Michael Joseph Brown is the seventeenth president of Payne Theological Seminary. He has served in this capacity for ten years. An ordained elder in the African Methodist Episcopal Church, Brown served as pastor of Bethel AME Church in Lafayette, Indiana. Prior to his arrival at Payne, he taught at Wabash College in Crawfordsville, Indiana, and at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia. While at Emory, he served as the chair of biblical studies and director of the Graduate Division of Religion. Brown holds a bachelor’s degree in religious studies from Vanderbilt University, and he earned an MDiv and a PhD from the University of Chicago.

Ann Garrido is associate professor of homiletics at Aquinas Institute of Theology in St. Louis, Missouri, where she has held multiple administrative roles, including the director of the Doctorate of Ministry in Preaching, director of field education, and director of the Masters of Pastoral Studies in Catechesis of the Good Shepherd. She is the author of multiple award-winning books in the fields of preaching and ministerial leadership including the popular "Redeeming" trilogy: Redeeming Administration (2013); Redeeming Conflict (2016); and Redeeming Power (2024). She has spoken with leaders in more than 350 education, social service, and health care settings.

Amy Kardash serves as president of the In Trust Center for Theological Schools, a role she has held since 2017. She previously served as the director of programs for eight years. Kardash oversees In Trust Center's programs and initiatives in resourcing more than 240 seminaries, theological schools, and affiliate organizations. In 2012, she collaborated to create the expanded In Trust Center, launching Resource Consulting, enhanced learning community space, and new grant-funded initiatives. During her leadership, the In Trust Center has redeveloped In Trust magazine, created new programs and modes of connecting with leaders, and cultivated critical institutional partnerships in support of theological school leaders.

Chris A. Meinzer, senior director and COO for The Association of Theological Schools (ATS), is a CPA with more than 25 years of experience in the nonprofit sector. Since joining the ATS staff in 1999, he has provided oversight of ATS financial and business affairs as well as the ATS institutional database—a repository of institutional, enrollment, personnel, financial, and development data provided by ATS members. Meinzer has done extensive analysis and research of this data and presented his findings in a variety of settings to administrators and boards of theological schools.

In addition, he has provided counsel to ATS member schools on issues of finances, organizational planning, and strategic thinking. Through discussions with theological schools and their leadership, Meinzer has encouraged reflection on intergenerational stewardship and its impact on both academics and economics within these schools. He has designed and implemented a revision of the ATS Strategic Information Report, a useful strategic tool that provides ATS member schools with peer and industry data on a variety of market fundamentals.

Meinzer holds an accounting degree from The Pennsylvania State University and a Master of Divinity degree from Pittsburgh Theological Seminary.

G. Sujin Pak is dean of the Boston University School of Theology and a historian of Christianity. Previously, she served as academic dean and vice dean at Duke Divinity School. Her scholarship focuses on the Protestant reformations, the history of biblical interpretation, women and the Reformation, and Christian-Jewish relations. Diversity, belonging, and inclusion are important commitments of her leadership, scholarship, and teaching.

Anna Robbins serves as president of Acadia Divinity College and dean of theology for Acadia University in Nova Scotia, Canada. She earned BA, MRE, and MA degrees, and completed her PhD in Wales before being appointed to the faculty of the London School of Theology in the United Kingdom, where she served for 12 years as a teacher and academic leader. In 2012, she returned to Nova Scotia with her family, to join the faculty at Acadia Divinity College, and was appointed president in 2019. She is committed to the engagement of faith and culture, enthusiastic about adaptive and innovative leadership, and excited about future possibilities for theological education and the church.

Ted A. Smith is Charles Howard Candler Professor of Divinity and associate dean of faculty at Emory University's Candler School of Theology. He also serves as director of the Theological Education between the Times project and as co-principal investigator, with Joanne Solis-Walker, of Candler's innovative Pathways for Tomorrow grant projects. Smith is the author of three books: The End of Theological Education (2023), Weird John Brown (2015), and The New Measures (2007). Together, these books try to think theologically about core American Protestant institutions, practices, ideals, and rhetoric in the time of their unraveling. Ordained to ministry in the Presbyterian Church (USA), Smith served as pastor to two small-membership churches prior to his doctoral studies.

Andy Wakefield joined the faculty of Campbell University Divinity School in 1997. He has held the Tyner Endowed Chair of Biblical Studies since 2008, and in 2010, was named dean of Campbell University Divinity School. Wakefield’s primary academic focus has been on the letters of Paul and, more recently, on the book of Revelation. Over the past 27 years, he has taught not only in the areas of New Testament and Greek, but also in preaching, leadership, technology and ministry, and spiritual formation. As dean, he has continued to teach one class per semester. At the end of May 2025, he will step down from his administrative role and resume the role of full-time faculty member. Throughout his service to the university, Wakefield has also been deeply invested in service to the church. An ordained minister in the Baptist tradition, he has served 14 churches as an interim pastor and dozens more as supply preacher, Bible study teacher, and retreat leader. He and his family helped to start Baptist Fellowship of Angier, a mission-focused church that explored innovative polity and structure. As he turns his attention back to teaching and research, he is especially interested in pursuing writing projects that lie at the intersection of theological education and the life of the church. Wakefield earned his Master of Divinity degree from the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and his PhD in New Testament from Duke University.

Courtney Wiley-Harris is the vice president for institutional advancement at Colgate Rochester Crozer Divinity School (CRCDS). She has more than 12 years of executive administration and higher education/teaching experience, focusing on nonprofit leadership, management, marketing, and fundraising. Prior to her work at CRCDS, she was the vice president of development and institutional advancement at New York Theological Seminary, before which she served the Department of Education for the City of New York as a classroom teacher and staff developer for 12 years. She is the founder of Creative Workship LLC Consultancy, which serves faith-based institutions and organizations in leadership training and development. Wiley-Harris earned her MA in urban affairs from Hunter College, and her MDiv and DMin from New York Theological Seminary. She has an Executive Certificate in Religious Fundraising from the Lilly Family School of Philanthropy, and she is a 2018 graduate of the Institute of Educational Management at Harvard University.

Frank M. Yamada began as executive director of The Association of Theological Schools in July 2017. He oversees the work of both the Association and the Commission on Accrediting. Prior to ATS, he joined the McCormick faculty in 2008 as associate professor of Hebrew Bible and director of the Center for Asian American Ministries. In 2011, he was elected as McCormick’s tenth president—the first Asian American to lead a Presbyterian Church (USA) seminary. His tenure there was marked by increasing diversity in McCormick’s student body and creative engagement with the shifting realities of theological education. Yamada previously had taught Hebrew Bible/Old Testament for nine years at Seabury-Western Theological Seminary in Evanston, Illinois.

An active biblical scholar, Yamada has authored and edited books and articles on cross-cultural and feminist hermeneutics. He is a member of the Society of Biblical Literature, where he has served as a chair and as a steering committee member of the Asian American Biblical Hermeneutics Group, the Feminist Hermeneutics of the Bible Section, and the Committee for Underrepresented Racial and Ethnic Minorities in the Profession. In addition, he was a member of the Ethnic Chinese Biblical Colloquium and the American Academy of Religion, and he was the cochair for the Managing Board of the Asian Pacific Americans and Religion Research Initiative annual conference.

A graduate of Southern California College, Yamada earned his Master of Divinity and Doctor of Philosophy from Princeton Theological Seminary. He is an ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church, USA and has written and spoken on the future of the church and theological education.