Leadership
Faye McCray, Founder & CEO
Faye McCray is the visionary behind Culture and Quill. With a rich background in law, media, and communications, Faye combines strategic insight with creative storytelling to help clients articulate their narratives with clarity and impact. As a former attorney and media executive and current C-suite communications leader, she brings a unique blend of analytical skill, business acumen, and storytelling prowess to her work. She excels at building strong teams, fostering positive work cultures, and crafting innovative strategies that drive engagement, growth, and audience diversification.
Faye’s career journey has made her an adaptable and impactful leader across law, media, health, and education. After practicing law for more than a decade, she transitioned into media and communications, leading content, marketing, brand, and communications strategies for nationally recognized organizations. Her expertise spans enterprise communications, reputation and brand strategy, social impact, and stakeholder engagement, with a particular ability to translate complex ideas into clear, human-centered narratives.
Today, Faye serves as Chief Communications Officer for a testing organization, where she leads communications and brand strategy during a period of significant transformation in education and licensure. Her previous leadership roles include VP and Head of Content and Corporate Social Responsibility for Well+Good and LIVESTRONG.com, VP of Social Impact for RVO Health, and Editor-in-Chief of Psych Central, one of the first digital mental health platforms.
Faye is also a national small business advisor and mentor to entrepreneurs through the Goldman Sachs One Million Black Women: Black in Business program. A trusted advisor to executive teams navigating change, she has led communications through leadership transitions, brand pivots, organizational transformation, and crisis moments, always balancing strategic clarity with human insight.
As a media-trained speaker and strategist, Faye has appeared on Fox News, NBC News, and Good Day DC and has presented on national stages including SXSW, Adweek, Aspen Ideas, and TEDx. She is also the author of the forthcoming book, More Than Your Job (June 2027), which explores how to redefine success beyond a single job title.
In addition to her leadership and strategic work, Faye is a published author, with bylines in publications including Harvard Business Review, HuffPost, Newsweek, and AARP Magazine. She holds a law degree from Howard University School of Law, an MA in Writing from Johns Hopkins University, and a BA in English from Binghamton University. Her extensive experience and passion for storytelling drive her mission to help individuals and organizations craft narratives that resonate, build trust, and inspire action.
Consultants
Culture and Quill collaborates with exceptional consultants to ensure our clients receive specialized, well-rounded expertise. Our trusted partners bring deep knowledge across various industries, helping us craft impactful strategies and stories that drive meaningful results.
Jai Guess, Senior Consultant
Jai Guess is an Emmy®-award winning Director of Marketing and Social Media, most notably at Harpo Studios, a multimedia production company founded by media mogul Oprah Winfrey. She has more than fifteen years of experience creating integrated marketing campaigns across multiple mediums with a passion for brand development and awareness.
At Harpo Studios, Jai was responsible for conceiving, designing and executing marketing strategies across all of Oprah Winfrey’s and OWN: The Oprah Winfrey Network’s social media platforms and integrating them on air and at live events. She was an integral part of Oprah’s Book Club and Oprah’s Lifeclass team, winning a primetime interactive Emmy for Outstanding Creative Achievement in Social TV experience in 2013.
Currently, Jai is a marketing and public relations consultant helping entrepreneurs, small business and nonprofits grow and refine their branding and digital presence. She is also a proud Latina, native Spanish speaker with the ability to help American brands tap into the vast Hispanic Latino-Latinx media landscape. She graduated from Hofstra University with a BA in Television Production and Communications and Rollins College Crummer Graduate School of Business, Edith Bush Institute for Philanthropy & Nonprofit Leadership. Her biggest achievement is being a wife and mother of two amazing children. Learn more about Jai here.
