Jones credits dance for start of professional development | People

CHESAPEAKE, Va. – Cherokee Nation citizen Jennifer Gale Jones’s journey began in dance and cheerleading and expanded into professional cheerleading as she worked toward her profession in the financial services industry. 

She credits dance for instilling self-discipline and athleticism from childhood, performing for what is now the Tulsa Ballet Theater. From there she continued into college at the University of Tulsa where she gained an athletic scholarship and was captain of the TU Golden Girls Dance Squad.  

After earning a business degree from the Collins College of Business at TU, she joined Tulsa’s Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance agency and later transferred to Mass Mutual’s Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, agency.

At 26 years old, she was stepping into a whole new world on the east coast when she moved to Philadelphia in 1987 and found it welcoming as a young businesswoman who loved American history combined with its multicultural communities. 

“There was something about walking on those grounds, it made me want to move there,” said Jones, who is also of Delaware descent. “As a Native American, I didn’t even know that the Delaware or Cherokee had any presence on the east coast. That’s how little I knew about anything.” 

With a plethora of professional sports team in Philadelphia like the 76ers, the Flyers, the Phillies and the Eagles, Jones said a conversation involving sports was a given and added to the appeal of living there.

After learning her trade as a financial advisor with investment firm Merrill Lynch, then Wheat First Butcher Singer and Paine Webber, she wanted to develop a community presence and utilized her dance and cheer background to audition for the NFL’s Philadelphia cheerleading team, earning one of nine open spots. 

“I was 29 when I tried out. That’s kind of ancient, actually. It’s not anymore, but at that time it was and there were 450 people trying out. I had only lived in Philadelphia for three years, and there were nine spots that were open on the squad,” she said. 

Jones cheered from 1990 to 1991 while at the same time building up clientele for her investment business. She said this was a key decision, to harness personal strengths, and became the foundation for her business. 

Being in her chosen career field, she felt like she had to prove her herself as a woman in a male-dominated field and as a Native American.

“It was just like you have to kind of go an extra mile to prove that you have intelligence and commitment to what you’re doing and that you’re serious,” she said. 

Today, she works as an independent investment advisor and registered insurance agent with nationwide clientele, helping them with any financial guidance from stocks, bonds, mutual funds, oil and gas, precious metals, retirement, education and estate planning.

Jones’s business, Jones, LLC, is also a Tribal Employment Rights Office certified business with the Cherokee Nation. 

“I’ve never gotten any business that’s Native American oriented at all, but I think people on the East Coast are very intrigued by my lineage,” she said. 

Jones continues to support where she came from by being a part of the National Football League Cheerleaders Alumni Organization that connects former cheerleaders and contributes to charitable organizations. 

“When you push and you really try to attain something, it’s the pushing and the trying that lends itself to developing your sense of yourself, how strong you can be, what you’re capable of doing. When you get beyond that, the rest of your life is colored by that. You walk differently, you talk differently, you are more at ease with people,” she said.