- Warren Buffett named Greg Abel, 61, as his successor at Berkshire Hathaway in 2021.
- Abel started out as an accountant before taking the reins as CEO of Berkshire Hathaway Energy.
- The Canadian businessman may be in the spotlight more due to the death of Charlie Munger.
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Warren Buffettmay be synonymous with Berkshire Hathaway, but the 93-year-old has long identified his successor.
The person doesGreg Abel, 61. The Canadian businessman is currently chairman of Berkshire Hathaway Energy and vice chairman of non-insurance operations at Berkshire Hathaway.
In 2021, Buffett saidCNBCthat Abel was his heir.
“The directors have agreed that if something were to happen to me tonight, Greg would take over in the morning,” Buffett told CNBC's Becky Quick.
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And now, withthe death of Buffett's longtime business partner Charlie MungerAbel may be in the spotlight more often on Tuesday.
From accountant to Berkshire acolyte
Abel graduated from the University of Alberta in 1984 with a degree in commerce. In 2013, Abel spoke to hisalma maters alumni pageabout his passion for accounting.
“I started with a stronger interest in finance, but accounting took over when I realized how crucial it was to understand things like income and cash flow statements,” says Abel, who started his career at PricewaterhouseCoopers.
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In 1992, the certified public accountant joined geothermal electricity producer CalEnergy. CalEnergy would later acquire MidAmerican Energy in 1999, adopting the latter's name in the process.
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Abel ended up in Buffett's hands when Berkshire Hathaway bought a controlling interest in MidAmerican Energy that same year. Abel took control of MidAmerican in 2008, which was renamed Berkshire Hathaway Energy in 2014.
Abel's tenure as CEO of Berkshire Hathaway Energy would last twenty years until he resigned in 2018. He is currently chairman of Berkshire Hathaway Energy and has served on the company's board of directors since 2000.
In 2018, Abel joined Berkshire Hathway's board and was named vice chairman of the conglomerate's non-insurance business.
A better Warren Buffett
Abel is highly regarded among his colleagues at Berkshire, including Buffett's late right-hand man, Charlie Munger.
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“Greg is simply sensational as a business leader, both a thinker and a doer,”Munger said about Abelat this year's Berkshire Hathaway annual meeting. "He's also just a great learning machine. You could say he's as good as Warren at learning all kinds of things."
“There are some things he's better at than Warren, and Warren knows that, and he just keeps dumping on Greg everything that Greg can do better, and that's a lot,” Munger continued.
Munger was once tipped as a potential successor to Buffett, although the latter said he should pass Munger on to someone younger.annual shareholder letterfrom 2007.
Buffett recently wrote about the future of the companypress releaseon November 21.
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“Berkshire – one of the largest and most diversified companies in the world – will inevitably experience human errors in judgment and behavior. These occur in all large organizations, public or private. But these errors are unlikely to be serious at Berkshire and will be acknowledged and corrected,” Buffett said in the press release.
"We have the right CEO to succeed me and also the right board. Both are necessary," Buffett added.
Abel representatives did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider sent outside regular business hours.
