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MAY 9–10, 2023 | Nashville

SPEAKERS

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Dr. David Anderson
Founder and President of Gracism Global

Dr. David Anderson, founder and President of Gracism Global, is one of the world’s leading authorities on bridging the deep divides of race, faith, culture, and wealth. Known as the bridge-building voice in the Nation's Capital, Anderson hosts the daily radio talk show "Real Talk with Dr. David Anderson" on WAVA (105.1 FM) – the most listened to Christian talk station on the East Coast. As the founder and senior pastor of Bridgeway Community Church, Dr. Anderson reaches a multicultural congregation of over 10,000 weekly attendees from more than 60 nations, viewed online in over 100 countries, with locations in Columbia and Owings Mills, Maryland.

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Peter Cerra
President of SEPA (Spanish Evangelical Publishers Association)
Senior Director of International Sales and Publishing for Tyndale House Publishers

Peter Cerra currently serves as the President of SEPA (Spanish Evangelical Publishers Association) as well as Senior Director of International Sales and Publishing for Tyndale House Publishers. With over 30 years of experience in the Christian publishing industry in many areas including Sales Forecasting, Sales and Marketing, his passion is to grow the Christian market globally.

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Rick Denham
Global Manager, Desiring God Ministries; International Director, 9Marks

Rick Denham serves as the Global spreading manager with Desiring God ministries and is the International director of 9Marks. Raised in Brazil in a missionary family, Rick returned to the States for college and afterward started a merchandising company in the Christian Music Industry. In 2005, after 17 years in the music industry, Rick and his wife Kimberlie returned to Brazil to serve as missionaries. At this point, Rick began working with FIEL, a Brazilian publishing and teaching ministry his parents started in 1966, and continues to serve as their International Director. The Denhams live in São Paulo, Brazil, with their children, James, Lilah, and Julieta.

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Brian Flagler
Managing Partner, Flagler Law Group

Brian Flagler is the Managing Partner of Flagler Law Group. Before founding Flagler Law Group, which specializes on publishing and intellectual property matters, Brian served as Vice President of Administration & General Counsel of Multnomah Publishers, where he led the human resources, information technology and operations departments, was responsible for all corporate legal matters for the company, and served as a member of Multnomah’s executive leadership team. Previously, Brian practiced intellectual property and corporate law in the Portland, Oregon office of Davis Wright Tremaine LLP and in the Atlanta, Georgia office of Troutman Sanders LLP. Brian also served as an adjunct instructor of intellectual property law at Clayton College & State University. He holds a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. Brian and his wife Amy have three sons and enjoy hiking the mountain trails and paddling the many rivers and lakes surrounding Asheville. Brian launched the firm in response to a sermon on John 15, feeling called to “bear fruit” through more than one Christian publishing organization. He would enjoy the opportunity to share the full story with you personally over a cup of coffee at the next conference or publishing industry event.

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Peter Greer
President and CEO of HOPE International

Peter Greer is the president and CEO of HOPE International. Peter’s favorite part of his job is spending time with the entrepreneurs HOPE serves—whether harvesting coffee with farmers in Rwanda, dancing alongside savings groups in Haiti, or visiting the greenhouses of entrepreneurs in Ukraine. Prior to HOPE, he worked in Rwanda, Cambodia, and Zimbabwe and received a master's in public policy from Harvard’s Kennedy School. In his spare time, he has co-authored 13 books, including “Mission Drift” and “Rooting for Rivals.” He lives with his wife, Laurel, and their four children in Lancaster, PA.

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Christopher Hudson
President, Peachtree Publishing Services

Christopher Hudson is the President of Peachtree Publishing Services. Peachtree's mission is to protect and advance God's Word by proofreading Bibles and developing resources that help readers engage the Bible. Christopher is the author of 100 Names of God (Rose) and The Most Significant Teachings in the Bible (Zondervan). Christopher and his wife of 28 years serve their local church in Northern Illinois and enjoy travelling to visit their three adult children.

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Justin Paul Lawrence
Divisional Vice President for Go-To-Market at InterVarsity Press

Justin Paul Lawrence is Divisional Vice President for Go-To-Market at InterVarsity Press. A 20-year veteran of the Christian publishing industry, he has begun to conduct management and marketing training over the past five years. He holds an MBA from Grand Valley State University and has been trained by Manager Tools. His passion is for organizations to be great places to work while simultaneously being effective in their efforts.

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Stephen Macchia
Founder and President of Leadership Transformations, Inc.
Director of the Pierce Center at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary

Rev. Dr. Stephen Macchia is founder and president of Leadership Transformations, Inc. and director of the Pierce Center at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary. LTI is a ministry which focuses on the spiritual formation needs of leaders and the spiritual discernment processes of leadership teams in local church and parachurch ministry settings nationwide. Steve is an ordained minister, conference speaker, retreat facilitator, ministry mentor/coach, and spiritual director. He’s also the author of sixteen books, including “The Discerning Life “(Zondervan), “Crafting a Rule of Life” (IVP), and “Becoming a Healthy Church” (Baker). He resides in Lexington MA with his wife Ruth and is the proud father of two adult children and three delightful grandchildren.

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Kristen McLean
Executive Director of Business Development, Circana

Kristen McLean is the Executive Director of Business Development at Circana (formerly The NPD Group). With more than 20 years of experience in the publishing industry in roles including retailing, sales, marketing, and industry advocacy, she oversees research into the consumer behavior of readers, and she is Circana's in-house specialist on both the Children's and the Christian markets. She is the editor of the recent ECPA Landscape Survey of Book Buying Trends in the Christian Market. As part of her role as an industry strategist, Kristen speaks extensively on issues facing the publishing world including the effect of technology and culture on books and reading, and evolving models for publishing. Kristen is deeply interested in the confluence of consumer behavior, technology, literacy, and global information in the Digital Age.

