the number cruncher
Roberta Bernhardt
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Photo by Stefan Radtke |
Roberta Bernhardt, CPA, is one of just 11 women partners in the 106-partner accounting firm Citrin Cooperman & Co., LLP. The company has 475 employees in the tri-state area, and was acknowledged as one of the Top 100 Firms in 2010 and 2011 by Accounting Today.
Working from the White Plains office, Bernhardt, with more than 25 years in the business, is known as the advisor to those managing finances for the first time—e.g., teaching young people just starting out in their careers and divorcees or widows who find themselves in charge of an estate. “I’m teaching many how to manage family business and how to plan ahead for the next generations,” she says. “Most people overlook the psychological aspects to accounting. It’s not just number crunching—there are people skills that go into it as well.”
It was in 1978 that Bernhardt decided to return to school to become a CPA. She joined a small accounting firm and became a partner shortly thereafter. She tripled the size of the practice and eventually merged with Citrin Cooperman in 2001. The firm is the fourth largest accounting firm in Westchester and is ranked the 28th largest accounting firm in the United States by Inside Public Accounting. Bernhardt specializes in succession planning and estate and trust planning and business consulting both domestically and internationally.