Nadine Fortier Builds Pontchartrain Advisory Partners Into a Trusted Name for Small Business Owners

Nadine Fortier spent twelve years at a large regional accounting firm before growing frustrated with a business model she felt was built to serve corporations, not the family businesses she'd grown up around in Metairie. In 2014, she left to start Pontchartrain Advisory Partners, a firm now serving more than 200 small and mid-sized business clients across the New Orleans metro area.

"I kept watching small business owners get handed a tax return once a year and nothing else," Fortier said from Pontchartrain Advisory's office near Veterans Boulevard. "Meanwhile the big corporate clients down the hall got full financial strategy, forecasting, succession planning, all of it. I wanted to bring that same level of service to the guy running a hardware store or a family restaurant."

Filling a Gap in Small Business Financial Guidance

Pontchartrain Advisory Partners built its client base initially through referrals among Jefferson Parish small business owners, many of whom had never had access to services beyond basic bookkeeping and tax preparation. Fortier structured the firm to offer tiered advisory packages, allowing even modest-revenue businesses to access services like cash flow forecasting and succession planning that had traditionally been priced out of reach for smaller operations.

The firm's growth accelerated significantly during the economic disruption of the pandemic years, when Fortier's team helped dozens of local clients navigate federal relief programs and restructure debt to survive prolonged closures. That period established Pontchartrain Advisory's reputation as a firm that showed up for clients during genuine crisis, not just at tax time.

"Nadine's team walked us through PPP paperwork at eleven at night when we were about to lose the restaurant," said Marcus Doiron, owner of a Metairie seafood restaurant and longtime Pontchartrain Advisory client. "That's not something you forget. We've referred at least a dozen other business owners to her since."

Specializing in Family Business Succession

As many of the metro area's family-owned businesses founded in the 1970s and 1980s approach generational transition, Fortier has built a specialty practice around succession planning, helping aging owners structure ownership transfers to adult children or key employees without triggering crippling tax liabilities or family disputes.

"Succession planning is where I've seen the most business owners get blindsided," Fortier said. "They spend thirty years building something and then hand it off with a handshake and a prayer, and it falls apart within two years. We try to make sure that doesn't happen."

Pontchartrain Advisory now employs fourteen accountants and financial planners, and Fortier has made a point of hiring graduates from local universities including Loyola and the University of New Orleans rather than recruiting primarily from outside the region. She also mentors students through a financial literacy program at a Jefferson Parish high school, teaching basic business finance concepts to students interested in entrepreneurship.

"A lot of these kids have never had anyone explain the difference between revenue and profit," Fortier said. "If even a few of them start businesses someday because they understood the numbers a little better, that's worth the Tuesday afternoons."

Looking ahead, Fortier is expanding Pontchartrain Advisory's practice to include more specialized services for the region's growing hospitality and tourism-adjacent small businesses, an acknowledgment of how central that sector remains to the metro New Orleans economy. "This region runs on small business owners who are brilliant at their craft and were never taught the financial side," she said. "That's the gap I built this firm to close."