Rachelle McCray

Rachelle's business experience spans various roles in several industries such as consumer product goods, patient advocacy in biomedical technologies, television, and media. 

Today, Rachelle is the CEO, Co-Founder, and Co-Inventor of Wisely Inc., a woman-majority-owned company that creates patented Smart Food Storage Container Systems to help reduce food waste from farm to table. She also served as the Principal Investigator of a Phase I SBIR grant in 2023 funded through the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

Wisely, Inc. is currently focused on its consumer household food waste reduction solution and is a current cohort participant in the Rev: Ithaca Startup Work Manufacturing Hardware Accelerator funded by the U.S. Department of Commerce's Economic Development Administration and offered in partnership with the College of Engineering at Cornell University. Additionally, the company is a recent participant in the 2022 NYSERDA-funded ClimateTech Prototyping Hardware Accelerator hosted at Rev, during which applications of the Wisely technology to the reduction of food waste in the farming sector were explored. The result of this effort was a working prototype for agriculture applications that have been benchtop validated with user testing anticipated in late 2024. Due to their innovative technology and early traction, Wisely was recently named one of only 20 finalist companies in the prestigious Grow NY competition in the winter of 2023 where they competed for one of the top prizes totaling 3 million dollars.

Recently, Rachelle completed the Cornell University certification program for Women in Entrepreneurship, which was followed by the completion of her NSF I-Corps certification for Entrepreneurial Team Leadership for customer discovery practices. Additionally, Rachelle has been asked to deliver keynote speeches at REV: Ithaca Start Up Works In New York and has offered her expertise on industry panels such as Cornell University's Entrepreneurship Week, and the ReFED Food Summit, among others.

Prior to Founding Wisely, Rachelle worked as a nationally recognized television host for several major television networks, including the world's largest home shopping network, QVC, where she was selected as 1 of 6 new hosts out of 17,000 applicants. The time spent in this role brought her considerable experience in understanding product and consumer insights that help to drive sales for company profitability. 

As a passion project, Rachelle volunteers time with her husband as the Co-Founder and Executive Director of the MinMinBear Foundation (www.minminbearfoundation.org), a 501(c)3 non-profit organization that delivers comfort teddy bear kits to hospitals around the country for pediatric patients and their families that are battling kidney disease. To date, the organization has sent more than 10,000 comfort bear kits to patients nationwide.