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ABOUT

JOHN PEARSON ASSOCIATES 
Board Governance & Management Consultants 
 

​JOHN PEARSON retired in 2018 as president of John Pearson Associates, Inc., a board governance and management consulting firm in San Clemente, California. John served nonprofit Christian organizations with a focus on "Vision Implementation With Detailed Execution." He is also the editor and publisher of the eNewsletter, Your Weekly Staff Meeting and has reviewed almost 600 leadership and management books in his eNews.

His latest book, written with his son, Jason, was published in September 2022. Click here to read more about Mastering 100 Must-Read Books: Brief Book Reviews on Leadership, Management, Governance, and Life.

Click here to read more about the 2021 book, Mastering Mistake Making: My 25 Memorable Mistakes—and What I Learned (10 Minutes for Lifelong Learning Workbook.)

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John's book, Mastering the Management Buckets: 20 Critical Competencies for Leading Your Business or Nonprofit (click here to order) was published by Regal Books in 2008 and is now distributed by Baker Books. In addition, the second edition of Mastering the Management Buckets Workbook: Management Tools, Templates, and Tips from John Pearson was published in 2018. Click here to order.
 

John is also the co-author, with Dan Busby, of four board governance books, published by ECFAPress:

John is also the co-author of Marketing Your Ministry: Ten Critical Principles, with Robert D. Hisrich, Ph.D. (1944-2023), former Bridgestone Chair of International Marketing, Department of Marketing and Entrepreneurship, at Kent State University.

Pearson served 11 years as the president/CEO of Christian Management Association (now called Christian Leadership Alliance). He also served as the president of Willow Creek Association, South Barrington, Illinois (a network of 12,000 churches worldwide, now called Global Leadership Network); was on the management team at Willow Creek Community Church; and was the executive director of Christian Camp and Conference Association, now based in Colorado Springs, Colorado, and known for many years as Christian Camping International/USA.


He’s a graduate of Seattle Pacific University and Trinity Evangelical Divinity School and also served five years as the director of Christian education/camp director with the Midwest district of the Baptist General Conference, Chicago, Illinois, (now called Converge MidAmerica) and six years as the executive director of SAMBICA, a Christian camp and conference center on Lake Sammamish in Bellevue, Wash.


John has served more than 30 years as a nonprofit CEO and 25 of those years leading three associations. John has been the publisher of two magazines, written more than 1,000 issues of various newsletters on management and ministry and more than 100 magazine columns on leadership and management ministry trends, including the "Management Rules of Thumb" series in the Christian Management Report.


He has led more than 50 regional, national and international conferences, and facilitated dozens of day-long CEO Dialogue roundtables. John served six years on the board of ECFA (Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability), was chairman of the presidential search committee (to replace a CEO/founder) as a board member for Interdev, and also served as a board member at Bakke Graduate University.
 

In 2006, Christian Management Association honored Pearson as the first recipient of the Ted Engstrom Award, named after Dr. Ted Engstrom (1916-2006), the president emeritus of World Vision. John also served on the Board of Directors of Christian Community Credit Union, including six years as board chair from March 2012 to March 2018. He is also a member and volunteer with The Barnabas Group Orange County.
 

JOHN AND JOANNE (who served as their company's COO) have been married for 54 years and they’ve had the privilege of traveling and/or teaching leadership, management and board governance in more than 50 countries.

John's and Joanne's son and daughter-in-law, Jason and Melinda, also live in San Clemente. They are the busy parents of five children, including triplets. Jason also serves both nonprofit and for-profit organizations through his company, Pearpod Media (branding, digital, print, video), and FiveHive Studios, just launched in 2024.
 

John has also collaborated with Jason on numerous creative projects and wrote the Faith-Based Leader’s Resource Guide for the Rocky Balboa movie and the leader’s guide for The Nativity Story DVD, and authored the Personal Action Journal (a 42-day journey to make poverty personal) as part of The Hole in Our Gospel Six-Week Quest, based on the book by Richard E. Stearns.
 

From 2011 to 2020, John also contributed a weekly commentary to the ECFA Governance of Christ-centered Organizations blog and was the writer and project coordinator of the ECFA Governance Toolbox Series, a unique packaging of short videos, board member viewing guides, and facilitator guides on niche governance issues including:

  • Series No. 1: Recruiting Board Members

  • Series No. 2: Balancing Board Roles (The 3 Hats: Governance, Volunteer and Participant)

  • Series No. 3: Conflicts of Interest

  • Series No. 4: Succession Planning.
     

In his other life, John once owned a 100th anniversary Harley-Davidson motorcycle and also played an FBI agent (actually…just one scene) in the movie, The Genius Club, starring Stephen Baldwin. 

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