Greg Abel, 62, is without doubt one of the most watched enterprise leaders on both facet of the border nowadays
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Greg Abel’s curiosity in enterprise, like sports activities, was sparked at a younger age whereas rising up in Edmonton — with the budding entrepreneur amassing empty bottles to make some earnings.
At present, the vice-chair of non-insurance companies at Berkshire Hathaway — who has been pegged because the successor to the corporate’s legendary CEO Warren Buffett — says his early consideration to enterprise was spurred by curiosity.
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It’s one thing that also drives him.
As Abel returns to Alberta this week for the twenty fifth annual International Enterprise Discussion board in Banff — and receives the inaugural Doug Mitchell Award for International Enterprise Management on Wednesday evening — he says the flexibility to be outward pondering and constantly study is important for achievement.
“From a younger age, enterprise intrigued me. I imply, it was so simple as again within the day you possibly can accumulate pop bottles and other people had a bent to throw them away. And we’d get the nickel. I virtually seen it like a enterprise,” Abel stated in an interview.
“What number of may I decide up in every week and take them and clear them, fill the room and also you’d get your greenback? After which, why couldn’t I get $1.05 subsequent week? Did I’ve to increase my path . . . I nonetheless bear in mind pondering, ‘OK, nicely, there’s a greater route house, and I’ll assume perhaps I can get 5 pop bottles on the way in which house.’ ”
Abel, 62, is without doubt one of the most watched enterprise leaders on both facet of the border nowadays, marking a outstanding journey from his early years rising up, enjoying sports activities, amassing bottles and delivering flyers in Edmonton.
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Berkshire Hathaway owns an array of various firms in insurance coverage, utilities and railway industries — equivalent to BNSF Railway — whereas its holdings embrace main stakes in companies equivalent to Apple, Coca-Cola Co. and American Categorical Co., and with a market capitalization topping US$970 billion, its actions command consideration.
Abel runs all non-insurance operations for Berkshire “and in all respects is able to be CEO of Berkshire tomorrow,” and nonetheless performs hockey, Buffett wrote in his annual letter to traders earlier this 12 months.
An avid hockey fan — he’s associated to legendary Detroit Purple Wing Sid Abel — the Edmontonian earned a scholarship and studied enterprise on the College of Alberta, the place he graduated in 1984 with a commerce diploma.
Abel initially anticipated to review engineering on the college, however was admitted late into enterprise and shortly discovered his place, he stated.
“It was a chance to repeatedly study, since you may have a look at companies and also you knew that regardless of the enterprise, that there’s this chance for the enterprise to get higher, for your self to get higher,” he stated.
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“However one of many issues that actually intrigued me at the moment was this chance, at an early level in my life, to see this extensive breadth of experiences throughout firms, industries, after which begin that form of lifelong journey of studying. I do know that’s what drew me in early . . . It’s nonetheless what attracts me right now.”
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After graduating, Abel took a job at PricewaterhouseCoopers and later moved to the USA. He entered the vitality sector in 1992, and later turned CEO of MidAmerican Power. (Berkshire had acquired a controlling curiosity in MidAmerican in 1999.)
Trans Mountain Corp. chair Daybreak Farrell, former CEO of energy generator TransAlta Corp., remembers assembly Abel greater than 20 years in the past in Calgary. MidAmerican and TransAlta reached an settlement on geothermal investments in California and Farrell describes Abel as hard-working and sensible.
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“Proper out of the gate, he’s tremendous Canadian, extremely likable and as sincere because the day is lengthy, and as genuine and as actual as any particular person you’re ever going to get,” Farrell stated this week.
“He is aware of the place the precise deal is, and what the value is, and the way it’s good to work on it. And he’s a person of his phrase. So if he says, ‘OK, we’ve settled now, let’s get this performed,’ we get it performed.”
Some of the notable offers throughout his tenure as CEO of Berkshire Hathaway Power noticed it buy Calgary-based AltaLink — the most important regulated electrical energy transmission firm in Alberta — for $3.2 billion a decade in the past. It nonetheless owns the enterprise.
“I’ve a robust perception in Alberta and the place it was at that cut-off date and the place it should proceed to go as a province,” he stated.
Abel recollects assembly Doug Mitchell, a outstanding Calgary lawyer and group chief, by way of different enterprise relationships. He turned shut household associates with the previous Canadian Soccer League commissioner and his spouse, Lois, who later served as Alberta’s lieutenant-governor from 2015 to 2020.
Doug Mitchell served on the board of AltaLink. Abel and the Mitchells additionally linked over sports activities, attending occasions collectively equivalent to hockey video games and the Gray Cup.
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“Sport is a superb a part of my life and it’s been an awesome a part of their lives,” Abel famous.
The Mitchells based the International Enterprise Discussion board, an annual convention held in Banff which started in 2000, which Abel has attended over time. (Doug Mitchell died in 2022.)
“It’s wonderful whenever you assume it was 25 years in the past and right here have been Doug and Lois enthusiastic about . . . that there’s a lot of challenges — again then, (as) there are right now — however that you just actually wished to look past your borders,” he added.
Whereas points change, he believes within the strategy of tackling vital challenges by having a dialogue, gathering info, making certain you might have sufficient perspective to grasp the dangers — and the alternatives — and gaining sufficient information to maneuver ahead.
That perspective matches with the enterprise discussion board, which sees leaders sitting down with different executives, policymakers and specialists to debate vital world points.
The theme of this 12 months’s gathering is “Turning Factors: Decisive Change Forward.” The 2-day convention consists of periods on synthetic intelligence, the resurgence of nuclear vitality, provide chain logistics, and commerce alternatives in India.
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“They’re world points. I feel we’re all watching round synthetic intelligence, for instance, and what does that imply to your organization? What does that imply to your business? What does it imply to your workers, your prospects?” he added.
“Once I consider AI . . . we’re in a studying second. We’re within the early innings. So, for us to say it’s completely going to affect our business this fashion, or an organization this fashion, I feel we are able to all see some fairly massive dangers — and we are able to see some fairly massive alternatives.
“How we’re going to handle all that’s actually going to return right down to having glorious dialogues.”
Power transition is one other concern that can probably be mentioned as companies and governments search to scale back greenhouse fuel emissions. On the identical time, there’s a must generate extra electrical energy and guarantee individuals have entry to reasonably priced and dependable vitality, equivalent to by way of nuclear energy or different non-emitting sources.
With the rise of AI and want for electrical energy to energy large knowledge centres now being deliberate, the vitality transition has “put electrification on steroids,” stated Berkshire Hathaway Power president Scott Thon.
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Certainly, electrical energy consumed by knowledge centres, generative AI and cryptocurrencies may double by the tip of 2026, in response to the Worldwide Power Company.
“The facility calls for of the AI revolution are astronomical they usually definitely could possibly be a profit to our present prospects, however they can be a value driver. And we’d like, as an business on the vitality transition, to determine how can we do each?” stated Thon, who’s co-chair of this 12 months’s enterprise discussion board.
“We’re all-in on the vitality transition. We now have invested near $40 billion in renewables throughout our companies … We are able to solely go as quick as our prospects can afford and we are able to maintain the grid dependable. These are the velocity limiters on vitality transition.”
Other than the periods, Abel will obtain the Doug Mitchell Award on Wednesday evening, which “acknowledges a person who demonstrates integrity, management, imaginative and prescient and motion.”
“It’s very humbling,” Abel added. “Once I consider Doug, and what Doug represented as a real chief, not simply in enterprise however within the communities he lived and operated in, after which for my deep love for Lois, it’s only a nice honour.”
Chris Varcoe is a Calgary Herald columnist.
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