LDS Church Names First African President of Primary in Historic Call

For nearly 148 years, every woman called to lead the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints' worldwide children's organization came from within the United States. That lineage ended Saturday when President D. Todd Christofferson announced Rosemary K. Chibota as the new Primary General President, making the 58-year-old the first African, and the first person from outside North America, ever to head a general presidency in the church's history.

Chibota, of Malawian origin and raised in Zimbabwe, now resides in South Jordan, Utah, where she works as a human resources generalist for the church and previously served as a senior executive assistant in the Quorum of the Seventy office. She holds a master's degree in management and leadership from Western Governors University and a bachelor of science degree in information technology from Colorado Technical University. She will be joined by Sister Nina M. Garfield as first counselor and Sister Theresa A. Collins as second counselor, with the new presidency effective August 1, 2026, replacing outgoing President Susan H. Porter.

The announcement came during the Saturday afternoon session of the 196th Annual General Conference in Salt Lake City, a gathering the church holds each April and October. The same session included the sustaining of eight new General Authority Seventies and a new member of the Presidency of the Seventy.

The appointment lands against a backdrop of rapid LDS expansion across Africa. Church membership on the continent has surpassed roughly 680,000, and the church is actively building or operating temples in Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, South Africa, and the Democratic Republic of Congo, making Africa one of the fastest-growing regions within a global membership of approximately 17 million. The structural momentum behind that growth has long outpaced representation at the general leadership level, making Chibota's call both overdue and pointed.

Whether her presidency reshapes Primary priorities in substantively Africa-facing ways, or whether it functions mainly as institutional validation of a demographic shift already well underway, will define how her tenure is ultimately assessed. The Primary, founded August 11, 1878, by Aurelia Spencer Rogers in Farmington, Utah, governs gospel instruction for children aged 18 months through 11 years across every continent the church operates in. Its three-woman General Presidency, called and set apart by the church's First Presidency, holds authority over curriculum and global organizational policy.

Chibota's previous church service includes roles as ward activities chair, ward Relief Society presidency member, Primary teacher, ward Primary presidency member, seminary teacher, district Young Women president, Relief Society teacher, and branch Young Women president, a record built across congregations spanning two continents. That depth of local service, layered across both African and American congregational settings, now informs the highest administrative office in an organization responsible for children's religious formation worldwide.

The church has made deliberate moves in recent years to broaden the national backgrounds represented in its general leadership. Chibota's call is the most geographically significant such move yet, and with African membership still climbing, it is unlikely to be the last.