Howard Warren Buffett

Buffett currently serves as the executive director of the Howard G. Buffett Foundation, a private family foundation focused on improving the standard of living and quality of life for the world’s most impoverished and marginalized populations. He has engaged in the humanitarian and agriculture development efforts of the Foundation worldwide.

On May 28, 2018, Buffett announced the release of his book titled "Social Value Investing: A Management Framework for Effective Partnerships." Published by Columbia University Press, the book details specific case studies and examples on topics including clean energy, water scarcity and sustainable agriculture.

In the fall of 2013, Buffett served as a co-professor teaching an Innovations of Public Management class at his alma mater at the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University. Buffett taught the course with program head William Eimicke, and is currently an adjunct associate professor and research scholar at the school, teaching philanthropy, social value investing, and management innovation.

At the 2011 Social Good Summit in New York, Buffett introduced an approach premised on addressing social problems by systematically lining up nonprofits to each need.

In May 2010, Buffett spearheaded a White House Energy Innovation Conference focused on promoting partnerships. Represented at the event were four federal departments, three federal agencies, entrepreneurs, state government officials, academia, private sector leaders, nonprofits and innovators.

The first Regional Energy Innovation Conference was hosted in Omaha, Nebraska on June 17, 2010. The event focused on connecting entrepreneurs and small enterprise with representatives from organizations across sectors and was itself a partnership between the City of Omaha, The Gallup Organization, the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, and the U.S. Department of Energy. Over one hundred local, regional, and national organizations were represented at Gallup University’s Omaha Campus to discuss issues ranging from regional gap funding and human capital needs to collaboration and the early adoption of energy innovation.

In 2010, Buffett joined the advisory board for Toyota Motor North America. He chairs the advisory board for the Harvard University International Negotiation Program.

In 2009, Buffett was appointed to the United States Department of Agriculture, where he served as a special assistant in the Office of the Secretary. There, he managed the national expansion strategy for the Department’s $480 million Cooperative Extension Service program. Additionally, he was charged with identifying strategic external partnerships aimed at advancing the core mission areas of research, education, and economics. He also served on the five-year Strategic Planning Initiative, and represented the department in the White House Innovation and Information Policy Working Group.

He served as a judge for the Collaboration Prize, the American Express 2009 NGen Fellows Program, and the Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship’s business plan competitions.

Raised in Omaha, he attended Ponca Elementary School before moving to Decatur, Illinois, where he attended Mount Zion High School and was elected president of the local chapter of the National FFA Organization. He completed his Bachelor of Arts in Political Science and Communication Studies in 2006 at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, where he also served as the student body vice president. He went on to receive a Master of Public Administration in Advanced Management and Finance at the School of International and Public Affairs, Columbia University in 2008.

Howard Warren Buffett (born October 14, 1983) is an American professor in public policy and international affairs, a political advisor, philanthropist and the only grandson of Warren Buffett. He serves as an adjunct faculty member at Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs and was previously the executive director of the Howard G. Buffett Foundation, a private philanthropic foundation that funds initiatives aimed at improving the standard of living and quality of life for the world’s most impoverished and marginalized populations. He previously led agriculture-based economic stabilization and redevelopment programs in Iraq and Afghanistan while at the United States Department of Defense, and as a policy advisor in the Executive Office of the President of the United States under President Barack Obama.