Christopher E. Thompson, an executive advisor, author, leadership coach, founder of CORE Inclusive Consulting, LLC, and a 1994 Wittenberg graduate, will present this year’s Martin Luther King Jr. Convocation at 11 a.m. Monday, Jan. 19, 2026, in historic Weaver Chapel. Thompson’s address is titled “The Light We Find, The Light We Carry.”

Part of the 2025-26 Wittenberg Series, the event is being hosted by the President’s Council on Mission and Values and the University’s Diversity Advisory Committee.

Thompson founded CORE Inclusive Consulting, a leadership and development firm that helps organizations build cultures where people grow, teams thrive, and leaders operate with clarity, courage, and confidence, in November 2024. With three decades of leadership experience across finance, healthcare, education, technology, and faith-based sectors, Thompson brings a significant blend of clarity, compassion, and challenge to every engagement.

His upcoming book, Strong Core: The Inner Work That Grows Lasting Leaders, introduces a leadership practice that blends story, strategy, and soul. It challenges leaders to shift from performing leadership to becoming leaders whose presence carries weight and whose impact sustains.

With an accomplished background that includes senior leadership roles at JPMorgan Chase, Thompson led enterprise programs that advanced talent development, strengthened organizational culture, and expanded inclusive leadership practices across business units. His experience spans talent acquisition, executive coaching, strategic culture initiatives, and large-scale leadership development, giving him the ability to connect strategy to people and people to purpose.

At Pacific Coast Banking School (PCBS), Thompson teaches a core class titled Culture, Community and Connection along with an elective called Living in the AND. Both courses equip graduate-level banking leaders to navigate complexity, build relational influence, and lead culture with intention. Thompson is known for creating transformative learning experiences. Leaders do not simply attend his sessions; they evolve through them.

Certified by the International Coaching Federation (ICF) along with multiple assessments and leadership programs, Thompson helps leaders move from self-awareness to meaningful action. His mission is clear: Build strong leaders who build strong cultures.

In his keynote, Thompson will reflect on the light he discovered on Wittenberg’s campus and the way that light continues to shape leaders, communities, and culture. Drawing from his own journey as a student, athlete, and campus leader, he explores how Dr. Martin Luther King’s legacy calls individuals to do the inner work of becoming people who illuminate possibility, create connection, and carry that light into a world that still needs courage, compassion, and clarity. This message will invite students, faculty, and the entire Wittenberg community to consider not only the light they find here, but the responsibility to carry it forward.

President Christian M.M. Brady will welcome Thompson and all the attendees. Delivering a special poetry reading titled “Rivers of Wind” will be Marjory Wentworth, director of the Wittenberg Writing Center and Oral Communication Center and former poet laureate of South Carolina. 

Thompson will be introduced by Janet Jackson, Wittenberg class of 1975, from Columbus, Ohio. Now retired, Jackson, who is an emerita member of the University’s Board of Directors, was the first woman and first African American woman to lead the United Way of Central Ohio, the first woman elected Columbus City Attorney, and the first female African American judge in Franklin County. 

Banners and the Wittenberg Torch will be carried by students from the McClain Center, Concerned Black Students, and Mi Gente.

Established prior to the 1989-90 school year, the Martin Luther King Jr. Convocation features an academic procession with faculty in full regalia. The event is free and open to the public as are all Wittenberg Series events.

The Wittenberg Series was created in 1982 during President William A. Kinnison’s tenure. Since its inception, Nobel Laureates, scientists, significant literary figures, most of America’s foremost modern dance companies, as well as hundreds of prominent psychologists, educators, economists, writers, theologians, urban planners, and historians have visited campus to participate.
Doors open 30 minutes prior to the beginning of each lecture or performance.

Everyone is invited to attend the MLK Jr. Day of Service event that is also taking place on Monday, Jan. 19.  Focusing on the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and in partnership with the Springfield Promise Neighborhood and the Susan Hirt Hagen Center for Civic & Urban Engagement at Wittenberg University, the event will begin at 2 p.m. in Geil Lounge, located on the lower level of the Benham-Pence Student Center. This annual tradition provides students and community members the opportunity to volunteer to complete projects benefiting local partner Springfield Promise Neighborhood.

For more information on the Wittenberg Series, click here. To make special arrangements or become a friend of the Wittenberg Series, contact the Office of University Communications at ucomm@wittenberg.edu.