This past weekend, Lakisha Woods quietly left her position as EVP/CEO of the American Institute of Architects (AIA), just three years after taking on the role. Woods announced her resignation in December at an in-person all staff meeting, moments before a champagne toast and annual holiday party.

“There was an audible gasp,” said one current staffer who spoke to RECORD anonymously. Less than three months earlier, the AIA Board of Directors issued a statement of support for its embattled leader, and she seemed to have weathered the storm that had begun in early 2024 with allegations of mismanagement. Also in September, the AIA announced a National Ethics Council (NEC) investigation directed toward “various stakeholders” for attempting to “publicly discredit the EVP/CEO and wider Board.”

As a signatory to a letter by former presidents of the AIA that was critical of Woods, Jim Lawler would presumably be a target of this investigation, but he and other former presidents say they have never been contacted by the NEC. “The ethics committee is supposed to study unethical activities by architects in practice or in service,” he says. “It has nothing to do with criticizing government. Criticizing government is what the members are supposed to do. Members are supposed to figure out, is this association working for us, or is it not working for us, and if not, why?” 

Current staff members estimate that between a third to 50 percent of AIA employees have turned over at the AIA during Woods’ short tenure, culminating in early September when the AIA laid off 16 percent of its workforce, some 28 staff members. “The atmosphere has been one of fear and dread,” said the anonymous staffer. “You can’t have as many layoffs and re-organizations over the course of a three-year period and not wake up every single day wondering if you’re going to have a job. I don’t know if anyone on the board realizes how demoralized the staff is.”

But some actions Woods took as a leader were popular with staff, according to people still at the AIA, including providing end-of-year bonuses, a remote-first work policy, and offering half-day workdays on summer Fridays. But filling the budget gap left from the sale of AIA’s lucrative contract documents business before her tenure became Woods’ defining mission. The sale has been roundly criticized by members and staff. “Once they moved toward selling these documents, that was it,” says Phillip Neuberg, chair of the AIA’s Public Architects Knowledge Community. “The money stream was off.” A press release announcing Woods departure played up her ability to right the AIA’s fiscal ship by increasing top-line revenue by 41 percent and authoring the organization’s first balanced budget since 2020, as well as spiking membership rolls over 100,000 for the first time ever.

But members and staff felt that Woods’ push to run the AIA more like a business and boost revenue went too far and was selectively applied. “The reality is that we’re not a business, we’re a membership organization, and a lot of those decisions did not put our membership first,” said the anonymous staffer. “Money has been the only thing ever expressed as a motivating factor.” 

A slate of new membership categories voted on at the 2024 convention was also meant to boost revenue by offering AIA credentials to millions of people. The AIA expected new academic and international membership categories to raise $1.2 million in membership revenue. The potential audience for the proposed Internationally Licensed AIA member category (which would extend AIA membership to internationally licensed architecture professionals with a valid non-U.S. architecture license) was reported to be 2.7 million people. AIA membership was not convinced. An academic category drew about 30 percent support. The international category couldn’t reach 10 percent support. One member took the floor at the meeting to raise concerns that the Internationally Licensed membership category was "effectively selling the AIA credential."

Changes to how the AIA operated its Knowledge Communities (program specific interest groups) that made them less independent also alienated some of its most active and vocal members. During Woods’ tenure, members and staff say the AIA assumed control over Knowledge Communities’ ability to fundraise for their own programming, in an effort to “standardize” them so that they would be “easier to control and reign in,” according to Etty Padmodipoetro, a member of the Board Knowledge Community (a liaison between the Knowledge Communities and the board) and a board member in 2023. Ludmilla Pavlova-Gillham, 2024 Chair of the Public Architects Knowledge Community, says this meant they had “no ability either to raise or spend any money on our own.”

As far back as 2023, Knowledge Communities were told that “we have to analyze and re-evaluate everything,” says Padmodipoetro. There was a lack of transparency over how budgeting protocols worked, how they might change, and how much leeway Knowledge Communities would have to raise their own money. Eventually, she says the AIA backtracked and did allow some budget autonomy. But the specter of this change, given the long lead time of conferences and events, made it difficult to plan anything, and AIA staff and leadership also floated the idea of consolidating or eliminating some Knowledge Communities, creating a “sense of anxiety,” Padmodipoetro says.

“The AIA is doing a lot of good things,” she adds. “It’s just that it needs to be very transparent in showing that it’s member-centric, rather than corporate.” 

“Virtually everything is being monetized,” says Public Architects Knowledge Community member Ed Gauvreau.  

Perhaps the most consistent disconnect reported by members and staff has been that no one in AIA leadership has explained, beyond baseline fiduciary duties, why or how running the AIA like a business would translate into better member services and a more successful AIA. “I don’t think there was an effective connecting of the dots, both internally to staff and externally to membership, about how increased revenue and running the AIA like a business would benefit the profession,” said another anonymous staffer. This is a significant cultural shift from a non-profit professional association founded in 1857 that traditionally put programming and education for members above boosting its own revenue, and dissent should not be surprising. 

Some feel Woods pushed change too quickly. Because the AIA is a membership organization, Woods did not have direct control over the people that comprise it, that generate its events, programming, and knowledge base. She didn't secure membership’s support for the changes she wanted to make, and her position became untenable. When she encountered resistance to dramatically changing the culture and ethos of the institution, she flailed into head-scratching tactical errors, like the abortive NEC investigation, that further sapped her credibility. 

Former Architect of the Capitol Stephen Ayers took over as Interim EVP/CEO on Monday. The AIA declined to comment on Woods’ resignation or its search for her permanent replacement.

Zach Mortice worked at AIA National from 2007-2014