Rhonda Clater
CFO ADVISOR
PROFILE
As a fractional CFO and business advisor, Rhonda is passionate about helping business leaders achieve their strategic business objectives by better understanding the levers and links between the financial and operational sides of their businesses. She is a committed leader with a proven ability to help small and mid-sized businesses use financial planning and analysis to inform decision-making, improve cash flow management, budgeting, and forecasting, and optimize growth. With 30+ years of professional experience as a CFO, Controller, Chief Risk Officer, Audit Supervisor, or Senior Accountant, Rhonda has wide-ranging experience across healthcare, insurance, software development, construction, small businesses, public accounting, and other industries.
Clients and colleagues appreciate Rhonda’s sound judgment, business acumen, and timely, high-quality insight and support, as well as her honesty, integrity, timeliness, and friendly, positive, even-keeled demeanor. She is a natural coach and mentor able to foster a strong team mentality across different levels and groups.
Clients and colleagues appreciate Rhonda’s sound judgment, business acumen, and timely, high-quality insight and support, as well as her honesty, integrity, timeliness, and friendly, positive, even-keeled demeanor. She is a natural coach and mentor able to foster a strong team mentality across different levels and groups.
EDUCATION
Rhonda earned her MBA from Mercer University, and her BS in Business and Information Technology (concentration in Accounting, magna cum laude) and AS in Business Administration from Macon State College. She is a Certified Public Accountant and member of the AICPA, Georgia Society of CPAs, and Charter Global Management Accountants.
PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE
Rhonda said she’d never be an accountant. But while working as an Office Manager at a leading national health insurer and attending college at night, Rhonda ended up doing some accounting — and when the organization restructured, she found herself accepting an Assistant Controller role at a software development firm. She went back to college to obtain her CPA and never looked back. Rhonda spent the next decade at regional public accounting firms: first as a Senior Accountant providing audit and tax services, and next as an Audit Supervisor managing several audits simultaneously. At that time, a partner at Rhonda’s firm tapped her to work as an interim Controller for a regional health care provider organization. She enjoyed dedicating her focus — as well as not being on the road all the time — so she applied for and earned the role of permanent Controller, spending the next 2+ years managing day-to-day accounting operations, including payroll, treasury, accounts payable, financial reporting and analysis, budget preparation assistance, and internal controls development and maintenance. She also managed relationships with external audit and tax firms, investment firms, bankers, and trustees and coordinated annual insurance renewals.
Rhonda then moved to a Controller role with a property and casualty insurance carrier, managing the accounting department for the parent companies and three affiliates; overseeing internal and external financial reporting (including financial analysis and forecasting), internal controls, and an accounting staff of eight; and becoming CFO after a year’s time. For the next 3+ years, Rhonda provided strategic financial oversight of six companies; served as Chief Risk Officer overseeing enterprise risk management (ERM); presented financials, forecasts, and investment and ERM activity to management and the board; and managed relationships with external audit and tax firms, rating agencies, investment firms, bankers, and regulators. Rhonda loved being a CFO, and sought to help more companies reach their goals through strategic financial analysis — hence her transition to providing fractional CFO services in 2019. Rhonda joined the Level10 CFO team in 2023.
Rhonda then moved to a Controller role with a property and casualty insurance carrier, managing the accounting department for the parent companies and three affiliates; overseeing internal and external financial reporting (including financial analysis and forecasting), internal controls, and an accounting staff of eight; and becoming CFO after a year’s time. For the next 3+ years, Rhonda provided strategic financial oversight of six companies; served as Chief Risk Officer overseeing enterprise risk management (ERM); presented financials, forecasts, and investment and ERM activity to management and the board; and managed relationships with external audit and tax firms, rating agencies, investment firms, bankers, and regulators. Rhonda loved being a CFO, and sought to help more companies reach their goals through strategic financial analysis — hence her transition to providing fractional CFO services in 2019. Rhonda joined the Level10 CFO team in 2023.
MORE INFORMATION
Though Rhonda’s childhood was split between Georgia and New England, she has happily spent most of her life in Georgia. Today, she and her husband live in a small town called Forsyth, Georgia, about an hour south of Atlanta. Rhonda’s free time is primarily devoted to hiking, gardening, spending time with her four grandchildren, and antiquing. Her current obsession is collecting vinyl records from the ‘70s, ‘80s, and ‘90s.