Michelle A. Ray

As the Executive Director of the Walter Kaitz Foundation, a non-profit organization devoted to providing opportunities for people of color, women and the LGBT+ community in the cable, media and entertainment industries, Michelle Ray is responsible for developing and implementing the Foundation’s strategic direction, initiatives and programmatic activities.

Michelle provides oversight and management of the Foundation’s distribution of targeted grants to the industry’s key diversity organizations and collaborates with these organizations to refine and advance diversity and inclusion programs and initiatives that impacts the media and telecommunications industry. Additionally, she works collaboratively with national organizations that advocate for the social and economic interests of women, ethnic minorities and the LGBT+ communities and connects them with the industry’s member companies to further diversity and inclusion goals.

Michelle successfully developed the Foundation’s decade-old Hollywood Creative Forum, the first program of its kind uniting the efforts of the television industry, the Writers Guild of America, the Directors Guild of America, the Producers Guild of America and the Television Academy of Arts and Sciences designed to match credentialed content creators of color with networks, studios and production companies serving the industry.

Michelle is a graduate of McGill University in Montreal, Canada with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Economics and Political Science. She is also a 2015 graduate of WICT’s prestigious Betsy Magness Leadership Institute – Class 31; a 2010 graduate of NAMIC’s highly respected Executive Leadership Development Program (ELDP) at UCLA’s Anderson Graduate School of Management and a 2002 graduate of CTAM’s Executive Management Program at Harvard University School of Business.