For the past 13 years, I have served as the President and CEO of East-West. I have loved my time in this role and feel immensely blessed to have the opportunity to lead this organization as we seek to fulfill the Great Commission. After a great amount of prayer, I believe the Lord is leading East-West into an exciting new season of leadership growth and development.
And so, with the full support of the East-West Board of Directors, I have prayerfully made the decision to divide my roles and responsibilities as East-West’s President and CEO and name a new President while I remain in my current role as CEO.
Today, I am excited to share with you that Kristen Shuler has been selected as East-West’s next President. Having been with East-West since 2010 and most recently serving as East-West’s Executive Vice President of Development and Senior Vice President of Field Leadership, Kristen has an incredible understanding of and dedication to East-West’s vision and mission. She continually demonstrates unparalleled leadership among East-West staff, partners, and donors.
As our next President, Kristen will focus on managing the daily operations of East-West through leading our field ministry, support operations, and development teams, while continuing to focus on external partnerships and fundraising as well.
As CEO, I will focus more externally on recruiting new Board members and key talent, pursuing future partnership opportunities, and fundraising. Ultimately, our desire is to lead the vision and mission of East-West in a manner that best supports East-West and the incredible things God will continue to do among the unreached worldwide.
For the past 13 years, I have served as the President and CEO of East-West. I have loved my time in this role and feel immensely blessed to have the opportunity to lead this organization as we seek to fulfill the Great Commission. After a great amount of prayer, I believe the Lord is leading East-West into an exciting new season of leadership growth and development.
And so, with the full support of the East-West Board of Directors, I have prayerfully made the decision to divide my roles and responsibilities as East-West’s President and CEO and name a new President while I remain in my current role as CEO.
Today, I am excited to share with you that Kristen Shuler has been selected as East-West’s next President. Having been with East-West since 2010 and currently serving as East-West’s Executive Vice President of Development and Senior Vice President of Field Leadership, Kristen has an incredible understanding of and dedication to East-West’s vision and mission. She continually demonstrates unparalleled leadership among East-West staff, partners, and donors.
As our next President, Kristen will focus on managing the daily operations of East-West through leading our field ministry, support operations, and development teams, while continuing to focus on external partnerships and fundraising as well.
As CEO, I will focus more externally on recruiting new Board members and key talent, the pursuit of future partnership opportunities, and fundraising. Ultimately, our desire is to lead the vision and mission of East-West in a manner that best supports East-West and the incredible things God will continue to do among the unreached worldwide.
Kristin will fully step into the role of East-West’s President on May 22, 2024.
With Kristen’s transition, Chip Zielke has joined East-West as the new Executive Vice President of Development. Chip has taken over the responsibilities associated with this role, including raising the general fund ministry budget of East-West and overseeing the development and marketing teams.
This will be a wonderful new season for East-West, and I’m encouraged that our ministry’s vision and mission remain the same: to glorify God by multiplying followers of Jesus in the spiritually darkest areas of the world by mobilizing the Body of Christ to evangelize the lost and equip local believers to multiply disciples and churches among the unreached.
What a blessing it is to take part in all that God has already done and continues to do through the mission of East-West. To God be all the glory!
Sincerely,
Kurt Nelson
At East-West, the role of CEO and President are critical in providing overall vision and leadership in our ministry’s effort to fulfill our mission. Both roles serve on the Executive Leadership Team (ELT) but are distinct and serve a unique purpose with our team and in the life of our ministry.
Having two people serving in these two distinct roles allows for increased focus on growing East-West’s ability to fulfill our mission. We believe that having Kurt focus more on external efforts, while Kristen focuses more on our internal workings, will propel us further and allow us to serve more people. We believe the benefits far outweigh the cost of having two significant and impactful leaders.
Our entire Board and Executive Leadership Team believe that God has fully equipped Kristen Shuler to serve as East-West’s President and colead our ministry, reporting to Kurt Nelson as CEO.
Having been with East-West since 2010 and currently serving as East-West’s Executive Vice President of Development and Senior Vice President of Field Leadership, Kristen has an incredible understanding of and dedication to East-West’s vision and mission. She continually demonstrates unparalleled leadership among our staff, partners, and donors. Kristen has the knowledge and experience, combined with humility, to successfully step into the role of President.
We want to ensure this is a smooth and seamless transition for the ministry. Kristen currently serves as East-West’s Executive Vice President of Development and Senior Vice President of Field Leadership. A search process has begun to identify her successor. Once her successor is fully trained and successfully onboarded, Kristen will assume her responsibilities as East-West’s President. In the meantime, she will continue with her current roles, and Kurt will remain President and CEO.
We anticipate that Kristen will assume her responsibilities as President and Kurt will assume his responsibilities as CEO in less than a year.
As CEO, Kurt will continue to lead and serve on the Executive Leadership Team and focus more externally on recruiting new Board members and key talent, pursuing future partnership opportunities, and fundraising.
As our next President, Kristen will focus on managing the daily operations of East-West through leading our field ministry, support operations, and development teams, while continuing to focus on external partnerships and fundraising as well. She will also continue to serve as a member of our Executive Leadership Team.
Ultimately, Kurt and Kristen’s desire is to lead the vision and mission of East-West in a manner that best supports East-West and the incredible things God will continue to do among the unreached worldwide.
East-West recently celebrated its 30th year of ministry. It’s thrilling to watch how the Lord has sustained East-West and is now leading us into an exciting new season of leadership growth and development. We believe this will allow East-West the opportunity to expand our current Executive Leadership Team.
While this will be a wonderful new season for East-West, the ministry’s vision and mission remain the same: to glorify God by multiplying followers of Jesus in the spiritually darkest areas of the world by mobilizing the Body of Christ to evangelize the lost and equip local believers to multiply disciples and churches among the unreached.
Kurt Nelson is not retiring. He will continue to serve in a full-time capacity as East-West’s CEO and as the leader of the Executive Leadership Team.
We continue to be wholeheartedly committed to our mission and anticipate the Lord will use this transition to bring even greater financial support in our future.
There will be a period of transition as we work to identify Kristen’s successor in her current role as East-West’s Executive Vice President of Development. We do not anticipate any additional changes at this time.
Our President must be a proven, respected, and humble leader who is walking closely with the Lord. This person must be an excellent communicator who leads teams of people effectively and is committed to a lifestyle of ongoing learning and growth when it comes to missiological needs worldwide. We have seen Kristen demonstrate this impeccably and are delighted that she will be stepping into the role of President for East-West.
