“When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, 'Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.”
– Fred Rogers
New Orleans native Jennifer “Jen” Bernard-Allen is serving as the Assistant Treasurer for the Junior League of New Orleans. Her Board of Directors term will be for two years as she will oversee the financial affairs of the organization, including reviewing and approving the League's operating budget and authorizing purchases. Insight and expertise gained through her accounting career enable her to make recommendations on the organization's policies, strategic goals, and governance documents as they relate to financial matters. She hopes to bring her background as a CPA to the position, and she looks forward to being a part of this next phase of JLNO. She has always enjoyed making two dimensional financial statements become a more three dimensional plan for how an organization can continue to grow and thrive.
Since 2012, Jen's JLNO positions have included serving as a Provisional Advisor, Council Treasurer, and Kitchen Tour Planning and Assessment Chair. She has most recently chaired JLNO's Woman Entrepreneur Fellowship program, which promotes professional success and improving economic opportunities for women by providing in-kind services, mentoring, and a financial grant to a local woman-owned business. She loves that the Junior League brings together a diverse group of women with a common goal to improve the lives of women in New Orleans. Through empathy, passion, and connectivity, members seek to turn strangers into neighbors. She thinks the JLNO Diaper Bank is a living testament to what she has learned from Junior League. When a group of women come together with a mission and a purpose, they can achieve what was once considered impossible. To think of the number of lives JLNO has impacted as a result of the Diaper Bank is just humbling and overwhelming.
Jen graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree in Accounting and Finance from Loyola University New Orleans and a Master of Science in Accounting from University of New Orleans. She is a Director of Tax Services of LaPorte CPAs and Business Advisors. Jennifer is the co-leader of LaPorte’s Real Estate Industry Group. Her clients have included corporations, S corporations, partnerships, LLCs, and high wealth individuals, among others. She has also volunteered for other organizations, such as the Co-Programming Chair for Commercial Real Estate Woman Network and Member Education advisor for Delta Gamma Sorority.
Outside of her career and volunteer service, Jen enjoys crafting Muses shoes, Saints football, and travelling. She also thinks she may be the only CPA she knows who once dreamed of moving to Los Angeles and becoming an Academy Award winning actress. Residing in Uptown, Jennifer and her husband Mark are parents to two children – Jane (6)and Charlie (3). Her children inspire her daily. Her daughter is incredibly kind and thoughtful and a really wonderful friend. Her son is full of joy and lives in a world that his imagination creates. Each day she tries to be as kind and creative as they are, but mostly they inspire her to be a part of organizations like JLNO that helps to create a community that she is proud for them to grow up in.