Tonetta L. Conner, CPA

Managing Partner

Tonetta L. Conner brings more than fifteen years of experience in private and public accounting to the Harrington Group clients she serves.  Tonetta’s passion to become an accountant started at the age of fifteen. She credits her first accounting course in high school where she managed and prepared “mock” corporate books as her first exposure to the field, and where she began her thirst to want to help others manage their business operations. This thirst led her to major in Business Administration, with an emphasis in Accounting, at the University of California, Berkeley, and then later became a licensed CPA.

Early in her career, Tonetta worked as a Controller for a design-build firm and then as an accountant at a Los Angeles based CPA firm. Tonetta joined Harrington Group in June 1997. It was then that she was able to combine her passion for accounting with the wonderful opportunity to serve nonprofit organizations.  Over her many years with the firm, she has drawn upon her extensive experience to provide accounting, auditing, tax, and management advisory services to the firm’s clients. A knowledgeable professional, Tonetta has developed her expertise in working with a range of nonprofit organizations—from privately funded community organizations, mental health agencies, foster care organizations to private and charter schools. Tonetta truly believes in the focus of the firm to be “a trusted nonprofit partner.”

As a partner who embraces and enjoys public speaking/teaching, Tonetta has shared her insights as a speaker at the California CPA Education Foundation’s Nonprofit Organizations Conference and as a speaker for CompassPoint on nonprofit finance.  Tonetta is often the speaker at the firm’s “NPO Symposiums” which are hosted quarterly on a variety of nonprofit topics and she provides tailored nonprofit management training to the Boards of her clients.

Tonetta is a member of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) and the California Society of Certified Public Accountants (CalCPA). She also holds a Chartered Global Management Accountant (CGMA) designation from the AICPA.

Outside of her professional pursuits, Tonetta enjoys spending time with her family, attending sporting events and traveling the world. Those who know her well would say she is a “daredevil” and a “world traveler”, which are truly supported by her many traveling adventures—ziplining over the rainforest in Costa Rica, bungee jumping in Australia, driving an amphibian dune buggy through the Dominican Republic, and being up close and personal with “big game” on safari in Africa.  Tonetta loves to travel the world not just for the adventure, but also for cultural enlightenment. “We live in a society made of up people from various backgrounds and cultures. Seeking to know more about other cultures is to embrace that fact.”