Women Entrepreneurship Week 2019
Karen Pena
Founder, Our Way to HOPE, CEO, Pena Tax Services, and Accountant/Property Manager of TOP Real Estate Investment, Inc.
Karen Pena is the Founder of Our Way to HOPE in Paterson, NJ, the city where she was born and raised. She has served as an accountant for TOP Real Estate Investment, Inc. for 18 years. In 2015, she started her own small business, Pena Tax Services.
Ever since she was a child, Ms. Pena felt her purpose in life was to help others. She frequently volunteered in her community, but felt the need to do more. In 2015, she founded Our Way to HOPE – “Our Way of Helping Out People Everywhere.”
Ms. Pena was the first Peruvian-American and the first Hispanic to be elected as a Board of Education member in Elmwood Park, NJ, her home for 21 years. In 2019 she was sworn in as a Board of Education Trustee.
Ms. Pena is a graduate of St. John’s Elementary School in Paterson, NJ, and Mary Help of Christians Academy in North Haledon, NJ. She holds an Associate’s degree in Business Administration – Management, and a Bachelor of Science in Accounting from Berkeley College, as well as a Master of Business Administration in Accounting from Caldwell University.
Ms. Pena is the 2019 Berkeley College Alumna of the Year.
