Ajit Jain

Career

From 1973 to 1976, Jain worked for IBM as a salesman for their data-processing operations in India. He was named "Rookie of the Year" in his region in 1973. He lost his job in 1976 when IBM discontinued their operation in India because they declined to allow any Indian ownership of the company, as was then required by law.

In 1978, Jain moved to the United States, where he earned an MBA from Harvard University and joined McKinsey & Co. He returned to India in the early 1980s and married. The Jains then moved back to the United States, as Jain's wife preferred to live there.

In 1986, he left McKinsey to work on insurance operations for Warren Buffett. Jain was invited by his former boss, Michael Goldberg, who had left McKinsey & Co. to join Berkshire Hathaway in 1982. At the time, he said he knew little about the insurance business.

In the annual letter to shareholders on 2014, it was suggested that both Jain and Greg Abel could be appropriate successors for Warren Buffett as CEO of Berkshire Hathaway. In January 2018, Jain was named Berkshire Hathaway's vice chair of insurance operations and appointed to Hathaway's board of directors.

Philanthropy

Jain lives in the New York City area.

In 2005, Jain established the Jain Foundation, a non-profit organization located in Seattle, Washington, the mission of which is to cure limb-girdle muscular dystrophies caused by dysferlin protein deficiency, a condition that Jain's son has.