Michelle
Ray is a veteran staffer of the Walter Kaitz Foundation and a seasoned cable
trade association executive with over 20 years of experience in association
affairs, external relations, brand management, marketing, event production, and
diversity and inclusion.
In
her role as Deputy Executive Director of the Walter Kaitz Foundation, Michelle
helps to develop and implement strategy in addition to building and maintaining
all programmatic activities of the Foundation.
She works closely with industry leaders to help advance diversity issues
within the cable industry and works to connect national diversity organizations
outside of cable, with cable industry companies. She has served as a primary
liaison and steward of beneficial partnerships with Afro-American, Latino,
Asian-American, and LGBT associations and organizations.
Michelle
has served on the staff of the Walter Kaitz Foundation for more than a
decade. Among her many achievements, she
has overseen the cable industry’s supplier diversity initiative which helps to
increase the number of ethnic minorities and women who do business with cable
companies. She has also assisted a
variety of industry organizations in establishing supplier diversity programs. In
addition, Michelle is responsible for overseeing the Foundation’s annual
fundraising dinner, which in 2013 raised over $1.8 million.
Prior
to joining the Foundation, Michelle worked with the National Cable &
Telecommunications Association (NCTA) where she helped to organize, promote, and
stage the annual Cable Show. In her role as Director of Marketing, Michelle was
responsible for directing all marketing efforts of the association’s annual
trade show both domestically and internationally. She had oversight of attendee outreach,
retention marketing and income development as it related to sponsorship sales.
Michelle
was formerly treasurer of Cable Positive’s Washington, DC Chapter, a member of
the Steering Committee of Cable Positive’s Tony Cox Fund for Local HIV/AIDS
Programming and a voting member of the Academy of Television Arts &
Sciences. Michelle is currently active
in the National Association for Multi-ethnicity in Communications (NAMIC),
Women in Cable Telecommunications, and the Alliance for Women in Media.
A
graduate of McGill University in Montreal where she completed her Bachelor of
Arts in Economics and Political Science, Michelle also successfully completed
NAMIC’s Executive Development Leadership Program at the Anderson School of
Business at UCLA in 2010, and the Executive Management Program of the Cable
& Telecommunications Association of Marketing, at Harvard University School
of Business in 2002.
Michelle
currently resides in Silver Spring, Maryland with her hockey-playing teen-aged
son.
