporate & Retail Banking Intern, Bank of Beijing
ever done business in a culture you didn't grow up in? stay tuned for my forthcoming memoir: crying in starbucks
© 2025 Vicky Gu
