{"id":586,"date":"2012-05-02T05:00:00","date_gmt":"2012-05-02T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/masonmyers.com\/?p=586"},"modified":"2015-01-28T12:58:46","modified_gmt":"2015-01-28T20:58:46","slug":"stephen-burke-next-ceo-berkshire","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/masonmyers.com\/stephen-burke-next-ceo-berkshire\/","title":{"rendered":"Berkshire Week 2012: Predict Stephen Burke as next Berkshire CEO"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>First,\u00a0a little extraneous caveat about this prediction.\u00a0 I have not spoken to anyone at Berkshire about this.\u00a0 Frankly, I do not know anyone who works at Berkshire.\u00a0 And, I have no special knowledge about this at all.\u00a0 It is just a pure guess (maybe a slightly educated guess) and an attempt to have some fun.<\/p>\n<p>I predict that Berkshire Hathaway Board Member Stephen Burke, CEO of NBCUniversal and COO of Comcast, will succeed Warren Buffett as the Berkshire Hathaway CEO.\u00a0 To me, it is a very straightforward prediction because:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>He is a Board Member<\/strong> which means he has inside knowledge of Berkshire and would have less to learn.<\/li>\n<li><strong>He understands the Berkshire culture<\/strong> &#8212; he has knowledge and exposure to the company over several decades.\u00a0 His family has been friendly with Warren Buffett since the 1980&#8217;s (1985 investment in Capital Cities Communications and the American Broadcasting Company) and probably since the 1970&#8217;s as Cap Cities was listed as a Berkshire investment in the 1977 annual letter.\u00a0 Stephen Burke&#8217;s father, Dan Burke, was the long-time business partner of Thomas Murphy, a long-time friend of Buffett&#8217;s and Berkshire Board Member since 2003, who ran Cap Cities and ABC together.\u00a0 Buffett has referred to Murphy and Burke glowingly\u00a0numerous times throughout the years and he wrote in the 1985 annual letter, &#8220;Tom Murphy and Dan Burke are not only great managers, they are precisely the sort of fellows that you would want your daughter to marry.&#8221;<\/li>\n<li><strong>Burke\u00a0understands the Berkshire way of being hands-off with the business unit managers<\/strong>.\u00a0\u00a0Burke has the track record and business reputation that he will not feel like he has to prove himself by making big moves or getting overly involved in the business units.<\/li>\n<li>Burke seems to be about <strong>the broader purpose or meaning of being in business<\/strong> &#8212; something he will find in spades at Berkshire.\u00a0 He will appreciate and understand\u00a0the nuance of the role, and revel in the fact that the Berkshire job is\u00a0being part of a legacy.\u00a0 Berkshire prides itself on\u00a0having strong values, doing things differently than most companies, having deeply rooted norms and ethics\u00a0&#8212; things that\u00a0I suspect Burke would enjoy supporting because these things have always been important to him and his family.\u00a0 Burke will not strain against that unique culture.<\/li>\n<li>He has the stature to gain<strong> immediate respect<\/strong>.\u00a0 Comcast has $55 billion in annual revenue and NBCUniversal has about $20 billion in revenue.\u00a0 Burke is also on the Board of JPMorgan Chase &amp; Co.\u00a0 He has reportedly been offered the CEO role at Coca-Cola, Nike, DirectTV and others.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Anyone else want to make a guess that is not the usual suspects?<\/p>\n<p>Related post about how Buffett will make his slection: \u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/masonmyers.com\/berkshire-ceo-succession-warren-buffett\/\">Berkshire CEO after Warren Buffett<\/a> &#8211; May 2, 2012.<\/p>\n<div class=\"postmeta_wrapper\">\n<div class=\"postmeta classifications small\"><span class=\"post_categories\">Categories:<a href=\"https:\/\/masonmyers.com\/category\/hr-culture-is-strategic\/\" rel=\"category tag\">Culture Is Strategic<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/masonmyers.com\/category\/warren-buffett-berkshire-hathaway\/\" rel=\"category tag\">Warren Buffett &amp; Berkshire Hathaway<\/a><\/span><br \/><span class=\"post_tags\">Tags:<a href=\"https:\/\/masonmyers.com\/tag\/berkshire-hathaway\/\" rel=\"tag\">Berkshire Hathaway<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/masonmyers.com\/tag\/comcast\/\" rel=\"tag\">Comcast<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/masonmyers.com\/tag\/financial-strategy\/\" rel=\"tag\">Financial Strategy<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/masonmyers.com\/tag\/hr\/\" rel=\"tag\">HR<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/masonmyers.com\/tag\/human-resources\/\" rel=\"tag\">Human Resources<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/masonmyers.com\/tag\/stephen-burke\/\" rel=\"tag\">Stephen Burke<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/masonmyers.com\/tag\/succession-planning\/\" rel=\"tag\">Succession Planning<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/masonmyers.com\/tag\/teamwork\/\" rel=\"tag\">Teamwork<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/masonmyers.com\/tag\/warren-buffett\/\" rel=\"tag\">Warren Buffett<\/a><br \/><\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>First,\u00a0a little extraneous caveat about this prediction.\u00a0 I have not spoken to anyone at Berkshire about this.\u00a0 Frankly, I do not know anyone who works at Berkshire.\u00a0 And, I have no special knowledge about this at all.\u00a0 It is just a pure guess (maybe a&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/masonmyers.com\/stephen-burke-next-ceo-berkshire\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,112],"tags":[30,106,84,40,82,107,113,83,29],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v22.0 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Company Culture, Business Strategy | Warren Buffet, Berkshire Hathaway | Mason Myers Business 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