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Rahel Mwitula Williams has been appointed executive director for the Innovation unit of the ELCA.
Mwitula Williams has served as the ELCA’s interim executive director for Innovation and its director for innovation and ideas since 2025. Previously, she served as director for ELCA Global Mission Funding (2019-2023), manager for ELCA Donor Relations (2016-2019), and executive coordinator at the Ancona School in Chicago (2007-2012).
“I am honored and humbled to be appointed as executive director for Innovation,” Mwitula Williams said. “The message of love, sacrifice and redemption is timeless, but how we carry that message into a world searching for hope, connection and belonging must be reimagined. Rooted in tradition yet agile in response, our call to innovate is grounded in the truth that God is not a distant relic, but a living, present reality, and our work is to help people encounter that in meaningful, transformative ways.”
Mwitula Williams received a Bachelor of Science in psychology from Loyola University Chicago in 2004, a Master of Science in international public service from DePaul University in Chicago in 2011, and an executive scholar certificate in nonprofit management from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University in Chicago in 2022. She was also a recipient of the Fulbright-Hays Group Projects Abroad Fellowship in 2010.
Mwitula Williams will begin her new role on July 8.
