Jenna Swanson
Jenna Swanson is an accomplished accounting professional with 22 years of experience dedicated to driving accuracy, efficiency, and financial clarity across organizations. She currently serves as Senior Accountant at Virginia Innovation Partnership Corporation (VIPC), where she ensures the integrity of financial reporting, investment tracking, and general ledger management across multiple entities. Based in Powhatan, Virginia, Jenna has built a strong reputation for her expertise in internal controls, business process improvement, and financial systems such as QuickBooks and Microsoft Dynamics.
Throughout her career, Jenna has developed a passion for working with small businesses and startups, helping entrepreneurs build a strong financial foundation and truly understand their numbers. In her current role within the nonprofit sector, she supports an organization that funds and empowers startups by providing financial backing and connecting founders to critical resources. She oversees the full scope of accounting operations, ensuring accurate reporting and compliance while enabling innovation to thrive. Previously, she served as Accounting Manager for Good Shepherd Lutheran Church and held multiple roles at CityParking Inc., where she managed high-volume transactions, implemented process improvements, and strengthened financial operations. Jenna’s philosophy is rooted in empowerment—she believes her role is not to create dependency, but to equip organizations with the knowledge and tools needed to manage their own accounting effectively and sustainably.
One of Jenna’s most impactful achievements reflects this philosophy: she invested eight months training QuickBooks to recognize and categorize transactions for a client, ultimately eliminating the need for a full-time accountant and significantly reducing costs. Her work allowed the organization to operate independently with minimal support, a result she considers deeply rewarding. Jenna’s journey is also a testament to resilience and determination—having come from the foster care system, she put herself through school and built her career through perseverance and hard work. She earned her Bachelor of Science in Marketing and a Post-Baccalaureate Certificate in Accounting from Virginia Commonwealth University. While she often works behind the scenes, Jenna’s true fulfillment comes from empowering small businesses to succeed independently and sustainably.
• Working towards becoming a CMA (Certified Management Accountant)
• Post Baccalaureate Certificate, Accounting
• Virginia Commonwealth University - BS, Marketing
• Museum District Womens Club
What do you attribute your success to?
I'm very hardworking. I was never given anything in my life. I was from the foster care system, so I pretty much just beat all the odds, put myself through school, and have been very resilient. Growing up in foster care could have held me back, but instead it made me stronger and more determined to succeed on my own terms.
What’s the best career advice you’ve ever received?
The best career advice I ever received was actually the best parenting advice too: what works for someone else is not necessarily going to work for you. So just kind of take your own path and see where it leads you. This has guided me both professionally and personally, reminding me that I don't need to follow someone else's blueprint for success.
What advice would you give to young women entering your industry?
I tell my daughter all the time that she needs to just know her self-value, that no one can tell her what she is worth. As long as she believes in herself, the sky is the limit. She can do anything she puts her mind to. This is what I would tell any young woman entering this field - believe in yourself and know your worth, because that foundation of self-belief will carry you through any challenge.
What are the biggest challenges or opportunities in your field right now?
The biggest challenge for me right now is that I'm kind of being put into a tunnel, because people think every accountant should have a CPA. But the problem with the field that I'm in, working with small businesses, is that if I get a CPA, that prices me out very quickly from clients being able to afford me. That's why I'm trying to educate people that really, for a small business, you need a CMA and not a CPA, because I'm not doing tax or audit from an outside point of view, which is what a CPA would do. As for opportunities, accounting is really kind of taking off because of all this AI integration. It's ever-evolving right now, so I'm constantly just taking classes. I had one job where I was literally just training QuickBooks to recognize transactions for them, and that was really interesting for me. It took 8 months for me to train it properly, so it was a big investment of my time, but they didn't need an accountant anymore. They just needed a bookkeeper to recognize it and keep hold of it, and make sure that nothing was wrong when they're reconciling. It saved them so much money, and I was just amazed by it, a little afraid, but amazed.
What values are most important to you in your work and personal life?
Integrity is very important to me. I like to work with people that really believe in what they're doing. I like to see that they're giving back to the community. And I want to work with people who just enjoy it - they're not just doing it to make a buck, but they really believe in the mission that they're doing. These values guide both my professional choices and my personal life.