Todd Combs exits Berkshire for JPMorgan role steering $10B security push

Todd Combs, a longtime investment lieutenant to Warren Buffett and chief executive of Geico, is leaving Berkshire Hathaway to lead a new strategic investment effort at JPMorgan.

The move announced Monday morning reshapes leadership at both firms and raises fresh questions about Berkshire’s post-Buffett era.

JPMorgan said Combs will head the $10 billion Strategic Investment Group within its recently launched Security and Resiliency Initiative, which is designed to make direct equity investments tied to defense, aerospace, healthcare and energy, with a ten-year commitment of $1.5 trillion. He will work closely with leaders at the bank’s commercial and investment bank and its asset and wealth management arm, and serve as a special advisor to chief executive Jamie Dimon on select strategic issues.

Combs, who will join JPMorgan in January, stepped down from the bank’s board of directors to take the role. In a separate statement on Monday, Berkshire said he is concluding his tenure at the conglomerate as part of a broader leadership reshuffle encompassing its insurance arm, Geico, as well as its non-insurance operations and corporate ranks.

Nancy Pierce, currently Geico’s chief operating officer, will become CEO of the auto insurer, Berkshire said. Separately, longtime Berkshire chief financial officer Marc Hamburg will retire in 2027 after a transition period with successor Charles Chang, now finance chief of Berkshire Hathaway Energy.

Dimon called Combs “one of the greatest investors and leaders I’ve known,” and said his nine years on JPMorgan’s board mean “he truly understands all aspects of our company.”

Combs, who joined Berkshire in 2010 from hedge fund Castle Point and helped manage its vast equity portfolio alongside Ted Weschler, has been a key figure in investors’ thinking about how the house that Buffett built would be run after its founder steps back. Buffett has made no bones about his plans to hand the chief executive job to Greg Abel at the end of this year, though the Oracle of Omaha is staying on as chair.

In Berkshire’s announcement, Buffett said Combs “has resigned to accept an interesting and important job at JPMorgan,” adding that the bank “has made a good decision.” For advisors whose clients have shares in Berkshire, the departure removes one of the better-known internal investors associated with the firm’s public equity holdings, even as Abel is set to take the top job and Berkshire names successors in its insurance arm and beyond.

At JPMorgan, Combs will also sit on a new external advisory council attached to the Security and Resiliency Initiative, which will help shape investment priorities in sectors tied to national security and economic resilience.. The council includes figures such as Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, Dell Technologies chairman Michael Dell – who last week made headlines via a multibillion-dollar gift to help seed Trump accounts – former US defense secretary Robert Gates, and former secretary of state Condoleezza Rice

Combs said the initiative, with its $1.5 trillion commitment, is aimed at “spurring economic growth and innovation to make the world more secure,” highlighting the bank’s effort to position itself at the center of capital flows into strategically important industries.