Bekele Shanko

Bekele Shanko joined full-time missionary work with Campus Crusade for Christ International in Ethiopia in 1993. Since then, he has held diverse leadership roles for the organization, including National Director for Ethiopia for five years, Area Director for Southern and Eastern Africa for 11 years, and Global Vice President since 2010.

Bekele also serves as President of the Global Alliance for Church Multiplication (GACX), a global network of church-planting organizations, which he helped to launch in 2011; President of the Global Academy for Transformational Leadership (GATL), which he founded in 2008; and leader of the task force “Body of Christ in Every Place,” as part of the Finishing the Task movement.

Bekele was involved in designing and leading major national and international evangelistic projects, such as Operation Philip in Ethiopia, Operation Sunrise Africa in Southern and Eastern Africa, and Global Church Movements, which seeks to plant a church for every 1,000 people worldwide through training and church multiplication. 

Before joining Campus Crusade for Christ, Bekele worked for the Ethiopian government as a head of information management for the National HIV/AIDS Control Program for five years. He holds a B.Sc. degree in Statistics and Mathematics from Addis Ababa University in Ethiopia, an M.A. in Organizational Leadership from Azusa Pacific University, a doctorate in Global Transformational Leadership from Bakke Graduate University, and certificates in Executive Leadership and Executive Negotiation from Harvard Business School and Massachusetts Institute of Technology, respectively. 

Bekele and his wife Shewa have four children — Nathan, Elim, Philip, and Nesiel and over the course of their ministry, the Shankos have lived in Ethiopia, Uganda, Zimbabwe, South Africa, and the United States.

Bekele’s mission statement is, “To serve the purpose of God in my generation by empowering the body of Christ for world evangelization that results in holistic transformation of humanity.”