Steve Menzies
For Steve Menzies, there is an easy commerce between his leadership in the corporate world and his dedicated philanthropy. A lifelong, self-made serial entrepreneur, Steve began his career in a ten-by-ten office shortly after graduating from Columbia University with an engineering degree in Mathematics. His commercial achievements include the creation of Applied Underwriters, North American Casualty, and United Risk.
In 2006, Steve became a partner with Warren Buffett, becoming the youngest CEO within the Berkshire Hathaway organization and, in 2019, the only CEO to buy back from Berkshire. Today, his companies collectively form one of the largest private insurance organizations in the world.
Steve is equally invested in his employees and works to enrich the communities where they work and live. He designed and developed the architecturally award-winning home for his company’s 2,000-employee operations campus in Omaha, located within his 500-acre mixed-use development known as Heartwood Preserve. Heartwood has received more than ten distinguished awards, including Fast Company’s 2025 Innovation by Design Award for “preventing floods with infrastructure that doubles as land art.”
Steve is deeply committed to philanthropy and has chosen to apply his accumulated resources, entrepreneurial skills, and connections to solve seemingly impossible, complex social problems.
Through his eponymous foundation, which functions as an incubator, Steve has recently brought to life two new action-driven charitable institutions. Global Reach, formed in 2023, helps Americans abroad who are held hostage by terrorists or criminal gangs or wrongfully detained by foreign governments. The St. Francis Day Foundation, formed in 2021 in partnership with Pope Francis, develops and distributes educational materials globally in response to the worldwide social crisis created by the abuse of social technology.
Highly decorated and frequently cited, Steve most recently received the prestigious José Juan de Olloqui Award in 2026 for Leadership in the Western Hemisphere.
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