Born in Belgium, the youngest of four children raised by a single-mother, Jean-Luc Bourdon confronted issues such as budgeting and money management at an early age. He then realized the importance of planning wise financial decisions to get by and achieve personal goals, big or small. Having to choose a major in high school, it is not a surprise that he chose to study business and economics. He then applied that knowledge to put himself through college at the University of Wisconsin-Platteville (UWP) with a variety of jobs including small business entrepreneur.
Jean-Luc has a BS in Business Administration with a Finance concentration and an Accounting minor. He is a Certified Public Accountant (CPA) who earned the PFS (Personal Financial Specialist) credential from the American Institute of CPAs (AICPA). In the past, he worked as an accountant for a large telecom company where he was in charge of a European subsidiary. A senior corporate accountant for an international retail-chain followed and included responsibility for worldwide consolidation and financial reporting. He also was a senior corporate accountant at a Fortune 500 company, where he handled analysis and reporting for a $400 million securitized portfolio. Jean-Luc joined Walpole & Co., a Santa Barbara accounting firm in 2003 and transitioned to Walpole Financial Advisors, an affiliated wealth management firm. Jean-Luc teamed up with Kozak Financial Advisory in 2011.
Jean-Luc frequently speaks and writes about financial planning, creating the website www.sbmoney.org to spread self-help financial information in the Santa Barbara area where he lives with his wife, Renee.
Jean-Luc is very active in the profession. He is regular contributor to CPA Insider, a newsletter from the American Institute of CPAs (AICPA) where he writes as a wealth management expert. Jean-Luc also wrote articles for the AICPA Wealth Management Insider and the Montecito Journal. Jean-Luc was quoted in Accounting Today and CPA Trendlines and appeared on KEYT’s Coastal Business Report. Jean-Luc presented the California Society of CPA’s Dollars and Sense financial education workshop at UCSB. He is past chair of an AICPA networking work and a member of the Athena Study Group, a national, invitation-only group of top professionals with a common interest in financial planning. Jean-Luc currently serves on the PFS credential committee of the AICPA.