Berkshire Hathaway Inc.
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Leadership History
3 leaders · Full leadership timeline
Berkshire began as a textile company and became a holding company after Warren Buffett gained control in 1965. The modern company is a collection of operating businesses and investments bound by decentralized management, conservative financing, and a long-term shareholder culture.
Berkshire Hathaway operates a large, unique decentralized holding company model. Its foundational financial engine is the 'float'—the large billions of dollars in upfront premiums collected by its large insurance division (GEICO, Gen Re). Warren Buffett acts as the ultimate capital allocator, taking this extensive pool of essentially free insurance money and permanently investing it into highly stable, cash-generating private companies (BNSF Railway, Dairy Queen) and a formidable portfolio of publicly traded blue-chip stocks (Apple, Coca-Cola).
President and Chief Executive Officer
Abel is responsible for Berkshire's operating leadership, capital allocation, and preservation of the company's decentralized culture.
Chairman of the Board
Buffett built modern Berkshire and remains Chairman after the CEO transition to Greg Abel.
Vice Chairman, Insurance Operations
Jain leads Berkshire's insurance operations and remains one of the company's most important risk and underwriting leaders.
Berkshire's challenges include capital deployment at enormous scale, catastrophe risk in insurance, regulatory and operational pressures in rail and energy, equity-market volatility, and preserving culture after the CEO transition.
Warren Buffett has been the Chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway since 1965, an unprecedented six-decade tenure that makes him the longest-serving CEO in the S&P 500.
Greg Abel has been officially designated as the successor to Warren Buffett. Abel is the current Vice Chairman of Non-Insurance Operations and the brilliant architect who built Berkshire Hathaway Energy into a massive utility empire.
While Greg Abel will run the businesses, the massive stock portfolio will be managed by Ted Weschler and Todd Combs, two highly successful hedge fund managers Buffett hired years ago to slowly take over his stock-picking duties.
No. Warren Buffett famously pledged to give away 99% of his immense wealth to philanthropy (primarily the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation). His son, Howard Buffett, is designated to become the non-executive Chairman merely to protect the company's culture.
Every year, Buffett and his late partner Charlie Munger hosted the Berkshire Hathaway Annual Shareholder Meeting in Omaha, Nebraska. Over 40,000 investors from around the world fly in to listen to them answer questions about business and life for six straight hours.