Honoring Elizabeth Harris, FSDA, CDFO

2026 Lifetime Achievement Award Winner

More than two decades of leadership, innovation, mentorship, and service to SDA and the profession of design administration.

There are people in every organization who show up year after year — not because someone asked them to, and not because it advances their career — but because they genuinely believe in the mission and want to help make the organization stronger.

For more than two decades, Elizabeth “Liz” Harris has been one of those people for SDA.

At the 2026 SDA Annual Conference, Liz was honored with SDA's Lifetime Achievement Award in recognition of her sustained leadership, service, innovation, and lasting impact on both SDA and the profession of design administration.

But what truly distinguishes Liz’s contributions is not simply the number of roles she has held — it is the impact she has had within them.

“SDA gave me an identity and a tribe. It’s a place where it is recognized that we are not just support — we are structural.”

— Elizabeth Harris, FSDA, CDFO

Over the years, Liz has helped shape and strengthen SDA in ways that continue to influence the organization today. She participated in the 2014 Certification Revamp Task Force, helping transition SDA’s certification program from an experience-based model to a knowledge-based framework. She also introduced the concept for the CDFA-yoU study group, creating a supportive and scalable path for certification candidates that helped strengthen engagement and long-term success.

Her influence continued through SDA’s rebranding efforts, website initiatives, and the national Marketing & Communications Committee. As MarCom Co-Chair, Liz championed the use of tools and systems that improved communication planning, scheduling, and analytics while helping the committee adopt a more structured and strategic workflow.

In recent years, Liz has also worked closely with SDA Headquarters to improve organizational processes, streamline workflows, and implement thoughtful automation strategies designed to support a volunteer-driven organization. Her focus on building sustainable systems and documenting processes has helped create a stronger operational foundation for SDA’s future.

The jury noted that Liz’s record is defined not simply by participation, but by transformation.

In 2020, Liz was elevated to SDA’s College of Fellows — one of the organization’s highest honors — recognizing her exceptional contributions to SDA and excellence in design firm management. She later served as Chair of the Fellows Committee and continues to support mentorship and leadership development initiatives within the organization. She also holds SDA’s highest certification designation, the Certificate in Design Firm Operations (CDFO), reflecting her ongoing commitment to professional growth and advancing the profession.

Beyond SDA, Liz continues to share her expertise through presentations, podcasts, articles, and her Substack, The 2040 Studio, where she explores AI, process optimization, operational efficiency, and designing sustainable systems for long-term success. Through her thought leadership, she frequently highlights SDA and helps expand awareness of the organization within the broader A/E/C community.

In her acceptance remarks, Liz reflected on the role SDA has played throughout her career — not simply as a professional organization, but as a community that helped shape her identity, build lasting relationships, and elevate the role of design administrators within the industry.

What makes Liz especially deserving of this recognition is not only her legacy of service, but the fact that she continues to lean into the future of the profession. She remains deeply engaged in conversations about innovation, leadership, and the evolving role of design administration — while continuing to mentor, encourage, and support those coming up behind her.

As she shared during her remarks, “I see nothing but a bright future ahead for administrators.”

Her contributions have strengthened systems, supported members, elevated programs, and helped SDA evolve in meaningful and lasting ways.

Liz Harris’s legacy is remarkable — and we have every reason to believe it is far from finished.

Congratulations to Elizabeth Harris, FSDA, CDFO, recipient of the 2026 SDA Lifetime Achievement Award.