This year, we have the privilege of honouring a remarkable individual with a career that spans not just decades, but an entire era. Our honoree’s journey began humbly, as many great careers do, but very soon it was clear this was no ordinary professional path. From the late 1980s, she became a cornerstone of one of Europe’s most respected public broadcasting archives, where her name quickly became synonymous with innovation, leadership, and a no-nonsense, but always kind approach.

In the 1990s, she led the charge in developing a fully-fledged digital archive system at a time when “digital” was still considered more science fiction than workplace necessity. She understood long before anyone else that metadata wasn’t just about organizing information; it was about making content discoverable, meaningful, and future-proof. No wonder she was an early champion of implementing media asset management and the mass digitization of broadcasting archives. But beyond the technical and the conceptual, she is also human. In fact, she played the role of a ‘mama’ for many archivists. After all, who else could blend ‘MAM’ with ‘mum’ so seamlessly, ensuring that everyone not only had their media assets in order, but also received a warm hug and a word of wisdom along the way? Between brackets: I myself have been a firsthand witness of this, when I met her for the first time in Toronto, on the 20^th of May 2011.

Now, you may think a trailblazing career like this would be enough for most people. But not for our honoree. In 2006, she officially joined FIAT/IFTA’s Executive Council – although those who know her best will tell you, she was already an integral part of our community well before then, attending FIAT/IFTA events since 1990 – that is thirty-four years ago! From there, she led the Media Management Commission for nearly a decade, alongside her trusted co-chair, Jacqui Gupta. And let’s be honest, if you ever had a conversation with her about media management, you probably walked away a little wiser, a little more inspired, and—if you were lucky—armed with a solid to-do list for the next ten years.

But of course, that’s not all. In 2017, she returned to where it all began: the national library of her home country. And what was the first thing she did? She didn’t just lead, she reorganized the whole audiovisual department. And while running two departments at the same time, she still managed to have time for a laugh, a chat with old friends, and to make every engineer in the building appreciate her for the magic she could bring about, with both technology and people.

For over 35 years, she’s been a leader, a mentor, a problem-solver, and yes, a power lady, but stripped of any coldness that description could encompass. All the colleagues with whom I contacted to prepare this speech describe her as a visionary, someone who convinced a hesitant world that putting media asset management in the centre of media production was not only possible, but essential. She’s the person who showed us how to ‘archive first, publish later,’ and she has ensured that the vast treasures of Swedish audiovisual and web heritage will be there for future generations to explore.

So, it is with the deepest admiration, and frankly, a tear in either eye, that I invite you to join me in congratulating this year’s recipient of the FIAT/IFTA Lifetime Achievement Award: the incomparable Eva-Lis Green.