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Brittany Passino
Director, International Marketing and Publicity, HarperCollins Christian and HarperCollins Focus Publishing

Brittany Passino is the Director of International Marketing and Publicity for HarperCollins Christian and HarperCollins Focus. She has over 17 years’ experience spearheading global marketing and communications campaigns, with several titles becoming international bestsellers. She holds an MA, International Business from University of Edinburgh and an MA, Leadership and Public Service from Lipscomb University.

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Sam Richardson
Chief Executive of SPCK

Sam Richardson is Chief Executive of SPCK, the UK’s largest Christian publisher. Sam started his career on the graduate scheme at HarperCollins, where he progressed to run the Religion department. He then returned to publishing general books at Hodder & Stoughton before being appointed Chief Executive of SPCK in 2014. Under Sam’s leadership SPCK has won Specialist Consumer Publisher of the Year four times and has increased its income by 150%, by organic growth and by acquisitions of IVP UK and Lion Hudson. Sam is passionate about the life-changing power of Christian books and media, and is treasurer of Media Associates International in Europe. Sam is married to Sarah and is a father of three boys, with his free time dedicated mostly to running and soccer.

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Cindy Riggins
President, Riggins Rights Management

Cindy Riggins has 29 years of international rights experience in Christian publishing. After working as International Licensing Director for Thomas Nelson for ten years, she opened Riggins Rights Management in 2003. The company serves the publishing industry as a "business-to-business" service that links its client's proprietary property and publisher's acquiring rights and provides comprehensive rights management services. Throughout her Christian publisher career, Cindy has had involvement in over 10,000 licenses worldwide. Cindy has also been very active with the Evangelical Christian Publishers Association as one of the founders of their rights managers association. She is a frequent speaker at industry events on the subject of rights.

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Carolyn Weber
Author, Speaker, Professor

Carolyn Weber is a professor at New College Franklin and the author of the award-winning memoir Surprised by Oxford (Thomas Nelson), Holy is the Day: Living in the Gift of the Present (InterVarsity Press) and most recently Sex and the City of God: A Memoir of Love and Longing (InterVarsity Press). Surprised by Oxford is now being made into a feature film directed by Ryan Whitaker. A Commonwealth Scholar, Dr. Weber has served as faculty at Oxford University, Seattle University, University of San Francisco, and Westmont College, and was the first female dean of St. Peter’s College, Oxford. Carolyn enjoys living in a quirky old house out in the country with her husband, four spirited children, and grandma, along with their animal menagerie. She loves oh so many things, but especially books, tea, nature walks in solitude, messes with children, chocolate, animals, and a circle of good friends by a fire. She also loves loyalty, decency, courtesy, integrity and kindness. And her husband, who embodies these things, and more. Valiant, magnificent, gentle and just – the four crowns of Narnia – are what she aspires to be. Those with any wisdom to share are encouraged to reach out. New friends are welcome. There is always a comfortable chair waiting by the fire…

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Joe Wikert
President, Revenue Path Group

Joe Wikert is president of Revenue Path Group, a consultancy which helps organizations maximize revenue and upskill their B2B sales teams. His career spans the publishing and technology sectors with executive roles at Macmillan, John Wiley & Sons, O'Reilly Media, Olive Software, and OSV.

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Philip Yancey
Author

Growing up in a strict, fundamentalist church in southern USA, a young Philip Yancey tended to view God as “a scowling Supercop, searching for anyone who might be having a good time—in order to squash them.”  Yancey quips today about being “in recovery” from a toxic church: “We were taught that God answers prayers, miraculously, but my father died of polio just after my first birthday, despite many prayers for his healing.”  For Yancey, reading offered a window to a different world. So, he devoured books that opened his mind, challenged his upbringing, and went against what he had been taught.  A sense of betrayal engulfed him. “I felt I had been lied to… I realized that God had been misrepresented to me.  Cautiously, warily, I returned, circling around the faith to see if it might be true.”

Ever since, Yancey has explored the most basic questions and deepest mysteries of the Christian faith, guiding millions of readers with him.  Early on he crafted best-selling books such as Disappointment with God and Where is God When it Hurts?  More recently, he has explored central issues of the Christian faith, penning award-winning titles such as The Jesus I Never Knew, What’s So Amazing About Grace? and Prayer: Does It Make Any Difference?  Philip has written over 30 books, most of them still in print, having sold more than 20 million copies.  His books have garnered 12 Gold Medallion Awards, one Christian Book Award®, two Christian Book of the Year® Awards, and have been published in some 50 languages worldwide.  In his new memoir, Where the Light Fell, Yancey reveals secrets of his turbulent childhood and teen years.  Serving as a type of prequel to all his other books, this memoir takes the reader on a journey from that strict fundamentalism of his youth to Yancey’s dedicated search for grace and meaning.

Philip Yancey worked as a journalist in Chicago for some twenty years, editing the youth magazine Campus Life while also writing for a wide variety of magazines including Reader’s Digest, Saturday Evening Post, National Wildlife, and Christianity Today.  In the process he interviewed diverse people enriched by their personal faith, such as President Jimmy Carter, Habitat for Humanity founder Millard Fuller, and Dame Cicely Saunders, founder of the modern hospice movement.

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