About MELISSA
Pigs Fly
I can sum up my career in three words: Never say never. I’ve learned things I never thought I’d learn, done things I never thought I'd do, and met people I never thought I’d meet. I am nothing but grateful.
Melissa Jordan Grey brings decades of experience as a creative technologist, strategist, entrepreneur & digital media artist. A consummate communicator, problem-solver, and passionate contributor, she sits squarely at the intersection of the logical and creative.
Rainmaker
After earning a degree in music/media studies at Indiana University (Phi Beta Kappa/ Summa Cum Laude), she received an International Radio & Television Society Summer Fellowship and later attended the University of Southern California's master's program in cinema television before leaving to co-found her first company.
Her interest in music led her to co-found The Blue Ribbon SoundWorks, which pioneered music technology, doubling in revenue and profit five years in a row. Her company’s AudioActive interactive music engine won Best of Comdex and soon was acquired by Microsoft.
At Microsoft, Grey served in a variety of leadership roles, including business development, creative direction, marketing & product design. Her group's Interactive Music Architecture found its way into PowerPoint, MSN, Internet Explorer, and Windows as part of DirectX. Pushing the limits, she created Rifff, an online interactive music experience with musicians BB King, Cyndi Lauper, Sir Mixalot, and more. Before leaving, Grey worked in Microsoft's digital media division on personalized, convergence-centric digital media experiences.
After leaving Microsoft, she founded BrandAcuity, Inc.—which ultimately became Mindsight, LLC— to help develop marketing and business development teams of startup companies, such as MixMeister, LLC, ultimately acquired by Numark/InMusic, Inc. Mindsight also delivered music technology to Beamz, a laser-based music device heavily promoted by Flo Rida.
She relocated to San Diego to start, with her husband, Todor Fay, a video graphics company NewBlue, Inc., whose partnerships have included Adobe Corporation, Sony Corporation, Avid Technologies, Telestream, and other video production technologies. Today, she serves as NewBlue’s Executive Chair and Chief Creative Officer.
Creator
A seasoned creative director, artist, playwright, author, filmmaker & songwriter, Melissa has performed on stage as a jazz saxophonist, standup comic, musical improviser, actor, and cabaret performer. As a teen, she played jazz saxophone for weddings, local clubs, and theatrical productions. During that time, she also worked as a session player in local studios.
Grey composed the multimedia score for the City of Atlanta's '96 Olympic bid and recorded musical parodies performed on KIIS-FM’s “Make it or Break it”. Today, her work can be found on San Diego stages, major digital audio streams, and Areasonica Records.
More recently, Melissa’s forged a new path as an award-winning playwright and author. You’ll find her written pieces in Zibby Owens’ substack, as well as three editions of Shaking the Tree, edited by Marni Freedman and Tracy J. Jones. She’s won the International Memoir Writers Associations Memoir Showcase competition twice, in ‘22 and ‘23. Her pieces Trial and Error and A Walk in the Park were heard at the San Diego Writers Festival.
Most recently, her full-length play, Cringe, was chosen for the Trinity Theater Company’s 2025 New Works Festival in San Diego. Grey is also the co-founder of San Diego’s What Next? Collective, a season group of playwrights, actors and directors who aim to amplify the untold stories of women.
Changemaker
Passionate about empowering girls, Melissa launched WOW in 2013, now a national STEM-based organization focused on engagement in FIRST Robotics. She’s served on the IRTS (International Radio and Television Society) Foundation board and the board of the San Diego Performing Arts League. As mentioned above, she co-founded The WhatNext? Collective in 2023 to empower women playwrights, actors and directors.
Melissa has been actively involved in her local community regarding issues of first-generation educational access, homelessness, and food insecurity. During the Covid pandemic, she regularly delivered food to seniors and families in need through Project-19, which she wrote extensively about here.
Melissa and her husband reside in La Jolla, California, and are proud parents to two young adults who recently grafuated from Stanford University and are now out there fully adulting as best as anyone can in 2025. :) One of her great joys is mentoring young women and entrepreneurs, which she currently does as part of her professional practice as well as on a volunteer basis.