Susannah Sheppard

Susannah Sheppard leads Internal Brand & Culture at Virgin Voyages, where she helps shape the experience of a global Crew representing more than 70 nationalities across ships and shoreside teams around the world.

Her work is rooted in a distinctly Virgin belief: if you take care of your people first, everything else follows. At a company built around hospitality and experience, she believes culture should feel less like corporate programming and more like something people genuinely feel part of. She’s spent her career helping make that real. Her work spans employee experience, leadership communications, storytelling, recognition, live experiences, and culture strategy, all designed to make Crew feel connected to the business, to each other, and to the purpose behind the work.

Over the past several years, Susannah has helped scale Virgin Voyages through rapid growth, including the launch of two ships, and the onboarding of more than 2,400 Crew members globally. She has evolved the company’s internal communications and engagement ecosystem, built culture and recognition programs, and created leadership experiences designed to strengthen trust, visibility, and connection at scale. She believes your reputation doesn’t start with your marketing. It starts with your people.

Before joining Virgin Voyages, Susannah spent several years at communications consultancy Ketchum, where she worked across the company’s PR, marketing, and branding initiatives. Earlier in her career, she worked in entertainment and consumer communications, experiences that continue to shape her belief that people rarely remember every message, but they always remember how something made them feel.

Originally from the UK, Susannah now lives in Fort Lauderdale, although there’s a good chance she’s currently somewhere in the middle of the ocean.