About Jolie

Jolie Bernard is a mompreneur, an innovator, a creator, and an orator. She is also a communications professional with twenty-five years of experience in the industry. Jolie Bernard is synonymous with giving selflessly and working tirelessly to create meaningful, purposeful, and impactful engagements. She is also an architect of conditions that create positive outcomes and change for others.

Bernard is a results-driven collaborator with proven success in building strong and sustainable relationships between stakeholders, executives, communities, organizations, and individuals regionally, nationally, and globally while prioritizing business growth and returns on investments.

As the principal owner of and lead brand strategist for The Bernard Group LLC, a full-service strategic communications and branding firm based in New Orleans, LA, she also has a successful track record of developing and facilitating effective strategic and organizational policies and procedures in diverse environments for a myriad of entities and institutions to include government officials and dignitaries, celebrities and professional athletes, CEOs of major companies, international recording artists, corporate partners, and hundreds of small business owners in the United States and abroad. Bernard is also a partner in several other companies to date as well as the principal owner of several other business imprints.

Bernard is passionate about servant-leadership; aligning herself with causes and non-profit organizations that are anchored in the spirit and mission of helping those that do not have traditional access to resources position themselves to live, learn, and work in a more productive, meaningful, and impactful way.

Her award-winning firm is a proud member of the New Orleans Black Regional Chamber of Commerce, the New Orleans Chamber of Commerce, Lighthouse Business & Professional Women, ColorComm- Women of Color in Communications, and the Female Founder Collective (FCC) – founded by Fashion Powerhouse Rebecca Minkoff. She is also a 2021 New Orleans City Business Women of the Year honoree, a 2022 Biz New Orleans Woman to Watch, a 2022 New Orleans Magazine Woman of Influence, the inaugural (2022) Fidelity Bank P.O.W.E.R. Woman of the Year, 2023 Inside New Orleans Women in Business honoree, 2023 Leukemia & Lymphoma Society Visionaries of the Year Candidate, LLS Mission Award Winner for Policy & Advocacy, the 2023 New Orleans Magazine Face of Communication Planning, a 2023 US Black Chambers, Inc. Power 50 Under 40 honoree, and is included in the 2023 Biz New Orleans Biz 500. Bernard also served as the 2023 American Heart Association Go Red for Women Northshore Campaign Chairwoman. In 2024, Bernard was named one of Social Northshore’s Women of Influence and The Bernard Group was named as a Morial Awards Small Business of the Year Finalist. Additionally, Bernard will serve as the 2025 Chair of the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society’s Visionaries of the Year Campaign.

Bernard also serves as the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) New Orleans Chapter Treasurer of the Board of Directors. She is also on the Board of Directors for the New Orleans Chamber of Commerce, CROWN ME Foundation, Sunny with a Chance of Love, and Just One Voice.

In addition to her executive leadership role in several non-profits, Bernard is the founder of four non-profit organizations of her own, The Future Forward Foundation – an organization designed to support young people anchored in scholarship and service; the Alton J. Dugas Foundation – honoring her late grandfather who devoted all of his life in service to others; The Soapbox Campaign, Inc. – designed to promote good personal hygiene practices while building self-esteem and self-confidence; and most recently, The Monarch Society – intentionally designed to support young girls and young women with an emphasis on young girls and young women in marginalized and underserved communities across the country with concentrations in Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas who may not traditionally have access to resources and opportunities that will improve her conditions and remove barriers to a better quality of life. Furthermore, Bernard launched Conscious Communications Collective, Inc. in 2022 – a non-profit organization designed to amplify the voices of victims of injustice. This issues-driven social justice communications imprint prioritizes transformative communications strategies to help individuals, families, and communities effectively navigate crisis events and catalyze audiences into action.

She is always looking for an opportunity to cultivate and foster relationships that prioritize the ability to develop and support comprehensive young people – giving them the ability to transcend circumstances that are difficult to go on to realize his or her greatest potential.