Brookfield Tees Up 36-Year-Old Connor Teskey As Next CEO
Brookfield CEO Bruce Flatt has seemingly chosen his successor in 36-year-old Connor Teskey, who has skyrocketed through the ranks since joining the asset management titan in 2012.
Teskey is a decade younger than anyone positioned to run the Toronto-based company’s top competitors. The transition could make him the only Fortune 500 company CEO under 40, with Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg celebrating his birthday in May.
But when will it happen? Brookfield hasn't set a date.
“It’ll be whenever it’s natural to do it,” Flatt told Bloomberg in an interview this week.
“I think it will be exactly when all clients, business partners, people inside are 100% comfortable that it’s all natural to happen,” Flatt said.
Teskey quickly rose to chief investment officer of the renewables arm after joining the company 12 years ago, Bloomberg reported. He became CEO of that unit in 2020 and expanded his role two years later, becoming president of Brookfield Asset Management.
The level of Teskey’s ambition and attention to detail was evident when, while still assigned to oversee renewables investments, he pitched the idea of taking a controlling stake in Oaktree Capital Management.
Teskey read every letter Oaktree ever sent to investors, studied its business lines and underwrote a plan that turned into a $5B deal announced in 2019, Bloomberg reported. Brookfield Asset Management acquired about two-thirds of the business, giving the two companies a combined $170B in real estate assets under management.
Brookfield today has over $925B in assets under management, according to the company, making it the world’s second-largest alternative asset manager after Blackstone. Flatt aims for Brookfield to have $2T of assets under management by 2028, a goal he may confront jointly with Teskey while grooming him for the takeover, Bloomberg reported.
Brookfield Asset Management reported this year that it had $109B to spend and was ready to increase transaction activity. Teskey said at the time that the real estate market was particularly opening up.
The rise to CEO of Brookfield would poise Teskey to become a billionaire, Bloomberg reported. But the process will be gradual, and he's likely to become CEO of Brookfield Asset Management before taking over Brookfield.
“In a good succession plan, you don’t just all of a sudden anoint somebody and have everyone say, ‘Oh, that’s the guy,’” Flatt told the outlet. “That’s not what happens in good companies. They take time, and the culture becomes one where everyone’s used to it.”
Teskey is now working as closely with Flatt as Flatt did with his predecessor, Jack Cockwell. Unnamed employees told Bloomberg the only person working more hours at Brookfield than Flatt is Teskey.
Flatt previously told Bloomberg that he will become an executive chairman at some point. Cockwell became chairman when Flatt himself ascended to CEO at the same age that Teskey is now, so Flatt might copy the same playbook, Bloomberg reported.
But there are no outside circumstances pushing Flatt, 59, to speed up the process.
“Most companies make succession decisions because the person got too old, the person isn’t competent, the person got fired or whatever,” Flatt told Bloomberg. “This is totally at our discretion and desire.”
Brookfield declined to comment to Bisnow.
