Howard G. Buffett has never built a career in finance. He taught himself to farm on rented land, served as a county sheriff in Illinois, and has photographed conflict zones and wildlife across roughly 130 countries. He never finished college. On Friday 18 September, the 71-year-old became chairman of Berkshire Hathaway, the roughly $1.1T (£820B) conglomerate his father spent six decades building.
Warren Buffett, 96, stepped down as chairman that day and became chairman emeritus, staying on the board as a director, Berkshire said. Greg Abel, who succeeded him as chief executive on 1 January, continues to run the company. The board elected Howard, a director since 1993, under a succession plan it had signalled for years.
The move hands the guardianship of a trillion-dollar business to a man whose working life has run almost entirely outside finance. His father framed the role narrowly and deliberately.
'Greg runs the company; Howard will guard its culture and values,' Warren Buffett wrote in his letter to shareholders, calling that culture worth more than anything on the balance sheet.
Shareholders, he added, should think of Howard as a policy they own and hope never to claim against.
Markets took it calmly. Berkshire's Class B shares slipped 0.3 per cent at the close on 18 September and have risen just 1 per cent in 2026. That trails the S&P 500's gain of more than 11 per cent, as investors favour higher-growth technology names. The muted response reflected how thoroughly the handover had been telegraphed once Abel took the top job.
Analysts expect continuity. Morningstar told clients it did not expect much to change as Buffett moved into the emeritus role, noting that he stays on as a director.
A Farmer Who Learned the Job on Rented Land
Howard's path to the boardroom ran through a cornfield. He began farming in Tekamah, Nebraska, in 1977, on land his father bought and leased to him for rent. He had never farmed before, and taught himself as he went.
'Farming to me was totally getting outside my comfort zone,' he said in an interview with Life Stories. He joked that his mother used to say he had not grown up playing with enough Tonka trucks.
His schooling followed the same improvised pattern. He enrolled at Augustana College in Illinois but left after falling out with his roommates, moved through other schools, and never graduated. None of Warren Buffett's three children finished college, and the investor has said he never minded.
'I don't think college is for everyone,' Warren Buffett told students at Western University's Ivey Business School in 2012, arguing that the best investment anyone can make is in themselves.
Howard went on to hold roles at, and sit on the boards of, food and agriculture companies including Coca-Cola and Conagra. He now runs a 1,500-acre family farm in Pana, Illinois, and champions no-till conservation farming, which his foundation promotes in developing countries.
Sheriff, Photographer, and Board Veteran
Buffett has held public office twice. He was an elected commissioner in Douglas County, Nebraska, from 1989 to 1992. Decades later he was appointed sheriff of Macon County, Illinois, sworn in during September 2017 to fill the vacancy left by the retiring Thomas Schneider. He served a 14-month term and did not stand in the 2018 election.
He built a second life behind a camera, publishing photography from conflict zones, including the front lines of the war in Ukraine, and writing several books rooted in his foundation's work. The Howard G. Buffett Foundation, which he has chaired since 1999, has committed more than $1B (£750M) to fragile regions such as Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
His longest apprenticeship, though, was on the board. Buffett has been a Berkshire director for 33 years. In his letter, Warren Buffett noted that his son's tenure is longer than his own was before he took over as chief executive at 34.
What Howard Will Actually Do
The division of labour is clear. Abel handles operations, capital allocation, and acquisitions. Howard's remit is to protect what makes Berkshire unusual: its buy-and-hold philosophy and the freedom it grants the businesses it owns. He is not expected to weigh in on deals.
Abel has already shown he will move quickly, deploying $10B (£7.5B) into Alphabet and agreeing to buy homebuilder Taylor Morrison in his first months in charge. Howard is one of three siblings, with Susie and Peter, charged with giving away most of their father's fortune, put at about $145B (£109B) by Bloomberg's Billionaires Index.
That leaves one unspoken question over the succession: whether Berkshire can keep compounding without the man who ran it for six decades. Abel holds the levers of the business. Howard holds its culture. Neither is Warren Buffett.
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