Executive has held variety of roles at several publishers

Gospel Light’s board of directors has named Dave Thornton as the company’s new chief executive officer.

Thornton joined Gospel Light in 2013 as director of church sales and most recently served as director of sales and marketing. He served 17 years at Group Publishing in a variety of roles, from director of product development to director of church leadership and finally director of global innovations. Previously he worked in marketing at David C Cook.

The board and CEO are refocusing the company on the mission given to Gospel Light’s founder, Henrietta C. Mears—to know Christ and make Him known.

“I dream of a day when Gospel Light will be seen as the trusted global leader in providing Christ-connecting, Bible-based, disciple-making resources to help the church reach children and their families for Christ through products and resources that are available anytime and anywhere around the world,” Thornton said.

Board members believe Thornton is the right man to lead the company.

“The Gospel Light board and senior management team are working diligently to reinvent ourselves for the 21st century, so that the new Gospel Light will be positioned to impact the church in the next generation,” said Kathy Rowland, chair of the Gospel Light board. “Our goal is to become the leading publisher of Christ-centered, biblically based Sunday school curriculum, VBS programs and other resources that challenge the next generation of church leaders to know Christ and make Him known. To this end, the board has appointed Dave Thornton as the new CEO.”

Rowland spoke of Thornton’s “proven track record as a CEO” and ability to “coordinate management and staff to create and execute a strategic plan to achieve corporate goals, to cast vision, to build a world-class leadership team and to hold the team accountable to performance objectives.” —Johnson

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