Louisville—The Kentucky Baptist Foundation’s Board of Directors has picked its next president.

Richard Carnes, vice president and senior client advisor for PNC Bank in Louisville, was unanimously selected April 23 by board members to become KBF president. If approved by members of the Mission Board of the Kentucky Baptist Convention, when they meet May 4-5 in Louisville, Carnes will return to the helm of the agency he previously led for seven years.

“The board of the Kentucky Baptist Foundation strongly believes that Richard Carnes has the qualifications and experience to be an outstanding leader for Kentucky Baptists. We look forward to working with him to financially undergird the Kingdom work of KBC churches and related ministries, if elected by the Mission Board,” said Chairman Charles Barnes, a member of Louisville’s Hurstborne Baptist Church.

Carnes will succeed Barry Allen, who retired from the post Feb. 1 and now serves as executive director of the Gheens Foundation in Louisville. He is expected to begin duties on June 1.

“What gets my spiritual heart churning in excitement is the opportunity to sit around the kitchen table with folks who are really trying to be obedient to their calling (as disciples) of growing Christ’s kingdom,” he said. “That’s what the Foundation does.

“The great thing about the Foundation,” Carnes said, “is that it gives you an opportunity to deal with the most wonderful stewardship-hearted people. They are thinking about legacy support to their local church and to other Christian ministry causes. They are making decisions to benefit people’s lives, with whom they may never personally connect, but they are able to see beyond themselves.”

After serving as president of the Kentucky Baptist Foundation from 1988-1995, Carnes served as president of the national Woman’s Missionary Union Foundation in Birmingham, Ala., for two years. Earlier, he had been director of the KBC’s Administrative Services Department for five years.

He also has experience as an account executive in Birmingham for E.F. Hutton & Co. and Merrill Lynch.

With PNC for 18 years, Carnes led a team of seven staff members in serving non-profit charitable organizations with assets under management of $2.4 billion. He personally managed NPO client portfolios for 48 relationships with assets under management of $596 million.

Speaking of his return to the Kentucky Baptist Foundation, Carnes said he feels “fortunate and honored that God has opened this door again for me.”

In describing the heartbeat of the Foundation’s ministry as being “the local church’s development agency,” Carnes said that for him, “this is just an expansion of being able to fully engage his emotional and physical energies in serving Christ’s kingdom through a stewardship legacy kind of ministry.”

A member of Highview Baptist Church’s East Campus, Carnes earlier served as an adult Sunday School teacher and deacon at St. Matthews Baptist Church in Louisville.

Born and raised in Horton, Ala., a rural community about 45 miles east of Huntsville—where his family attended Bethany Baptist Church—Carnes made a public profession of faith at age 11 during a Vacation Bible School and was baptized in a local fishing pond.

Carnes attended Snead State Community College in Boaz, Ala., where he met his future wife, Karen. They both graduated from Samford University with business degrees, and he later attended Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, earning a master’s in Christian education. She is an associate financial representative for Northwestern Mutual Wealth Management.

They have two adult sons: Jay, who is assistant director of Residence Life at Bellarmine University in Louisville; and Chip, a music teacher and church planter in Portland, Ore. (WR)