Who is Greg Abel, Berkshire Hathaway executive named successor to Warren Buffett?

Warren Buffett, the billionaire investor known as the Oracle of Omaha, announced Saturday that he will retire as CEO of Berkshire Hathaway at the end of 2025, designating Vice Chairman Greg Abel as his successor to lead the $1.18 trillion conglomerate.

Buffett, 95, made the surprise announcement at Berkshire’s annual shareholder meeting, stunning an arena full of investors. He said he will recommend Abel, 62, to the board on Sunday, expressing confidence in Abel’s ability to take the helm.

“I think the time has arrived where Greg should become the chief executive officer of the company at year end,” Buffett said.

Who is Greg Abel?

Abel, who has overseen Berkshire’s noninsurance businesses, including BNSF railroad, See’s Candies, and Dairy Queen, since 2018, was named Buffett’s successor in 2021 after former Vice Chairman Charlie Munger inadvertently revealed the plan.

However, Buffett had not previously signalled a timeline for his departure, leading many to assume Abel would assume the role only after Buffett’s death.

“It’s working way better with Greg Abel than with me, because I don’t want to work as hard as he works,” Buffett said during the five-hour question-and-answer session, where he took no questions about the surprise announcement.

Buffett said only his children, Howard and Susie, were privy to the decision.

Born June 1, 1962, in Edmonton, Alberta, to a working-class family, Gregory Edward Abel grew up in modest circumstances, taking odd jobs like cleaning bottles and filling fire extinguishers, according to the Horatio Alger Association, which honoured him in 2018.

“It was a real working-class family where sometimes people had jobs and sometimes they didn’t,” Abel said in a video for the nonprofit. “You realized we were all working hard to try to advance our family.”

Abel graduated from the University of Alberta in 1984, later working at PricewaterhouseCoopers and CalEnergy before joining Berkshire Hathaway Energy (then MidAmerican Energy) in 1992. He became its CEO in 2008 and now oversees Berkshire’s vast noninsurance portfolio, including chemical, industrial, and retail operations. In the past year, Abel has also taken on some of Buffett’s capital allocation duties.

Investors and analysts expect Abel to maintain Berkshire’s long-term investment strategy and its practice of avoiding dividend payments.

Buffett has emphasised that Abel’s primary role will be preserving the company’s decentralised culture, built on independence, integrity, and trust.

“Greg will keep the culture,” Munger said in 2021. Abel, who lives in Des Moines, Iowa, where he has led Berkshire Hathaway Energy since 2011, is expected to remain there, given Berkshire’s lean Omaha headquarters.

A father who has coached his children’s hockey and soccer teams, Abel has kept a low profile, rarely giving interviews but showcasing his business acumen at Berkshire’s annual meetings.

Abel faces the daunting task of following Buffett, whose six-decade tenure made him one of the world’s wealthiest and most influential investor.