Nathan Choy, CPA, is the senior financial reporting analyst at the Guitar Center Co. Even at just four years of experience in his field, he has become an expert in financial reporting and technical accounting.
Discovering Accounting
Choy attributes his success to his family and his international upbringing. Though his parents are Canadian, they worked in China, giving him a childhood that spanned different cultures. His family taught him values that he continues to adhere to in his personal and professional life: caring for others, discipline, hard work, and trust in God.
When Choy started the process of choosing a career, his father suggested he consider one that would give him a set of skills and experience that are in international demand. He reviewed his options, and accounting intrigued him. After researching the field, he decided to study the subject, discovering that he enjoyed “understanding and communicating” the story the numbers told.
The Key to Success
Choy’s parents taught him how to deal with tasks, responsibilities, time management, and diligence in his studies. In college, he was mentored by professors and supported by fellow students. His professors recognized his potential and encouraged him in his chosen field.
As Choy progressed through his schooling and then his career, the supportive mentors and peers in his sphere helped him understand his strengths, how to engage with others, and how to contribute to a team.
“I built rapport, processes, and skills by delegating, coordinating, and gaining stakeholders to buy into different projects where a compromise or sacrifice was needed to make a project work out. That translated well while I was working, and I was early promoted to senior auditor at Ernst & Young. I had to lead a team as lead senior and coordinate among my staff, the clients, and our own upper management teams,” he explains.
Choy received a bachelor’s in business administration with emphases in accounting and in management information systems and a bachelor’s degree in computer and information sciences with an emphasis in information systems from The Master’s University in Santa Clarita, California, in 2020, graduating summa cum laude.
Having been a certified public accountant (CPA) since 2022 and having achieved the highest score in California on the CPA exams in 2021, Choy has received several awards and recognitions. Among them is the Elijah Watt Sells Award, the John F. Forbes Award, and his selection for inclusion in Marquis Who’s Who for his expertise in finance and accounting in 2025.
Thoughts on the Accounting Industry
Choy notes there is a CPA shortage, which is both bad and good news for students entering university and choosing this career. Students have been increasingly interested in finance and tech-related careers, and accounting is regarded by some to be a high personal cost career. However, he does point out that being a CPA also has the potential for high-reward opportunities.
“There are opportunities there, I think, for the accounting industry to present a broader range of jobs in accounting, especially opportunities to address stereotypes that accountants encounter or that jobs only revolve around tax,” Choy says. “There are many different types of accounting. There are many roads for in-depth analysis and for understanding companies and businesses and information.”
Choy aspires to continue his career in accounting while adhering to the values his family and mentors instilled in him on his future career path.
