Jim Powell to leave international group he helped establish A major change in leadership in the global Christian products market will take place at the International Christian Retail Show (ICRS) this month, when Jim Powell steps down as president of Christian Trade Association International (CTAI). Taking the helm of the group linking suppliers and retailers around the world is Kim Pettit, currently chief operating officer, who has been with the organization since 2009. The former international director for CBA who was a driving force in establishing CTAI when the U.S.-based retailers association shed its overseas chapters in 2005, Powell plans to serve as a mission-station guest house manager in New Guinea with his wife, Peggy. “It’s time,” he said of his departure. “I am 67 and sense a strong desire to serve the kingdom in a new way.” In addition, Pettit was well-positioned with “new initiatives and energy” to help CTAI develop and support the growing international market for Christian resources, Powell told Christian Retailing. Having previously served as president of the International Bible Society, Powell joined CBA as international director in 1994. With the founding of CTAI, he hosted an annual international celebration lunch and the International Marketsquare section at the exhibit floor of CBA’s summer show, providing a meeting point for those doing international business. In 2008, CTAI debuted Marketsquare International, an annual January show providing a one-stop North American buying opportunity for overseas visitors in the absence of CBA’s canceled winter show. CTAI currently has 18 member nations and produces an international business directory that lists hundreds of suppliers and retailers in around 50 countries. “I’m excited about the challenge in the sense that I have a real passion for seeing God’s Word touch lives,” said Pettit, 47, who was editor of David C. Cook’s Interlit magazine for Christian publishers for 10 years before joining CTAI. “I know that, for me, books were very significant in my life; they were how I was discipled in lots of ways.” Having lived and traveled overseas while growing up with a banker father, Pettit said that the addition of some 1,500 bookstores in Brazil to the much-expanded next CTAI directory reflected the continued growth of the global market despite economic challenges. CTAI would continue to focus on concerns of the international market, she said, such as distribution and relevant content. “So much of the focus we have here in the U.S. and the West has been on the change with e-books because of technology, but that is not so much the issue in other countries,” she said. Pettit paid tribute to Powell’s role in establishing CTAI. “He is the person who has made it happen,” she said. “His vision and his passion is responsible for making sure that industry shows that we can learn from one another, and that together we can work and grow more effectively.” Intending to continue to be involved with CTAI’s World Ministries nonprofit arm, Powell said that he believed that CTAI was “at the heart of what God is doing worldwide ... raising up capable, committed passionate people who are catching the vision of a world turning to Him.” The overseas market was not one, but many, he added, with each country having unique features. There were “excellent opportunities” and most suppliers had realized that the commercial market was “the critical way to see distribution sustain and grow.” However, some Third World areas would still need free distribution for some years to come. “Unfortunately, for the sake of the commercial markets in the Global South, many still treat them as dumping grounds for used or inappropriate product, and spoil the market for nationals and others who better understand more appropriate product,” he said.
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