Meet the 2026–2027 SDA National Vice President: Jennifer M. Greene

Three decades in AEC marketing. A New York chapter built on showing up. One clear plan for getting more members certified.

We’re continuing our series introducing SDA’s 2026–2027 National Executive Committee with a leader who has spent her career convincing principals, clients, and prospects that the work behind the scenes is what makes firms succeed: Jennifer M. Greene, CDFA, Assoc. AIA, Director of Marketing at Ronnette Riley Architect in New York, and SDA’s incoming Vice President.

Jenn’s path through SDA has been a steady climb at both the chapter and national levels. She has served the New York Chapter as President, Vice President, Past President, Treasurer, Advisor to the Board, and on the Finance, Marketing, Programs, and Lunchtime Roundtable Committees, among others. She has edited the chapter’s SkyLines Journal and earned New York’s Award for Outstanding Service as well as the National SDA Lifetime Achievement Award. At the national level, she has just completed two years as Secretary, and has attended five consecutive National Conventions — Lexington, Colorado Springs, Tampa, Rapid City, and the virtual 2021 convention.

Professionally, she is a marketing and communications executive with more than thirty years inside AEC firms — Ronnette Riley Architect, The Durst Organization, Ammann & Whitney, Dattner Architects, and Kliment Halsband Architects, where she built the marketing department from the ground up. That career gives her something the Vice President role can use: a working understanding of how firms make decisions, how principals weigh investments in their people, and how to make a case that actually lands.

Her focus for the term is membership, with certification as the through-line. She is direct about the strategy. SDA needs to keep articulating the tangible value of membership, and the CDFO credential is the clearest signal of operational expertise the profession has. Her plan is to personally reach out to high-potential members already serving on national committees — people who have already shown they want to be involved — and invite them into the certification path. She has also drafted a one-pager aimed at firm principals making the business case for supporting certification: retention, project performance, leadership pipeline, and the message it sends to clients about operational rigor.

“Have you considered certification? I see you as exactly the type of professional SDA is elevating.”

— Jennifer M. Greene, CDFA, Assoc. AIA

That is the line she plans to use, and it tells you something about how she leads. She is not waiting for members to opt in on their own. She is going to tap them on the shoulder, name what she sees in them, and walk alongside them through the process — study groups, study buddies, Deborah Gill’s sessions, the whole support system SDA has built. For members who hesitate because they are afraid of failing, she is open about her own road to the credential and the simple message that goes with it: keep trying.

What Jenn brings to the Executive Committee is the discipline of a marketer applied to the work of membership. She thinks about audiences, messages, and what moves people to act. She is organized, communicative, and known for follow-through — the qualities her chapter colleagues have relied on for years. Expect a VP year focused on visibility for certified members, a clear pitch to firm leadership, and steady, person-by-person recruitment into the credential.

Please join us in welcoming Jenn to the Vice President role. Connect with her on the SDA Discussion Hub, consider joining the Membership Committee’s work this year, or reach out directly if you have ideas about how SDA can better support members on the path to certification. It’s going to be a great year to build, recruit, and elevate together.