Current job or job title: Owner

Employer: Bloom Bookkeeping LLC

Hometown: Leawood, KS

First job: Cashier at a grocery store

College/degree(s):

• BSBA with an emphasis in Marketing and a minor in Environmental Design from Mizzou
• MBA with an emphasis in accounting from Columbia College

Awards/Recognitions:

• 20 Under 40 Class of 2019 through COMO Magazine
• Entrepreneur of the Year for Boone County from the Women’s Business Center in 2019

What led you to your current career?
Accounting was something that I stumbled into shortly after I graduated from Mizzou while I was the Chief Operating Officer at The MacXprts Network, the Apple store that was located in Cherry Hill for many years. I started as the Director of Operations, placing orders for their 50+ consultants across the country, and within six months I was promoted to COO. I held that position for a total of nine years. It was there that I realized that managerial accounting was really different from the tax accounting I had learned in school. I actually liked it! And I was good at it. All the numbers fit together like a puzzle and it all made sense. The work I did had a real impact on the company and how we moved forward, using the numbers to solve problems and make decisions. That was when I decided to make accounting my career.

Two or three words that friends and acquaintances would use to describe you:
Caring, stylish, hard-working

Hardest thing you’ve ever done:
One of the hardest things I’ve done is homeschooling my kids over the last year. We chose to have them virtual for the year, and running a business while also managing their school activities and Zoom and homework was very challenging. I am very excited for them to go back to in-seat for summer school!

What advice would you give to other women starting in their careers?
You don’t have to be who they want you to be, and it doesn’t even matter who “they” are. If you are acting in a way that is authentically you, you can’t go wrong. Listen to your heart and your higher self, and be true to those messages. It is that authenticity and self-awareness that others will be attracted to and genuinely want to work with.

What should readers know about your business? What makes it special?
We at Bloom Bookkeeping focus on using the numbers to empower our clients to effectively manage their business. We are not creating financial reports simply for tax time; we are creating them every month so they can be used in decision making. Often I’m running special reports and projections for clients so they can be on top of the financial aspects of their business. Because many times, business owners are so busy being the technician that the books get pushed to the side and decisions are made based solely on feelings. And what I have learned is that many times their feelings are clouded by what they want the outcome to be, and that often takes them down the wrong road.