10/08/2026
We are so proud to celebrate the contributions of our dedicated volunteer and advisory board member, Badreka Harper! What a valuable asset you are to our community. 💜🩷
Business Professional of the Year. 🏆 40 Under Forty. ⭐ Leading Ladies of Louisiana. 👑 Leadership Shreveport. 💼 Non-Profit Professional of the Year. 🏆 And now, a face on the cover of Three18 Insider Magazine. 📰
At some point, the accolades stop looking like isolated moments and start telling a much bigger story.
For Badreka Harper, that story is one of sustained leadership, professional growth and service to the -Bossier community. 💚
Today, Harper serves as Administrative Operations Manager for The Arc Caddo-Bossier, where she works behind the scenes helping support an organization dedicated to creating opportunities and providing services for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities and their families.
But her path to nonprofit leadership didn’t begin there.
📺 FROM THE NEWSROOM TO NONPROFIT LEADERSHIP
Before entering the nonprofit sector, Harper built her career in broadcast media, including work at KTBS-TV in Shreveport.
It was a career that placed her inside the fast-moving world of local news and community storytelling. 🎥
Then, in 2022, Harper made a significant professional transition into the nonprofit sector.
At The Arc Caddo-Bossier, her responsibilities have grown to include administrative operations, board coordination and support for major organizational initiatives.
The industry changed. The mission expanded. But leadership remained a constant. 💯
🏆 THE RECOGNITION STARTED YEARS AGO
Harper’s 2026 award wasn’t her introduction to recognition within the Shreveport business community.
In 2019, she earned Top Business Professional of the Year honors through the Greater Shreveport Chamber’s Minority Business Opportunity Awards. 🏆
Then came another major recognition.
⭐ 40 UNDER FORTY — CLASS OF 2020
In 2020, Harper was selected as one of the Greater Shreveport Chamber’s 40 Under Forty honorees, joining a group created to recognize young professionals making an impact professionally and throughout the community.
For some, making 40 Under Forty might represent the culmination of a professional chapter.
For Harper, it looks more like a checkpoint. 📍
Because the résumé kept growing.
In 2022, Harper was recognized among the inaugural Leading Ladies of Louisiana, celebrating African American women making contributions through leadership, business, advocacy and community involvement. 👑
And that same year brought one of the biggest changes in her professional journey as she moved from broadcast media into nonprofit service.
💼 LEADERSHIP — AND HELPING DEVELOP OTHER LEADERS
Harper didn’t stop at participating in community leadership programs.
She became part of helping them move forward. 🤝
Harper completed the Greater Shreveport Leadership Program in 2024 and later joined its Leadership Advisory Board.
By 2025, she was serving as a Junior Coordinator for the program.
In a December 2025 reflection, Harper described completing the first year of a three-year commitment to the Leadership Advisory Board and spoke about meeting people who were ready and willing to help move Shreveport and the surrounding community forward.
That’s an important distinction.
Being recognized as a leader is one thing. Helping develop the leaders coming behind you is another. 💚
Her community involvement has also extended beyond The Arc and the Chamber, including service on the Girls Empowered for More Society (G.E.M.S.) Advisory Board.
🧡 ADVOCACY WITH A PURPOSE
At The Arc Caddo-Bossier, Harper’s professional work has become closely connected with advocacy and opportunities for people with disabilities.
Much of that work happens where the public doesn’t always see it.
📋 Coordinating.
🤝 Building partnerships.
📅 Planning.
💼 Working with leadership and boards.
🎯 Helping major initiatives reach the finish line.
Harper has also helped bring that mission directly into the community, encouraging families with loved ones with disabilities to learn more about The Arc’s programs and available resources.
It’s work that doesn’t always come with applause.
But it’s work that matters. ❤️
🎤 MAKING BIG THINGS HAPPEN BEHIND THE SCENES
That behind-the-scenes leadership was also evident with The Arc Caddo-Bossier’s 2026 Leadership Luncheon.
The event brought together community leaders, dignitaries and supporters while keeping advocacy for people with disabilities at its center.
The keynote speaker was Dani Bowman, the animator, entrepreneur and star of Netflix’s Love on the Spectrum. 🎤
Harper reflected afterward on the countless details and moving pieces required to bring an event of that magnitude together.
And that provides another window into her leadership style.
Not every contribution happens behind a microphone.
Sometimes leadership means making sure everything works when the microphone turns on. 🎯
🏆 2019 ➡️ 2026: THE FULL-CIRCLE MOMENT
Then came June 2026.
Seven years after being recognized as Top Business Professional of the Year, Harper returned to the Greater Shreveport Chamber’s Minority Business Opportunity Awards in an entirely different chapter of her career.
This time, she walked away as:
🏆 2026 NON-PROFIT PROFESSIONAL OF THE YEAR 🏆
Think about that.
She changed industries.
She changed professional lanes.
She took on a new mission.
And seven years later, she was Professional of the Year again. 🔥
The résumé tells the story:
🏆 2019 — Top Business Professional of the Year
⭐ 2020 — 40 Under Forty
👑 2022 — Leading Ladies of Louisiana
💼 2024 — Greater Shreveport Leadership Program graduate
🤝 2025 — Leadership Advisory Board service
🏆 2026 — Non-Profit Professional of the Year
And then came another highly visible moment.
📰 FROM 40 UNDER FORTY TO THE COVER
In October 2026, Harper appeared prominently on the cover of Three18 Insider Magazine as the publication commemorated 20 years of 40 Under Forty. 📰✨
There’s something fitting about that moment.
Six years earlier, Harper had joined the 2020 40 Under Forty class.
Now she was appearing on the magazine cover celebrating the program’s two-decade legacy.
But the woman appearing on that cover in 2026 had added considerably more to her story.
Nonprofit leadership. 💼
Disability advocacy. 🧡
Leadership development. 🤝
Community service. 💚
And another Professional of the Year award. 🏆
40 Under Forty wasn’t the finish line.
It was another chapter.
🔦 THE WORK BEHIND ALL THOSE AWARDS
There’s an easy way to tell Badreka Harper’s story.
Just list the accolades.
And make no mistake — it’s one heck of a list. 🏆🔥
But that still doesn’t tell the entire story.
Between every award are meetings, deadlines, community partnerships, events, families looking for resources, people with disabilities who deserve opportunities and organizations that need people willing to handle the details nobody else sees.
That’s where the real story lives. 💯
From broadcast media to nonprofit leadership, Harper has continued finding ways to serve, lead and contribute to the community around her.
The platforms changed.
The responsibilities grew.
The recognition followed.
But the work continued. 💚
And Harper herself may have summed it up best after receiving her latest honor:
“The work is far from done.”
We agree.
Because awards recognize moments.
Consistency builds a legacy. 🏆➡️💚
And after years of helping make things happen behind the scenes, this time the spotlight belongs to her. 🔦
Takeover TV proudly shines its Shreveport Spotlight on award-winning leader Badreka Harper. 💚🏆
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