Nobuzo Tohmatsu

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Admiral Nobuzo Tohmatsu (等松 農夫蔵, Tōmatsu Nobuzō^?, April 25, 1896–December 28, 1980) was a paymaster in the Imperial Japanese Navy who went on to become an accountant and a namesake of the global auditing firm Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu.

Born in Gunma Prefecture, Tohmatsu graduated from the Naval Paymaster Academy in 1917 and served on several ships over the next five years, including Fusō, Asama, Hyūga, Izumo, Mogami, and Shiretoko. In 1922, he left maritime duty to take up an administrative position at the Naval Yard of Sasebo: he later served as an ordnance accountant in both the Shipbuilding and Air Commands. In 1934, he was designated naval attache to the Embassy of Japan in London, where he served until 1936.

During World War II, Tohmatsu achieved the rank of captain and served as chief of several bureaus in the Naval Command, including the Bureau of Supply and Bureau of Accounting. He was also briefly a member of the Bureau of Naval Affairs. In May of 1945, he became a rear admiral: following Japan's surrender later that year, he assisted Allied occupation officials in accounting for and removing ordnance supplies throughout the country. He resigned from the Navy in August of 1946.

Tohmatsu became a certified public accountant in 1952 and joined a Western-owned accounting firm in Tokyo, during an era when locally-owned Japanese businesses were still small. Tohmatsu became well-known, partly due to the large number of Japanese accountants who had studied under him during the 1930s and 1940s. He became president of the Japanese CPA association in 1967.

Around that time, the Japanese government began an initiative to establish subsidized domestic accounting firms. Tohmatsu seized the opportunity and joined accountant Iwao Tomita, one of his former students who had gone on to attend the Wharton Business School, to form the firm of Tohmatsu & Co. in 1968. Tohmatsu grew along with Japan's economy, and by Tohmatsu's death in 1980 it had become one of the world's largest auditors. In 1975, it merged into Touche Ross, which later became Deloitte & Touche in 1990, and Tohmatsu's name was appended in 1993 to change the name of the firm to Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu.