Val Gay is Philadelphia’s Chief Cultural Officer and the Executive Director of Creative Philadelphia, where she helps shape the city’s artistic life and supports the people who power it. She’s a nonprofit leader, performing and recording artist, and creative collaborator who moves comfortably between boardrooms, classrooms, and rehearsal studios.

Before stepping into city leadership, Val built a career that blended finance, higher education, and the arts. She held key roles at PNC Advisors, Art Sanctuary, Temple University, and the Barnes Foundation. Her projects have earned support from the Leeway Foundation, Black Music City, and Philadelphia Cultural Treasures.

What drives her is simple: a belief that creativity and community make each other stronger. Val continues to build spaces where both can grow. She holds music degrees from Temple University and the University of the Arts.

Local partners

The Center provides Philadelphia with educational programs, exhibitions, and a public forum to explore architecture, urban planning, and design, allowing visitors the opportunity to understand how these disciplines affect us all in our daily lives. Using our city’s distinctive breadth of architecture, pioneering urban design, and manufacturing heritage as the foundation for conversation, we educate the public through talks, exhibitions, publications, hands-on workshops, design competitions, festivals, and children’s programming.

Once a naval base, now a 1,200-acre waterfront campus where creativity, business, and green space collide. Home to 150+ companies and 15,000 workers, and for the first time in decades, residents too. With bold architecture, public art, and big plans ahead, it’s Philly’s engine of innovation.

Learn more about the Navy Yard! Website: navyyard.org Facebook: @TheNavyYard Instagram: @navyyardphila