SEPTEMBER 2026 | LISLE, IL—InterVarsity Press (IVP) has announced that Greg Jao has been named president and publisher, succeeding Terumi Echols, who is retiring after leading IVP for the past five years.
Jao will guide the strategic direction of IVP as it heads into its 80th year as an award-winning Christian publisher that was founded as part of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship in 1947. Jao will oversee IVP’s editorial, marketing, sales, and operations teams across all its imprints.
“Greg embodies the impact of IVP, in his character, life, and spiritual leadership,” said Tom Lin, president of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship/USA. “A consummate IVP advocate and promoter, a super-consumer of IVP books, with a constant heartbeat for IVP from his student days, to his first job out of college working for IVP, to becoming an IVP author himself. He is fully committed to IVP’s mission because his own life has been transformed by IVP. I’m excited about the leadership Greg will bring not only to IVP and the IVP team but also to the broader evangelical publishing world. I am fully committed to seeing Greg and IVP succeed and grow in this next season.”
“Throughout my tenure at IVP, Greg Jao was a strong partner to the staff and the mission of InterVarsity Press,” said Jeff Crosby, former IVP publisher and current president of the Evangelical Christian Publishers Association. “His knowledge of and passion for academic and trade books, and for seeing lives changed through publishing, is exceeded by few people I know.”
Jao has more than a decade of senior executive leadership experience with InterVarsity, overseeing Communications, External Partnerships, Diversity, and the Urbana Student Missions Conference. A lawyer by training, Greg has led InterVarsity’s religious liberty initiatives and shaped the movement’s thinking on cultural issues for more than a decade of senior leadership throughout his tenure. He currently serves on the Wheaton College Board of Trustees, having completed terms on the Executive Board of the Evangelical Covenant Church and the Board of Trustees for Langham Partnership/USA and for Resource Global.
“Serving IVP has been one of the greatest privileges of my professional and ministry life,” Echols said. “IVP’s mission remains vitally important and greatly needed. In a changing publishing landscape, the work of helping people deepen their lives in Christ to engage the university, the church, and the world continues to matter. I believe God will continue to guide and sustain IVP in the years ahead under the leadership of Greg Jao, a longtime proponent of IVP with a genuine heart for the ministry of the Press and InterVarsity.”
For eight decades, IVP has had a distinctive voice, one grounded in Scripture, nourished by the best of global Christian theology and piety, and reflective of InterVarsity’s mission to the university. “I grew up on authors like John Stott, J. I. Packer, Becky Pippert, and Eugene Peterson,” Jao said. “Today, I regularly use the IVP Bible Background Commentaries, The New Testament in Color, and the ‘IVP Black Dictionaries’ in my own study of Scripture. IVP books continue to deepen my faith, sharpen my thinking, and soften my heart.”
Jao believes that books will shape the next generation of Christians, too. “I’m excited by the hunger for books I saw at the most recent Urbana Student Missions Conference. College students cleaned out much of the conference bookstore by the end of the second day. Books on relationships, missions, theology, biblical studies, and cultural engagement. Though they can access more content in more ways than any prior generation, these students sought out books because they longed for the thoughtfully edited, mature reflections of wise Christians.”
For almost eighty years, IVP has earned the industry’s top honors, year after year, including Christianity Today Book Awards and the ECPA Christian Book Award, formerly the Golden Medallion. IVP is the proud publisher of award-winning titles including, Prayer in the Night and Liturgy of the Ordinary, by Tish Harrison Warren; Reading While Black, by Esau McCaulley; The New Testament in Color, edited by Esau McCaulley; Walking Through Deconstruction, by Ian Harber; Nailing It, by Nicole Martin; and countless others.
InterVarsity Press serves those in the university, the church, and the world by publishing thoughtful Christian books that equip and encourage people to follow Jesus as Savior and Lord in all of life. Founded in 1947 as an extension of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship/USA, IVP is headquartered in Lisle, Illinois, and publishes across six imprints: IVP, IVP Academic, IVP Formatio, IVP Español, IVP Bible Studies, and IVP Kids. Learn more at ivpress.com.
Contact: Krista Clayton, kclayton@ivpress.com
