Founder | SO|arch
A+D Business Strategist
Elisabeth Sporer, AIA, CIC works with CEOs, founders and leadership teams to build successful A+D firms through an integral approach. She is a licensed architect in California and Berlin/Germany, a LEED Accredited Professional, and a New Ventures West certified integral coach. Her multi-faceted professional experience spans design and architecture to business strategy and business management in her native Germany and in the US for firms such as EHDD, Perkins + Will and STUDIOS, and her own firm SO|arch. Based in Northern California, she has presented at major AIA chapters in California, including AIA San Francisco, AIA Los Angeles, AIA East Bay and AIA Central Valley, on topics like business strategy [“Blueprint for Success” in 2020 and “Think-Times Tuesdays” in 2021] , entrepreneurship [“The Free Solo Practice” in 2019] ], ownership transition [“Ownership Transition in the Entrepreneurial Era of Gen X”], mentorship [“High Performance Mentorship” in 2020 and international practice [“Unlearning the Metric System” in 2019 and “Career Strategies for International Professionals” in 2021].
Courses
Story-selling & The Freestyle Practice
What makes a successful A+D practice? Find out by taking a break from your daily grind and getting into active thinking mode with business strategy consultant, architect and SO|arch founder, Elisabeth Sporer, AIA, CID. Who gets the work, and how? This session focuses on the elements of a strategic plan with a focus on brand, BD (business development) and marketing.
Course expires 03/23/2025
Leadership & Where the Buck Stops
Who builds, manages, and supports the team and how?
This session focuses on how business strategy defines and influences an A+D practice's structure and its management, as well as the firm culture. Join Think-Time Tuesdays host, and SO|arch founder Elisabeth Sporer, AIA CIC a presentation on the business of running an A+D firm. Elisabeth provides an overview of firm profiles and firm structures, as well as leadership styles and firm cultures, then presents select SO|arch case studies in conversation with her clients:
- Building teams with Michelle Gayle Hill (Spatializing) and Rob Zirkle (brick)
- Improving overall performance for small and midsized firms with Cathy Merrill (Merrill Morris Partners)
- Leveraging niche services with Dong Kim (DIALOG)
Course expires 03/24/2025
Profit Motive & The Business of Design
Who deals with the money, and how?
This session focuses on how finance, metrics and performance influence an A+D practice’s wellbeing and its success moving forward, as well as the firm culture and its bottom line. Think-Time Tuesdays host and SO|arch founder, Elisabeth Sporer, AIA CIC, provides an overview about the metrics behind the business of design and how A+D founders and leaders can achieve and maintain fiscal health for their businesses—from basic best practices to advanced systems that can help measure, predict, and manage their firm's performance.
The session demonstrates and discusses the Key Performance Indicators an A+D firm needs to monitor [operating profit rate / utilization rate & target utilization / payroll multiplier & net effective multiplier / overhead & break-even rate] and discusses best practices of monitoring cash flow, AR, backlog volume and proposals pending. Then in conversation with her clients, Elisabeth presents case studies that founders, and leaders of small studios and midsized firms will find useful:
- Transitioning to professional systems for midsized firms with Cecilia Quezada [Quezada Architecture]
- Optimizing basic systems for small firms with Khal Khaireddin [K2A]
Course expires 03/23/2025
The Art of Collaboration & Getting Things Done
This session focuses on how A+D founders and leaders create their own culture with impactful design, and how this is nurtured by design teams, leadership styles, new ways of working, and even, ownership transitions. Join Think-Time Tuesdays host, and SO|arch founder Elisabeth Sporer, AIA CIC for a presentation on design culture that energizes the business of design.
Elisabeth provides an overview of the influencing factors of an office culture from the founder’s values and its impact on client and project selection to the way staff is hired, trained and mentored and how projects are executed in a hybrid work environment. Then Elisabeth is joined in conversation by Los Angeles-based A+D firm leaders Karin Liljegren [Omgvining], Georgina Huljich [P-A-T-T-T-E-R-N-S], Stephanie Ragle [office42], and Monika Haefelfinger [XTEN], who share stories that other founders and leaders of small studios and midsized firms in particular will find useful, on these topics:
- Applied values: Design culture manifested in client selection and project work
- Design teams: Growing the firm
- New ways of working: Collaboration in hybrid mode
- Leadership: Training, mentoring, and ownership transitions
Course expires 03/23/2025