Michael Otterson

Michael R. Otterson was the managing director of Public Affairs for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) from 2008 to 2016. In April 2016, the church announced that he would retire at the end of August 2016 and be replaced by Richard E. Turley, Jr. On 1 November 2016, he began a new assignment, along with his wife, as president and matron of the London England Temple.

Otterson is a convert to the LDS Church. Born and educated in Britain, he entered journalism in his native city of Liverpool before moving to Australia where he worked as a political reporter and sub-editor in South Australia and Canberra. Following a year's stint as a sub-editor on the Japan Times in Tokyo, he returned to the UK and was appointed Business Editor for the Liverpool Daily Post.

In 1976 he left journalism to manage the London public affairs office of the LDS Church, which was then the only such office outside of the United States. He remained there until 1979 as Public Relations director for the LDS Church in the United Kingdom, when the church invited him to move back to Australia to open a new public affairs office in Sydney. He remained in that post for 12 years before moving to the United States in 1991 to manage the worldwide training program for church public affairs operations. He managed the church's news media relations from 1997 to 2008, when he became managing director of LDS public affairs. Otterson has served twice as a stake president – in Liverpool and in Sydney.

In 2003 Otterson responded to a Newsweek article about the LDS Church, taking issue with its characterisation of the LDS Church as acting on superficial instead of deeply held beliefs. In 2003, Otterson was also the LDS Church's main point man in its response to Jon Krakauer's book on Mormonism, Under the Banner of Heaven.

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