Agency President, Michelle McCue, has raised a few eyebrows during her career. In late 2008, she decided the depths of a recession would be a great time to launch her own firm. When magazines started folding and newspapers started shrinking, she felt the time was right to double down on media relations. When social media was sneered at as a fad for kids, she treated bloggers, YouTubers and Facebookers to five-star media experiences previously reserved for elite, established journalists. When choosing to pursue either her passion for travel or her passion for wine, she decided to do both. And it all worked.

Today, she proudly leads McCue into a second decade of offering innovative solutions to PR and marketing challenges for wine, tourism and hospitality clients. Her original mission has now become the company’s mantra: To use creative, strategic on- and offline communications to inspire others to be as passionate as we are about the places and products we represent.

Michelle deeply believes in the power of a great story. She leads Team McCue and the agency’s clients in uncovering and developing the stories that make each brand unique, then finding the right channels to draw audiences into the story – whether through traditional print, owned video, native advertising, social media, influencer partnership or whatever comes next in the media space.

In her spare time, she mentors under-resourced, teenage girls to tell their stories through the nonprofit WriteGirl. She is a member of PRSA Travel, the Wine Market Council, the World Food Travel Association, Travel Massive, and Women for Wine Sense, and is a former board member of the CSU Fullerton Center for Entertainment & Tourism Studies and UCLA Extension Center’s Public Relations Advisory Board. She holds an MA in Communications from CSU Fullerton and a BA in Creative Writing from UC Riverside. She worked as a freelance journalist for five years before going to the dark side and committing her talents to marketing. Prior to founding McCue, she developed communications and marketing programs for leading tourism, hospitality and wine brands at Wagstaff Worldwide, Dan Fredman PR, LearnAboutWine, 2020 Wines and HugTheCook.com.