Greg Abel: Warren Buffett’s heir takes the throne

Greg Abel is considered a safe pair of hands as he takes centre stage at Berkshire Hathaway. But he arrives after one of the hardest acts to follow in investment history, Warren Buffett. Can he thrive?

Greg Abel of Berkshire Hathaway
(Image credit: Daniel Acker/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

These are great times for former Canadian ice-hockey players. One has just been elected prime minister of his country, another will shortly take the helm of one of America’s most venerated financial institutions – Warren Buffett’s $1.16 trillion powerhouse, Berkshire Hathaway. Both are considered safe pairs of hands.

Greg Abel’s elevation wasn’t a surprise, says Bloomberg. He’s been teed-up to replace the 94-year-old “philosopher king of modern investing” since 2021. But the timing of Buffett’s announcement, at the end of Berkshire’s annual meeting on 3 May, took even his pink-cheeked successor unawares.

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Jane writes profiles for MoneyWeek and is city editor of The Week. A former British Society of Magazine Editors editor of the year, she cut her teeth in journalism editing The Daily Telegraph’s Letters page and writing gossip for the London Evening Standard – while contributing to a kaleidoscopic range of business magazines including Personnel Today, Edge, Microscope, Computing, PC Business World, and Business & Finance.

She has edited corporate publications for accountants BDO, business psychologists YSC Consulting, and the law firm Stephenson Harwood – also enjoying a stint as a researcher for the due diligence department of a global risk advisory firm.

Her sole book to date, Stay or Go? (2016), rehearsed the arguments on both sides of the EU referendum.

She lives in north London, has a degree in modern history from Trinity College, Oxford, and is currently learning to play the drums.