Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway announced its biggest management shake-up in decades on Monday, including a surprise exit, a retirement, and a new position.
Close followers welcomed the moves, but two warned they could mark the start of a wider exodus as the legendary investor enters his final weeks as CEO after six decades in charge.
Greg Abel, the head of Berkshire’s non-insurance operations, is poised to take the reins from Buffett on January 1.
Carolyn Dewar, a senior partner at McKinsey and coauthor of “A CEO for All Seasons,” told Business Insider that a leadership shuffle often accompanies a CEO change.
“Getting the top team right is the CEO-elect’s most important early decision,” Dewar said, adding that a CEO’s “real leverage comes through leaders” and if they’re “not aligned, capable, and energized for the next chapter, no strategy can take hold.”
John Longo, a finance professor at Rutgers Business School and the author of “Buffett’s Tips,” told Business Insider there are parallels to a “new football coach wanting to install his own offensive and defensive coordinators.”
Dewar also said a CEO transition is often an “unfreezing moment” for a company’s leaders, prompting them to “step back and reflect” on whether they want to keep working under the new boss or make a change as well.
Marc Hamburg doesn’t get enough credit
Berkshire’s finance chief of nearly four decades, Marc Hamburg, will hand over his responsibilities to Berkshire Hathaway Energy’s finance boss, Charles Chang, in June 2026, but hold off on retiring until June 2027 to ease the transition.
Adam Mead, the author of “The Complete Financial History of Berkshire Hathaway,” told Business Insider that Hamburg was “probably the least appreciated person in Berkshire from the outside looking in.” Mead said his “contributions to structuring deals and managing the financials can’t be overstated.”
Hamburg’s willingness to work with his successor for a full year is a “testament to his commitment to Berkshire and its longevity,” Chris Bloomstran, the president of Semper Augustus Investments and a Berkshire shareholder for 25 years, told Business Insider.
He likely remained in his role for so long “out of loyalty to Berkshire and to Warren,” Bloomstran added.
Adam Johnson could be the first of several divisional chiefs
NetJets CEO Adam Johnson has been appointed president of Berkshire’s 32 consumer products, service, and retailing businesses — a group that includes See’s Candies, FlightSafety, and Fruit of the Loom.
“Installing a respected senior operator to support dozens of business-unit CEOs both strengthens those businesses and creates needed bandwidth for Greg as he assumes overall responsibility,” Lawrence Cunningham, the author of several books about Berkshire and the director of the University of Delaware’s Weinberg Center, told Business Insider.
As CEO, Abel will continue to oversee Berkshire’s other non-insurance businesses, such as the BNSF Railway, Pilot, and Berkshire Hathaway Energy.
David Kass, a finance professor at the University of Maryland and longtime Buffett blogger, told Business Insider that he expected Abel to pick someone to supervise those “very large” businesses in the near future.
Mead predicted Abel would appoint more divisional heads, emulating a Berkshire-owned conglomerate named Marmon, which has divisional presidents overseeing its more than 100 businesses.
Todd Combs may or may not be replaced
Drew Angerer/Getty Images
Buffett hired Todd Combs in 2010 and Ted Weschler in 2011, tasking the hedge fund managers with helping him to pick stocks for Berkshire. Combs also took over as Geico’s CEO in 2020 and spearheaded the auto insurer’s rebound this year.
Combs, widely seen as a key leader of post-Buffett Berkshire, is leaving to head up a new investment unit at JPMorgan and be a special advisor to CEO Jamie Dimon.
Kass predicted Berkshire would find a replacement for Combs to help Weschler manage Berkshire’s more than $350 billion worth of cash and roughly $300 billion stock portfolio.
Bloomstran said Weschler might take charge of a larger chunk of Berkshire’s portfolio and be a “sounding board” for Abel on major investments, or at least take over Combs’ allocation if he hasn’t already.
Nancy Pierce is a classic Berkshire pick
Geico’s operating chief, Nancy Pierce, has replaced Combs as CEO after nearly 40 years at the company. She’s “tremendously qualified” for the job, Bloomstran said.
Pierce’s appointment is “pure continuity,” Cunningham said, adding that her long tenure, deep experience, and strong endorsement from insurance boss Ajit Jain are “all very on brand for Berkshire.”
Michael O’Sullivan is building on Charlie Munger’s legacy
Lane Hickenbottom/Reuters
Michael O’Sullivan will become Berkshire’s first-ever general counsel on New Year’s Day. Prior to joining Snap as general counsel in 2017, O’Sullivan spent more than two decades at the law firm Munger, Tolles & Olson, cofounded by Buffett’s late business partner, Charlie Munger.
Cunningham said O’Sullivan’s appointment is a “prudent modernization and a natural evolution of the Munger lineage inside Berkshire.”
Bloomstran said the new position was “interesting but not surprising” as Berkshire has long relied on Munger, Tolles & Olson as external counsel, and cofounder Ron Olson recently retired from Berkshire’s board, where he likely served as an informal legal advisor.
More changes may be coming
Kass underscored that no other senior leaders are leaving Berkshire and said it’s “critically important” that Jain and other senior insurance bosses, such as Joe Brandon, “remain in place to smooth this management transition.”
Meyer Shields, a managing director at Keefe, Bruyette & Woods who’s been covering Berkshire for more than 15 years, said in a research note that his team “expect more turnover” in the months ahead, as the cachet of “working for Mr. Buffett’s successor is not (at least yet) the same as working for Mr. Buffett himself.”
Brett Gardner, the author of “Buffett’s Early Investments,” told Business Insider there’s “justifiable concern that some people want to work for Warren Buffett and not Berkshire Hathaway.”
Gardner said that might not be the case with the latest moves, but it’s “something to watch out for.”
Complicating matters is the reality that many of Buffett’s most trusted lieutenants are “past retirement age already,” he added.