The board of Berkshire Hathaway has unanimously approved Warren Buffett’s recommendation of appointing Greg Abel, currently the vice chairman of non-insurance operations, as the company's chief executive officer. Buffett will remain the chairman of the board, the Omaha-based company said in a statement on Monday.

The nod from the board effectively sets into motion the succession plan at Berkshire, marking the end of Warren Buffett’s six-decade-long stint helming the company. On Saturday, the nonagenarian took the shareholders by surprise when he said that he would be stepping down from the CEO position, and floated the 62-year-old’s name as his successor.

Gregory Edward Abel, a Canadian-born executive, has a daunting task ahead, preserving core values and investment philosophy of Berkshire Hathaway, and upholding the legacy “Oracle of Omaha”, along with skillfully investing the company’s record-breaking cash pile of $347.7 billion in an increasingly volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous world on all fronts. Yet, the unanimous approval of his appointment is a testament to the stakeholders and investors alike expressing confidence in his ability to guide Berkshire Hathaway toward continued success.

Born on June 1, 1962, in Edmonton, Alberta, Abel grew up in a working-class neighbourhood. "It was a real working-class family where sometimes people had jobs, and sometimes they didn't," he once averred. As a child, he took on various jobs, such as delivering flyers and collecting bottles for recycling to earn pocket money. Abel pursued higher education at the University of Alberta, earning a bachelor's degree in accounting in 1984. He later became a certified public accountant through the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA).

Abel began his professional career at PricewaterhouseCoopers in San Francisco, where he honed his skills as a chartered accountant. In 1992, he joined CalEnergy, a geothermal electricity producer. CalEnergy acquired MidAmerican Energy in 1999, and Berkshire Hathaway took a controlling interest in the company later that year. Abel became CEO of MidAmerican in 2008, and the company was renamed Berkshire Hathaway Energy in 2014.

Under Abel's leadership, Berkshire Hathaway Energy expanded its operations and became a significant player in the energy sector. In January 2018, he was appointed vice chairman of Berkshire Hathaway, overseeing all non-insurance operations, including BNSF Railway, Dairy Queen, and Duracell. His strategic oversight and operational excellence have been instrumental in the growth and diversification of Berkshire's portfolio.