As chief learning officer, Jennifer serves as a strategic partner to the president and CEO and leads the staff team charged with delivering the association’s broad and diverse portfolio of programs, industry guidance, and resources to members and constituents across multiple delivery channels, including many partnerships with other associations serving independent schools. She serves the NBOA Board of Directors’ Diversity, Equity & Inclusion task force and leads NBOA’s volunteer Business Officers Council, in addition to serving as a subject-matter expert on finance, accounting, tax and other independent school business, operations, governance, and legal matters important to independent school practitioners and leaders. She also serves on the teaching faculty for the Master of Education in Independent School Leadership program at Vanderbilt University’s Department of Leadership, Policy & Organizations at Peabody College.
A Certified Public Accountant (CPA), Jennifer worked in assurance and advisory services for international “Big 4” public accounting firm, Ernst & Young, before joining Harpeth Hall School, an all-girls school with 700 students in grades 5-12, in 2009 where she served as a business officer for eight years. She joined NBOA in 2017 as director of accounting and tax programs and was promoted to vice president of professional development and business affairs early in 2018. In 2020, Jennifer was named NBOA’s chief learning officer and serves NBOA’s 1,500 members in that senior leadership role.
Jennifer is a leader at several not-for-profits and currently serves on the board of Renewal House. She recently served as president of the Junior League of Nashville (JLN), a 1,600-member organization of women volunteers, the 15th largest in the world under the Association of Junior Leagues International. She is honored to be a member of the Leadership Nashville class of 2018 and served on the board of the Monroe Carell Jr. Children's Hospital at Vanderbilt from 2017-2019. Her past JLN positions have included serving as the League's first-ever executive vice president, the inaugural chair of the Mentor Program, chair of the Community Impact Committee, and co-chair of the new member program. Jennifer is an alumna of the Young Leaders Council and has served on advisory councils for W. O. Smith School as well as LEAD Public Schools. She was also a 30 Under 30 honoree of the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation in 2013 and a 2019 Nashville ATHENA Awards nominee.
Jennifer graduated in the top 7% of her class, magna cum laude from Birmingham-Southern College with a Bachelor of Science degree in accounting, Spanish, and business. She studied abroad at St. John's College of Oxford University, England in 2004.
Jennifer wrote and illustrated the bestselling book, GOODNIGHT, NASHVILLE, and gives a portion of each sale to a local non-profit.