Susan Newton-Rhodes
Director
Susan Newton-Rhodes is a Director at Summit leading federal credit modeling and forecasting with a focus on mission-oriented investments. She has more than 25 years of experience working with institutional and philanthropic investors to design, implement, and evaluate the effectiveness of social investment strategies, including affordable housing, small businesses, community facilities, and economic development programs. In particular, she has worked closely with the Community Development Financial Institution (CDFI) industry, specifically to develop capital strategies and products for both CDFIs and their prospective investors.
At Summit, she supports the Treasury Department’s Emergency Capital Investment Program, a $9 billion recovery program for mission-focused financial institutions. Additionally, Ms. Newton-Rhodes helped stand up the CDFI Bond Guarantee Program by providing CDFI industry expertise in the development of programmatic regulations and requirements, underwriting, and portfolio management. The program has delivered more than $1.8 billion to CDFIs nationally and provided critical financial products to underserved communities.
Prior to joining Summit, Ms. Newton-Rhodes was principal and founder of POD Consulting, LLC, where she worked at a national level with philanthropic and institutional investors primarily focused upon developing capital strategies for CDFI investments. Further experience includes establishing the Enterprise Foundation’s (now Enterprise Community Partners) national lending activities under its affiliate, Enterprise Housing and Financial Services, where she was President. Enterprise remains one of the largest national CDFIs in the country.
Ms. Newton-Rhodes has extensive experience in the underwriting and management of CDFIs, commercial real estate, and business lending. She was a Vice President and Manager at First Union National Bank, where she was responsible for portfolio and asset management of $1 billion in commercial real estate loans. Ms. Newton-Rhodes has served on numerous nonprofit boards, including the Mercy Loan Fund CDFI and the Junior League of Washington, where she was President. She was one of the founding board members of Building Futures, Inc., a nonprofit in the District of Columbia that continues to serve families impacted by disabilities.
Ms. Newton-Rhodes holds an M.B.A. from the University of Missouri in marketing and finance, as well as a B.S. in business administration from the University of Kansas.
