Buster Brown(he/him)

Buster Brown — full name Nathaniel T. Buster Brown — is the Executive Vice President and CFO of Rain City Capital, a fast-growing private lending company in Seattle that helps real estate investors flip homes. He grew up in Compton, California, and was the first in his family to go to college after turning down his dad's offer of a barber chair to chase something bigger. A junior-high aptitude test told him he'd be good at accounting, and even though he didn't know any accountants, he decided to bet on that idea. That one small seed eventually grew into a decades-long finance career. Buster's path wasn't a straight line — and that's kind of the point. He started in cost accounting at a food company called Nally's Fine Foods, moved into public accounting at a major firm (Peat Marwick, now KPMG), audited fish processing plants in Alaska in the dead of winter, and eventually climbed to CFO. Along the way he earned his MBA at night while working full-time and passed the notoriously tough CPA exam after years away from accounting classes. Every job taught him something he didn't realize he needed until the next opportunity came around. One of the most powerful things Buster talks about is confidence — not the kind you're born with, but the kind you build by showing up and competing. When he got to the University of Puget Sound, he saw how sharp his classmates were and decided to keep up. When he got to a top accounting firm, he did the same thing. He didn't always have a master plan; he just kept putting himself in positions where he had real choices. That's his core advice: give yourself options, stay curious, and don't sleep on the random skills you're picking up right now. For students of color — especially first-gen students — Buster's story hits different. He left Compton at 17, pieced together financial aid, work-study, and loans to finish college, and never had a family blueprint for the finance world. He had to figure it out by watching his bosses, building friendships with auditors his own age, and signing up for interviews at his university. He's proof that you don't need a connected family or a perfect plan to reach the C-suite — you need curiosity, the willingness to compete, and the grit to keep studying when everyone else has gone to bed. If you're thinking about finance, accounting, or business leadership, Buster's story is a masterclass in playing the long game. The skills you're picking up in that job you think doesn't matter? They'll show up again. The city you've never been to, the industry you know nothing about — those become your greatest advantages when you're the person in the room who actually understands how things work from the ground up.