Elder Clark G. Gilbert has joined the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
President Dallin H. Oaks called Elder Gilbert, 55, to the lifetime calling on Wednesday, according to a news release. The First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve then ordained him as part of their weekly meetings on Thursday.
He fills the vacancy in the quorum created by the death of President Jeffrey R. Holland on Dec. 27.
He also becomes the youngest apostle called since Elder David A. Bednar became an apostle at age 52 in 2004.
Elder Gilbert was serving at the time of his call as Commissioner of the Church Educational System, a post also once held by President Holland.
Elder Gilbert is a former Harvard Business School professor and expert on disruptive innovation.
He also is a former president of BYU-Idaho and past president and CEO of both the Deseret News and Deseret Digital Media.
Latter-day Saint scriptures describe apostles as “special witnesses of the name of Jesus Christ in all the world.”
“This is an amazing time to point people to the Savior Jesus Christ,” Elder Gilbert said in a statement made during an interview with him and his wife, Sister Christine Gilbert.
“When we do that, we can find joy and comfort and peace in him. As President (Russell M.) Nelson once said, it’s much harder to find happiness where it doesn’t exist. And we’re so grateful that I have this calling now to witness that Jesus is the Christ. If people all across the world will look to him, he will make their lives better, more meaningful, more joyful. And it happens in and through our Savior Jesus Christ.”
This is the second apostle called by President Oaks. He called Elder Gérald Caussé on Nov. 6 to fill the vacancy created by the death of President Russell M. Nelson on Sept. 27.
President Oaks became the church’s president in October, following President Nelson’s death.
Apostles are called to lifetime service. President Holland served as an apostle for 31 years, from 1994 to his death in December.
President Oaks asked Elder Gilbert to stay behind Wednesday after the monthly Church Board of Education meeting, and that is when the calling was extended, Elder Gilbert said in a video.
“It was immediately sobering and humbling and took us back,” he said, “but (it was) beautiful at the same time. This is such an exciting time in the Church of Jesus Christ on the earth, and you can feel momentum gathering and people’s lives being changed.”
Elder Gilbert was born in Oakland, California, to Paul and Susan Gilbert, who raised him in Phoenix, Arizona.
“They never made me think that education and the gospel were decoupled in any way — the more you have faith, the more you want to learn and grow, and the more you learn and grow, the deeper your faith can become,” he told the Church News in 2021.
Elder Gilbert obtained a bachelor’s degree in international relations from Brigham Young University in 1994, a time he has described as transformational. He interrupted his schooling at BYU to serve as a full-time missionary in the Japan Kobe Mission.
Elder Gilbert earned a master’s at Stanford in East Asian studies and a doctorate in business administration at Harvard before joining its faculty.
He and Sister Christine Gilbert married in 1994 and are the parents of eight children.
“We’re very humbled by this calling” Sister Gilbert said in the video, “but also very grateful we have an opportunity to witness of Jesus Christ. We love him, and we would do whatever he needed us to do.”
The Gilberts left Harvard Business School in 2006 and headed to BYU–Idaho at the urging of its president, Elder Kim B. Clark. Together, they and others launched the programs that today make up BYU-Pathway Worldwide.
Elder Gilbert served as BYU-Idaho’s president from 2015 to 2017, when he became the founding president of BYU-Pathway Worldwide.
“It is altogether fitting that Clark Gilbert should lead the people of BYU-Pathway Worldwide as their first president,” Elder Clark said at his inauguration. “Not only was he there at the beginning of Pathway, but he and Christine also have heard the voice of the Lord. ... I have been an eyewitness to their devotion and consecration in following the Lord’s call four different times in the last 12 years.”
Elder Gilbert left academia in April 2021 when he was called to serve as a General Authority Seventy by President Nelson.
Four months later, he became the Commissioner of Church Education, with oversight for BYU, BYU-Idaho, BYU-Hawaii, BYU-PW and Ensign College.
During the past four years, three of those schools received new presidents — Shane Reese at BYU, Elder Alvin F. “Trip” Meredith III at BYU-Idaho and Brian Ashton at BYU-PW.
They have led major increases in the number of students at the church schools, a total of 100,000 since 2000.
He instituted a new policy that new Latter-day Saint hires at those schools would need “to hold and be worthy to hold a current temple recommend,” a document that certifies a church member is in good standing after interviews with local priesthood leaders that confirm they follow the teachings of the Church of Jesus Christ.
A year ago, Elder Gilbert said at a BYU devotional that the university would not drift from church governance.
“The loss of administrative governance will not happen in the Church Educational System of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints,” he said.
He also has said BYU sports cannot drift from core university and church principles.
President Oaks delivered the Brigham Young University devotional on Tuesday in Provo. He told Latter-day Saint students to “never let your secular learning limit your horizons” and shared four ways to draw closer to Jesus Christ in what he called an era of falsehoods, speculation and disguised truth.
Afterward, he visited the school’s Carillon Tower, erected for BYU’s 100th anniversary in 1975, when he was the university’s president. The school unveiled a new plaque for the side of the tower for its 150th anniversary with a quote from President Oaks.