Rev. Dr. Catherine Gilliard currently serves as Superintendent of the Evangelical Covenant Church’s Southeast Conference.

She was the first African American woman to serve as an ECC superintendent, the first black president of the Covenant ministerium, the first African American to serve as chair of the Covenant’s Executive Board, the highest governing body of the denomination, the first black president of the Association for Covenant Clergy Women (ACCW) and the first woman to serve as president of the African American Ministers Association. Gilliard was also the first black woman church planter in the Covenant. She has served as the only black member of many of the denomination’s leadership boards and associations. In her last pastorate, she served as co-pastor of New Life Covenant Church in Atlanta, Georgia.

Gilliard holds a Bachelor of Environmental Design from the University of Kansas School of Architecture, and an MDiv and DMin from North Park Theological Seminary in Chicago, Illinois. She holds certification in Enneagram and Marriage, is an Intercultural Development Inventory (IDI) Qualified Assessor, a COACH Model ministry coach and adjunct professor at North Park Theological Seminary.

She and her husband, Deric, have lived in the metro-Atlanta area for over forty years and have four adult children.