At Baruch College, many students learn that accounting is the language of business. From preparing financial statements to analyzing bonds, Ronyhel Peguero’s accounting lectures often serve as students’ first introduction into the business world.
As a Baruch alum, Peguero began his journey to the college’s prestigious Stan Ross Department of Accountancy in the same classrooms where he now teaches.
“My brother attended [the college] to study business management and ultimately I got accepted to Baruch as well,” Peguero told the Ticker in an interview.
As a student at the Zicklin School of Business, Peguero initially majored in finance but changed his plans at the start of the 2008 financial crisis. While exploring career options, he took Accounting 3000, where an instructor and Peguero’s passion for math inspired him to pursue accounting.
“I knew that it was going to be tough to get a job [in finance] and accounting seemed more stable,” Peguero explained.
After graduating from Baruch, Peguero took the CPA exam and pursued a master’s in accounting at Hunter College. During that time, he worked full-time at a tax firm and later in Con Edison’s accounting department.
After graduation, several roles shaped Peguero’s development, but his position as a controller at Latin Events LLC became one of his most impactful.
“We worked with lots of different artists in that company but mostly in Latin music. We worked with artists like Bad Bunny, Snoop Dogg, Romeo Santos and Daddy Yankee,” he said.
As a controller, Peguero created budgets and forecasted revenue for live events.
“The owner would have a crazy idea and my job would be to turn it into a budget. For example, for a show [at Madison Square Garden], I would look at what they charged us historically, I would get a quote, and I would also review advertising, production and lighting costs,” he said.
After reviewing costs, Peguero would use his math skills to predict the event’s revenue.
“We would look at what ticket prices we want to charge [by analyzing] supply [venue capacity] and demand,” he said.
In addition to his job at Latin Events, Peguero began teaching accounting at Baruch in 2014 and started his own firm with Aviv Arkin, another Baruch alum. He compared working in live entertainment to teaching students.
“I get up on a stage in front of 400 students, but I don’t feel that kind of stage fright. It’s helped me a lot in terms of that fear of public speaking,” Peguero said.
His first class was a Saturday morning financial accounting lecture. “I’ll be honest with you, I was nervous the first time I went up to teach. But I realized that I’m teaching what I know and it’s just a matter of communicating it,” Peguero said.
He later taught intermediate accounting and financial statement analysis at the graduate level.
Peguero credited Glenn Albright, the former chair of Baruch’s Psychology Department, for developing his teaching philosophy.
“The way he used to teach is through a process of constant review [to start the lecture]. In my lectures [during the first few weeks of the semester], I like to start with a review asking ‘what is accounting?’ ‘What are the primary purposes of financial accounting?’ ‘What is the accounting equation?’” Peguero said.
Peguero also won the E&Y Curriculum Innovation Award from Baruch for his efforts to transform the Principles of Accounting course through more inclusive pedagogy and incorporating professional guest speakers into the curriculum.
Recently, Peguero expanded his professional expertise by pursuing a Juris Doctor degree at CUNY Law School.
As an aspiring lawyer, Peguero has a new goal: helping people fight housing discrimination. “I want to help people who are being evicted from their homes for reasons outside of their control,” he said.
Ultimately, whether in accounting, teaching or law, Peguero’s mindset is to always show up at his best.
“I plan on providing accessible legal services to small business clients and to give back to the communities where I grew up,” he said.
