Greg Abel
President and Chief Executive Officer
2026 – Present
0 years (current)
Legacy
Abel is responsible for Berkshire's operating leadership, capital allocation, and preservation of the company's decentralized culture. Abel became CEO on January 1, 2026, succeeding Warren Buffett after being named his designated successor in 2021, having previously run Berkshire Hathaway Energy and later all of Berkshire's non-insurance operating businesses; Buffett remains chairman, and the succession was executed as a long-planned handover rather than a sudden transition. A Canadian executive who joined Berkshire through its 1999 acquisition of MidAmerican Energy, Abel spent over two decades building Berkshire's energy and utilities business before being named vice chairman overseeing all non-insurance operations in 2018, giving him direct operational experience across the vast majority of Berkshire's businesses ahead of taking the top job. Unlike Buffett, who built his reputation primarily through public-equity stock-picking, Abel's background is in direct operational management of large industrial and energy businesses, and analysts have noted his succession likely means a greater relative emphasis on operating-company performance versus new marketable-securities investment decisions going forward.