Warren Buffett Receives 2007 UC Berkeley Financial Reporting Award (2007)
Warren Buffett, chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway and one of the most successful investors of our time, is the 2007 recipient of the Berkeley Award for Distinguished Contributions to Financial Reporting.
Haas School Dean Tom Campbell announced the award before accounting professionals, standard setters, enforcers, and academics at the Haas School's 18th annual Financial Reporting Conference on November 9, at the San Francisco Airport Marriott.
The Berkeley award was presented to Buffett by Solomon Darwin, executive director of the Center for Financial Reporting and Management (CFRM), who accompanied a group of 100 Berkeley MBA students on a special trip to meet Buffett in Omaha on November 19.
The Berkeley award recognizes individuals that have demonstrated courage, leadership, stewardship, or other meritorious performance in the interest of providing financial information useful to investors in making investment decisions.
Buffett has been an outspoken advocate for corporate governance and regulation in the accounting industry. To encourage transparent accounting, Berkshire Hathaway has published its corporate governance and accounting disclosure methods on its website. Buffett himself has served on panels such as the SEC roundtable on "Improving Financial Statement Disclosure" in March 2002. He also has donated his time to discuss proper financial disclosure in an educational video released by the Financial Accounting and Standards Board in 2001.
"Warren Buffett has been a role model for the business community and an outspoken ambassador for transparent and honest accounting practices that go beyond the letter of the law," said CFRM's Solomon Darwin. "His extraordinary financial success and unprecedented philanthropic giving have shown that ethical business practices reap both financial and personal rewards."
Buffett acquired Berkshire Hathaway in 1965 after having successfully run his own investment company with funds from friends and family. He switched the Berkshire Hathaway's focus from its ailing textile business to a thriving insurance and investment empire that ultimately made Buffett one of the richest men in the world. In 2006, Buffett donated the bulk of his fortune, $37 billion, to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
