Elder Clark G. Gilbert was announced Thursday, February 12, 2026, as the newest member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. His call fills the vacancy that followed the passing of President Jeffrey R. Holland, who died December 27 at age 85. 

Years before today’s announcement, Elder Gilbert sat in a devotional hall in Lima, Peru, surrounded by first‑generation university students enrolled through BYU–Pathway Worldwide. A visiting General Authority, Elder Carlos A. Godoy, looked over the room and urged those students to “involve the Lord in this process” of lifting their lives through education and discipleship. In a general conference address, Elder Gilbert later used that scene—and his now‑familiar “parable of the slope”—to teach that in the Lord’s calculus, our eternal trajectory matters more than our starting point: “In the Lord’s timing, it is not where we start but where we are headed that matters most.” That anecdote captures his blend of faith, data‑driven pragmatism and pastoral concern that has marked his ministry. 

Born in Oakland, California, in 1970 and raised in Arizona, Clark G. Gilbert served a mission in the Japan Kobe Mission before graduating in international relations from Brigham Young University. He earned a master’s in East Asian studies from Stanford University and a doctorate in business administration from Harvard Business School, where he later joined the faculty in entrepreneurial management. He and his wife, Christine C. Gilbert (née Calder), are the parents of eight children. 

After returning to Church education in the mid‑2000s, Gilbert became associate academic vice president at BYU–Idaho, working on online learning and what would become the Pathway program. In 2009 he was appointed to lead Deseret Digital Media and soon after the Deseret News, where he orchestrated a widely watched digital transformation that separated fast‑growing digital operations from legacy print, refocused editorial priorities, and drew national notice from media analysts. 

The Church’s Board of Trustees named him the 16th president of BYU–Idaho in 2015. Two years later, in February 2017, the First Presidency announced BYU–Pathway Worldwide, a new global higher‑education organization for the Church; Gilbert was appointed its first president. In April 2021 he was sustained as a General Authority Seventy and that August began service as Commissioner of the Church Educational System (CES). 

Under Gilbert’s leadership, BYU–Pathway matured from a promising pilot into a large‑scale, global gateway for degree seekers who often balance study with work and family. In 2024, nearly 75,000 students in 180+ countries were served through BYU–Pathway; a Church announcement described the initiative’s subsequent rollout of three‑year, outcome‑based online bachelor’s degrees—offered by BYU–Idaho and Ensign College with NWCCU approval—as a way to reduce time and cost while preserving required learning outcomes. 

His scholarship and executive experience have also shaped his public profile beyond the Church. Gilbert co‑authored Dual Transformation (Harvard Business Review Press), a playbook for leading legacy institutions through disruption while simultaneously building new growth engines—an approach visible in his work at the Deseret News and later in CES reforms. 

In his recent ministry, Gilbert has emphasized a number of important themes. 

Divine potential and covenant identity. Elder Gilbert’s October 2021 general conference message, “Becoming More in Christ: The Parable of the Slope,” distilled a recurring theme: that conversion to Jesus Christ changes our “slope”—our trajectory—through grace, repentance and covenant discipleship, regardless of starting point. He illustrated that theology with stories from inner‑city youth in Boston and first‑generation learners in Peru, connecting pastoral care to measurable change. 

Education as religious responsibility. As CES commissioner, Elder Gilbert has argued that learning in the Church is inseparable from discipleship. In a June 2025 broadcast to tens of thousands of seminary, institute and Church‑sponsored higher‑education teachers, he reiterated CES’s mission to “prepare young people … to grow spiritually and become lifelong disciples of Jesus Christ,” signaling a continued push to align curriculum, hiring and student support with revealed priorities. 

BYU’s distinctive mission—“gospel methodology.” In August 2025, addressing the BYU University Conference, he urged faculty and staff to be “deliberate” in building a university that engages the world “without being defined by it,” emphasizing prophetic governance, mission‑fit hiring and the charge to employ “gospel methodology” in research and teaching. He highlighted the call—traced from President Spencer W. Kimball to modern apostles—to teach “truth with love” while preparing students for the Savior’s return. 

Home, family and the Savior. In September 2025, Elder and Sister Christine Gilbert taught BYU–Idaho students how to find Christ in “The Family: A Proclamation to the World,” underscoring a Christ‑centered view of family relationships and identity. That devotional, and similar messages across CES, reflect his conviction that doctrine, belonging and spiritual habits must be taught together. 

To journalists and Latter‑day Saint observers, Elder Gilbert’s selection reads as both pastoral and programmatic. His ministry has consistently fused access (lowering barriers to education across continents), alignment (anchoring institutions to revealed mission) and accountability (measuring outcomes without losing sight of grace). BYU–Pathway’s scale—tens of thousands of learners worldwide—and innovations like the three‑year degree show a willingness to rethink form while protecting substance. In media, peers noted the boldness of his digital “dual transformation,” separating the old and the new to let both flourish. Those same instincts—build the future while strengthening the present—have characterized his counsel to teachers and students: teach truth, elevate slopes, and center every effort on Jesus Christ. 

Colleagues describe Elder Gilbert as an exacting but pastoral leader—comfortable with spreadsheets and scripture alike. He met Christine at BYU; together they have raised eight children through moves that traced a calling‑heavy life from California to Massachusetts to Idaho and back to Utah. The biography pages maintained by the Church and BYU‑Pathway emphasize both his scholarship and his family‑first discipleship, a through‑line visible in his local service as a bishop, counselor in a stake presidency and Area Seventy before his 2021 call as a General Authority. 

Within the Church’s governing structure, the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles are “special witnesses of the name of Christ in all the world.” When an apostle passes away, the President of the Church calls a replacement. His background in global education and institutional renewal suggests he will bring a data‑literate, prophetically aligned voice to a quorum that travels, teaches and administers worldwide.

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