San Diego Metropolitan - 40 Under 40

Every Christmas, Jeanne Mann dresses up as Mrs. Claus and hops on her Harley-Davidson to deliver toys to children in Tijuana. The last thing she looks like is a successful 39-year-old CPA.

“That's the best thing you can say to me,” she says, and laughs, “that I don’t look like an accountant.”

Two years ago, Mann started her own accounting firm, Withers, Mann & LaManna LLP, which continues to grow. The firm is responsible for providing tax, financial and management accounting advice as well as performing audits, reviews and compilations for clients.

Mann also is a contract faculty member at UCSD Extension, and created the California Society of Certified Public Accountants San Diego Chapter Audit Boot Camp.

She didn’t plan to be an accountant. “I wanted to go into fashion merchandising in college, but it seemed so competitive,” says Mann, who graduated from Arizona State University in 1986. “Then I realized I had this habit of doing multiplication problems when I was bored. So I switched to accounting, and I loved it.”

The list of her community involvements is lengthy. She teaches for the San Diego Chapter of SCORE and is a pro bono auditor for The Wellness Community-San Diego Inc., Big Brothers of San Diego County and the Alzheimer’s Disease and Related Disorders Association of San Diego County.

“My father, grandfather and uncle were Mennonite pastors,” says Mann, a Point Loma resident. “So I was raised to help others and to try to make this world a better place.”

She received the Public Service Award from the California Society of CPAs this year, and she was named the Small Business Administration’s Accountant Advocate of the Year in 1998.