After Andy Park left Los Angeles for Seattle at age 13, it was sports that kept him tied to the region.

When he returned to what remained “home” for him after college, it was to kick off what is still an ongoing career with Big Four accounting giant Ernst & Young. However now, Park is positioned to harness the energy of sports to serve as a unifying force for all Angelenos and a boost to the regional economy.

“Sports is what unifies the city. If you go look at or go to a game, it’s so diverse and that’s really the beauty of our city, right? Our diversity is one of our greatest assets,” Park said. “I think the (FIFA) World Cup and the Olympics will be so special here, because our visitors from foreign countries are going to find a home away from home, because we have so many communities where immigrants have established a home base.”

Park’s origins are part and parcel of that story.

The son of Korean immigrants, Park was born in Anaheim but soon migrated to the San Fernando Valley, where his father owned a business. However, the double whammy of the 1992 Los Angeles riots and the 1994 Northridge Earthquake ultimately sent that business into bankruptcy – hence the move to the Pacific Northwest.

At least Park could pack his Lakers gear.

“When I moved to Seattle,” he said with a laugh, “it’s when the Lakers were kind of going at it with the Supersonics. I remember I wasn’t very popular at school.”

Park carries what the fandom meant to him now. He has served on the advisory board of the Los Angeles Sports & Entertainment Commission for years. And he takes the chairmanship of the Los Angeles Area Chamber on the cusp of the FIFA World Cup, the Super Bowl LXI in 2027 and the 2028 Olympic and Paralympic Games.

Taking stock of L.A.’s economy

Park never did leave EY after starting there. He has since risen to be managing partner of the firm’s Los Angeles operation and its Pacific South growth markets leader.

The accounting operation has grown significantly since his takeover, climbing from 1,766 accounting professionals in 2020 to more than 2,200 this year. The firm retains a significant presence downtown, with naming rights on its tower, even amid a shift in the atmosphere that began with the Covid-19 pandemic. The city saw office vacancies rise and homelessness and crime increase.

They’re problems he takes seriously, Park said, but he also has to acknowledge that every major city contends with these shifts – and what matters is how leaders respond to them.

“I come to work almost every day. There are times when I don’t come to the office because I’m visiting clients on the Westside or Pasadena or whatnot, but I’m regularly here,” he said. “As an office, we’re committed to the city of L.A. We have a lease here. It’s our headquarters here in Los Angeles. It’s where all of our people are working. We’re committed to the city, and we have to be optimistic that it gets better.”

Park might be onto something. Tourism alone due to the next three years of sporting events is sure to fill downtown’s hotels. Olympic events will be hosted there. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences just announced its relocation to L.A. Live starting in 2029. The infamous Oceanwide Plaza towers are on track for a solution. And distressed office towers are finding unorthodox new owners in the forms of entities like Capital Group and, potentially, the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power.

In a way, his hope for the city center mirrors the inspiration he drew from L.A.’s sports teams as a younger man.

“I’m an L.A. sports fanatic. We have almost two of everything, and if you look at my closet, I have jerseys for both,” he said. “I’m a die-hard Dodgers fan, but if the Angels are playing a non-L.A. city, I’m going to cheer for the Angels. The sports teams have, in a lot of ways, inspired me to be great and inspired me to persevere and push, and that’s why I’m so heavily involved and interested in sports.”

Park was also confident in L.A.’s broader middle-market economy, which he wants to show the world goes much deeper than Hollywood. He talked up the growing web of aerospace companies spun off from SpaceX. He hailed the twin ports for their importance to the region and the nation. He tipped his cap to the “dominant” banking and financial services sector.

And most of all, Park saluted the entrepreneurial opportunities here that have given millennials like him upward mobility.

“I joined the chamber and I volunteered to be the chair, because I want to represent the business community that and show that business is a force for good,” he said.

“We’ve got to continue to support the business community, because they’re the ones creating jobs and creating wealth in the city of Los Angeles.”