Leading AIA's Small Firm Exchange: A Year as SFx Chair

2026 has been a defining year for the AIA Small Firm Exchange (SFx) — the national member group that advocates for the roughly 74 percent of U.S. architecture firms with fewer than ten employees — and Darguin Fortuna has led it as Chair, with Joshua Zinder, AIA, of JZA+D serving as Chair-Elect and stepping into the role for 2027.

The highlight of the year came on September 16, 2026, when Darguin and Joshua presented directly to the AIA National Board, making the case that SFx can serve as AIA's national small-firm practice intelligence and activation network — an infrastructure that listens to small firms across the country, translates national priorities into something usable at the three-person-office scale, and activates resources back out through SFx's fifty-state network of representatives. The presentation centered on SFx's 2026 theme, "Practice with Purpose," and its work across Practice, Advocacy, Climate, and Equity.

That presentation led directly to the SFx Charter being approved by the SFx Board and submitted to the AIA Board for ratification — and to Darguin and Joshua, as outgoing and incoming SFx Chairs, being invited to AIA Governance Week, with the Institute covering their travel. "I am about to cry of happiness and that is not an understatement," Darguin wrote when he got the news. "SFx is front and centered!"

The Board's response went further than we expected. AIA President Azaroff and Board members spoke directly to the need for a stronger, more intentional connection between AIA leadership and the small-firm community, and one Strategic Council member raised the idea of formally inviting SFx to participate in Council discussions going forward. For us, the real shift wasn't any single outcome — it was watching the question in the room change from "does SFx have a place?" to "how can AIA use this network more effectively?" That's the conversation we've been working toward all year.

Darguin's tenure as Chair wraps up this December, when Joshua Zinder takes over as 2027 Chair. It caps years of AIA small-firm advocacy for Darguin, including earlier service on the SFx Massachusetts board and as the state's Young Architect Representative — work rooted in the same conviction that's carried through his career: small, independent, and minority-owned firms deserve a real voice inside the profession's largest institution.