EMERGING LEADERS PROGRAM 2026
These sessions are offered only for the 2026 class of Emerging Leader scholars who are recipients of the PubU scholarship and mentorship program. They will be offered the morning of November 4 before the PubU program begins.
SESSION ONE
How to Make the Most of Mentoring
In this session, you’ll learn from these master mentors how to make the most of your mentoring relationship in 2027. They’ll share insights on how to determine what you want out of a mentor relationship, how to best communicate with your mentor, how to advocate for yourself, and how to be flexible to be open to growing as the mentorship continues.
Jennifer Butenschoen
Jennifer (Jenn) Butenschoen is the Director of Production & Digital Content at Harvest House Publishers. Jenn overseas a stellar production team that collaborates with multiple departments to effectively facilitate the creation of company product. She manages global manufacturing, eBook distribution and licensing, and related industry partnerships for both. As a seasoned publishing professional, Jenn has a passion for working together to create beautiful, high quality, gospel-centered product that glorifies God and points people to Jesus Christ as the answer to every human need. Jenn is an outdoor enthusiast that lives in the Pacific Northwest where she and her husband enjoy spending time with family and friends. She also enjoys serving as a leadership coach for the small groups ministry at her home church.
Dave Almack
Dave Almack is an experienced and innovative leader in the Christian publishing and retail industry. He is the current Director of Sales, Marketing and Acquisitions for P&R Publishing in Phillipsburg, NJ and was previously the National Director for CLC USA and Publisher for CLC Publications for over twenty years. His time in CLC included oversight of their US based Christian retail stores and management of a store in Philadelphia whose sales quadrupled in a six-year time frame. He is also the Director of the Academy of Christian Editors, an avid reader and a fan of the Tottenham Hotspurs Football team in the Premier League.
Trillia Newbell
Trillia Newbell is the author of several books including Celebrating Around the Table, 52 Weeks in the Word, A Great Cloud of Witnesses, Sacred Endurance, If God is For Us, Fear and Faith, and the children's books, The Big Wide Welcome, Creative God, Colorful Us and God's Very Good Idea. When she isn't writing, she's encouraging and supporting other writers as the Acquisitions and Editorial Director at Moody Publishers. Trillia is married to her best friend, Thern; they reside with their two children near Nashville, Tennessee.
SESSION TWO
A Winding Road: Your Career in Publishing
Over the course of your career in publishing, chances are you’ll see a lot of changes. From job titles to industry issues, these leaders in Christian publishing have experienced and weathered the changes and challenges that they have faced. Now, they’re sharing their insights with you. They’ll talk about their career journeys and incidents that shaped them and they’ll also be ready to answer your most pressing questions about how to navigate change in the industry.
Cris Garrido
Cris Garrido is Vice President and Publisher at HarperCollins Christian Publishing, where he leads the company’s Spanish-language Bible and trade publishing programs worldwide. His career has taken him from international business and global ministry to launching new publishing imprints and leading the transformation of an established global publishing division. Before joining HarperCollins, Cris was the founding publisher of LifeWay’s Spanish-language trade and Bible imprints, building the program from the ground up. During his eight years at HarperCollins, he has led the Spanish division through significant growth and organizational change while expanding its reach among Spanish-speaking readers and churches around the world. Cris holds degrees in management, education, and theology, as well as postgraduate studies in publishing. He and his wife, Georgina, live in the Nashville area with their two children.
Whitney Hicks
Whitney Hicks is an award-winning graphic designer. She holds a bachelor’s degree in advertising from the University of Tennessee. She started her publishing design career in 2012 on a contract basis and subsequently transitioned into a go-to freelance resource for the Hachette team. She joined Hachette Book Group full-time in 2016. In her tenure, she’s contributed her talents via design, production, and art direction to over 500 titles with Hachette Book Group.
Cheryl Kerwin
Cheryl Kerwin has been working in various areas of the Christian Retail industry for over 40 years, starting as a customer service rep in a Christian bookstore, to a promotions manager with a retail marketing group, to a Senior Marketing Manager and now Sales Channel Director at one of the most respected Christian publishers in the industry. Cheryl’s career started in 1985 when she was hired at one of the largest and most honored Christian bookstores in the country. This training Cheryl received instilled a “striving for excellence” principle that she has taken into each and every job since then. During her 16+ years of retail experience she specialized in employee development, vendor relations, product knowledge (books, music and kids), promotions and merchandising. The knowledge acquired during her years in retail has given her a unique perspective of how to get a product into the consumer’s hands. During her 20+ years at Tyndale House Publishers she’s been a part of one of the most innovative sales and marketing teams in the industry having marketed many New York Times bestselling titles like the Left Behind series and Joel C. Rosenberg and authors Francine Rivers, Chuck Norris, Karen Kingsbury and Phil Vischer. Being on the Sales team has given her a well-rounded knowledge of publishing and getting product into the hands of consumers. The Sales Rep team Cheryl manages benefit from the years of management training she has received and are among some of the most respected Sales Reps in the industry.
TRACK LEAD
Andrea Garcia
Andrea Garcia a senior marketing manager at Tyndale House Publishers, working primarily on fiction titles. Andrea brings years of marketing and publishing industry experience to her role. She works to find the best way to reach the right reader for every book, and she enjoys collaborating with authors to release their books into the world. Andrea enjoys a good story, which has led to a lengthy to-be-read pile, a robust streaming queue, and more library fines than she’d like to admit.
We are grateful for the support of our sponsors:
PREMIUM
GENERAL
For more information on sponsoring this event, contact [email protected]