Hi, I’m Braden Tidball. You found me.
I’m a born and raised Edmontonian, west side, Jasper Place High School grad. Growing up I played pretty much every sport you can name: hockey, baseball, soccer, football, wrestling. If it involved a ball, a puck, or getting hit, I was probably doing it. Wrestling is the one I was worst at, by a wide margin, and I don’t think my coach ever fully forgave me for it. I had a great childhood in this city, which is part of why I’ve never had much interest in leaving it.
Why accounting?
I get asked this a lot, and the honest answer is that not many accountants grow up dreaming of becoming accountants. I certainly didn’t. For a long time I wanted to be a firefighter. Healthcare runs deep in my family too. My mom is a dental assistant, my sister is a nurse, and I’ve got cousins and uncles who are dentists, dental hygienists, physiotherapists, pharmacists. I could keep going. It felt like it was in my blood, so naturally I started a science degree at MacEwan.
I found out fast that science was not my calling. Labs and I did not get along.
A good friend talked to me about his experience in the Bachelor of Commerce program at the University of Alberta, and I figured I had nothing to lose, so I made the switch. Being in a business program meant taking accounting classes whether I wanted to or not. Turns out I actually enjoyed them, and I was good at them, which was news to me at the time. That’s when the idea of becoming an accountant started to feel less like a backup plan and more like an actual path. Funny how the thing you fall into by accident ends up being the thing that fits.
Getting here
After graduating, I spent two years at Yates Whitaker, a local Edmonton firm. That’s where I learned what public practice actually looks like day to day: the client relationships, the deadlines, the reality that no two small businesses have the same problems even when they’re in the same industry. It was a good place to start.
From there I completed my CPA designation. In school I’d learned a fair amount about corporate accounting, and I started to feel like I was missing out on that side of things, so I moved to PricewaterhouseCoopers, where I spent four years auditing public and large private companies. PwC taught me a different kind of discipline. Working on bigger, more complex files forces a level of rigour and structure that you carry with you afterward, even when you’re back to working with a business that has five employees instead of five thousand. It’s part of why I’m comfortable digging into the detail on a file rather than skimming the surface.
I appreciated my time there and learned a lot, but along the way I realized my actual passion was with entrepreneurs and local businesses, not the corporate world I’d gone looking for. That realization is what eventually pointed me toward the next move.
Eventually the pull toward being a business owner got too strong to ignore. I found an opportunity with Oviatt Accounting to subcontract work and build my own client base at the same time, and it’s been a great fit. I get the independence of running my own book of business with the backing and infrastructure of an established firm, which is honestly the best of both worlds. I’m not interested in being the accountant who disappears until tax season. I’d rather be someone you can actually call.
Outside the office
I’m a husband to my wife Magi and dad to our two kids, Oliver and Amelie. Most of my free time goes to them, with whatever’s left going to men’s league hockey, golf, and the occasional D&D-adjacent game night. I will not pretend to be good at any of these, but I show up consistently, which counts for something.
I respect what it takes to run a business. It’s one thing to have a great idea and a totally different thing to actually build something that survives contact with payroll, GST, and the CRA. I genuinely enjoy helping owners understand the things nobody tells you before you start a business, the stuff that only shows up once you’re already in the middle of it. That’s the part of this job I find most rewarding, and it’s a big part of why I do what I do the way I do it.
If you’re looking for a new accountant with a personal touch, if you’re just starting a business and trying to figure out where to even begin, or if you simply want to support a local small business, I’d love to have a chat. You can reach me at braden@oviattaccounting.com.
Stay tuned for more posts.
