The System Behind the Scenes

Victoria Hajjar didn’t start out planning to become a founder. But after six years in China, a stint building hospitality brands across the globe, and a front-row seat to the power of operational marketing, she realized she wasn’t meant to stay behind the curtain.

Today she’s the CEO of Ugli Ventures, a marketing leadership firm that provides fractional CMOs and marketing operations support to scale-ups and founder-led businesses. Her team helps turn chaos into structure—and teams into systems.

Growing Up Around Grit

Victoria was raised around hustle. Her dad worked in healthcare, but always had side businesses going, launching outpatient clinics tailored to the needs of local communities across New Jersey. She remembers visiting one of his adult daycare programs in Fort Lee, a neighborhood with a large Korean population, and watching him receive a "Korean Man of the Year" award—despite not being Korean.

"He just showed up," she said. "And people really respected that."

It left a mark.

From Manhattan to Beijing

After college, Victoria landed a job at a TV network in New York. But the thought of spending her whole life on that track made her panic. So she packed up and moved to China.

In Beijing, she started working with a pair of boutique hotel developers. For the first time, she saw people raising money to build things from scratch. She was pulled into their world, snuck into EO meetings, and found herself immersed in entrepreneurship.

"It blew my mind," she said. "I didn’t know people could just get handed millions of dollars to make an idea real."

That experience rewired her goals entirely.

The Global Stretch

She stayed in China through 2013. The Beijing Olympics. The Shanghai World Expo. Explosive growth. While friends back home navigated the recession, she was flying to investor meetings in Dubai and building go-to-market plans for boutique resorts.

After six years, she moved back to New York. That job soon sent her to Mexico, and eventually Dubai. But when the offer came to relocate permanently, she passed. She had a young son and wanted a life she could build on her own terms.

That’s when she took the leap.

The First Stab: Agency Life

Victoria went out on her own in 2016. At first, she did what most marketers do: built an agency (it’s more common than you think). It didn’t stick.

"It just didn’t feel like the right way to work with clients," she said. "You’re doing everything for them, but you’re not part of the business. There’s a wall there."

She realized most early-stage teams didn’t need an agency. They needed leadership.

Building the Model

Ugli Ventures grew from that insight. The firm now embeds fractional marketing leaders into client companies, giving them strategic oversight and operational firepower—without the bloat.

Each client team is built custom. A CMO. A project manager. Specialized partners pulled from Ugli’s vetted network. They form pods around the client’s needs, then disband or evolve as those needs shift.

No cookie-cutter retainers. No one-size-fits-all staffing. Just a system that flexes.

Why It Works

Victoria spent years inside startup hospitality companies, running point on marketing across continents. She learned what makes a brand grow isn’t flashy campaigns. It’s repeatable systems. Defined KPIs. Teams that understand how to work in sync.

Now she teaches her team to replicate that model for others.

"My product isn’t me," she said. "It’s the system I built."

Her favorite clients? Gritty B2B companies with complex sales cycles—manufacturing, healthcare, professional services.

"They’re not sexy," she laughs. "But they’re real businesses. And they’re hungry for structure."

Keeping the Team Lean

Ugli Ventures runs with a core team under ten people (and we thought four was a lot!). Most work is handled by trusted contractors. Leadership pods are custom-built for each engagement.

"You don’t need a huge team," Victoria said. "You need the right team for the moment."

That approach keeps costs low, flexibility high, and clients better served. AI tools now help fill in even more of the gaps—writing content, streamlining ops, building custom automations.

"We’re even starting to build AI team members for clients," she said. "It’s wild."

Leading, Not Just Doing

The biggest shift? Learning to lead.

"For years, I was in the weeds," she said. "But the more I stepped back, the more I realized the key was growing the people around me."

Now, she focuses her energy on building her team’s confidence, not just its output. It’s the only way to scale.

"If you want something to grow beyond you," she said, "you can’t be the bottleneck."

Scaling is a huge focus for many founders, but definitely the ones in Thrive. If you’re trying to take that next step, apply to our community and see if one of our peer groups is where you belong.