8 things to know about Greg Abel, Warren Buffett’s successor at Berkshire Hathaway

Last year, Warren Buffett named Gregory Abel as his successor at Berkshire Hathaway. Currently the chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway Energy, Abel will head the multinational conglomerate once Buffett steps down. He has been with Berkshire Hathaway for more than two decades. Here are 8 things to know about the success story of Greg Abel - a man who went from a working class neighbourhood in Canada to a well-known figure on the Wall Street.

1) Gregory Edward Abel, 60, was born in Edmonton, Canada. He grew up in a working class neighbourhood and worked odd jobs throughout school and college to make money. Abel’s father worked as a salesman and his mother was a homemaker.

2) Abel currently oversees the company’s energy-related businesses as the chief executive of Berkshire Hathaway Energy – a company in which he recently sold his 1% stake for $870 million. In 2018, he was also appointed to the Berkshire Hathaway board as vice chairman of noninsurance businesses, according to CNBC.

3) Growing up in Edmonton, Abel did odd jobs like distributing flyers and returning bottles to make money, according to The Globe and Mail. He did not participate in too many extracurricular activities in school, aside from hockey and football.

4) Greg Abel graduated in 1984 from the University of Alberta with a commerce degree and went on to work as an accountant for PricewaterhouseCoopers in San Francisco.

5) He later joined CalEnergy, which was acquired by MidAmerican Energy. Berkshire Hathaway acquired a 75-percent stake in MidAmerican Energy in 1999. At that time, Abel was president of the multibillion dollar energy company.

6) He became the CEO of MidAmerican Energy in 2008. The company later changed its name to Berkshire Hathaway Energy. Abel currently lives in Des Moines, Iowa, where Berkshire Energy is based.

7) He has been described as an “absolute workaholic” by colleagues. “He does more in every hour of every day than any person I’ve ever met,” Dawn Farrell, CEO of TransAlta Corp, once said for Greg Abel.

8) Warren Buffett has described him as “truly innovative”. “I always make time for Greg when he calls, because he brings me great ideas and is truly innovative in his thinking and business approach,” Buffett said in 2013.