巴菲特女弟子的成长史

    2009年，刚刚从哈佛商学院（Harvard Business School）毕业的特雷西•布里特•库尔叩开了伯克希尔-哈撒韦公司（Berkshire Hathaway）的大门。当时，库尔带来了许多从自家位于堪萨斯州曼哈顿的农场采摘的甜玉米和西红柿。她希望公司大名鼎鼎的CEO沃伦•巴菲特能录用她。这招很管用。第二年秋天，库尔作为巴菲特的财务助理，加入了伯克希尔-哈撒韦公司。

    五年后，巴菲特给现年30岁的库尔安排了她职业生涯中第一个重大运营职务。10月27日，被尊称为奥马哈先知的巴菲特宣布，自11月1日起，库尔将接替多丽丝•克里斯托弗担任厨具销售商Pampered Chef公司CEO。作为创始人的克里斯托弗，仍将留在该公司担任董事长一职。克里斯托弗曾经是一位家政学教师，她于1980年创办了Pampered Chef公司，刚开始只是在自家地下室销售厨具。2002年被伯克希尔-哈撒韦公司收购时，该公司通过许多独立顾问销售其产品，模仿特百惠（Tupperware）的商业模式。虽然伯克希尔-哈撒韦公司没有披露收购价格，但当时Pampered Chef的年收入已超过7亿美元，旗下有6.7万名销售顾问。

    最近，该公司的增长陷入停滞。本已退休的克里斯托弗于2013年12月复出，临时接替当时的CEO玛拉•戈特沙尔克。戈特沙尔克曾是美国卡夫食品有限公司（Kraft）负责财务规划和投资者关系的高级副总裁，于2006年被巴菲特聘用。虽然2009年Pampered Chef在戈特沙尔克执掌下表现出色（巴菲特在当年伯克希尔-哈撒韦公司年报中列出了那些在销售下滑情况下仍成功提高盈利的子公司负责人，而戈特沙尔克也位列其中），但该公司最近几年颇为坎坷。伯克希尔-哈撒韦公司的年报显示，Pampered Chef公司2011年盈利下降，而2012年和2013年则收入和利双双下降。该公司不得不通过裁员瘦身：自2008年以来，其员工人数已经下降了20%。

    当然，巴菲特曾公开承认，由于科技不断重塑消费者购物行为，伯克希尔-哈撒韦公司旗下零售业务一直问题不断。但在过去几年中，他委派特雷西整顿了一些零售子公司。现在，他希望特雷西是那个能让Pampered Chef回到正轨的不二人选。

    特雷西•布里特•库尔为人低调。与那些更善于和媒体打交道的同行相比，她并不渴求出现在聚光灯下，也不爱在电视及会议场合露脸讲话。但库尔和典型的中西部美国人一样淳朴友善，让人感觉亲切，毫不做作，这一点与巴菲特平易近人的魅力不无相似。

    库尔还相当认真。她在父亲经营的农场长大（库尔的父母已经离异，各自经营一家农场），养成了认真细致的工作风格。库尔的继母露•布里特3月份向《财富》（Fortune）杂志表示：“我总是说她少年老成。”。（库尔没有接受记者此次采访；库尔在本报道中的言论均来自她与《财富》过去的对话。）

    Just after graduating from Harvard Business School in 2009, Tracy Britt Cool showed up on Berkshire Hathaway’s BRK.A -0.27% door. In her arms: a bushel of sweet corn and tomatoes from her family’s farm in Manhattan, Kansas. She hoped to woo the company’s famed CEO Warren Buffett into hiring her. It worked. The following fall, Cool joined Berkshire as Buffett’s financial assistant.

    Five years later, Buffett’s giving Cool, now 30, her first big operating role. On Monday, the Oracle of Omaha announced that Cool will become the CEO of Pampered Chef on November 1, replacing founder and current chief Doris Christopher, a home economics teacher who started the Pampered Chef in 1980 by selling kitchen tools from her basement. Christopher will remain at the company as chairman. In 2002, Berkshire bought the company, which sells its products through a network of independent consultants, mimicking the Tupperware business model. The price wasn’t disclosed, but at the time, Pampered Chef had over $700 million in revenue and 67,000 consultants.

    More recently, the company’s growth has stalled. Christopher came out of retirement in December 2013 to temporarily take the reins from then-CEO Marla Gottschalk, the former SVP of financial planning and investor relations at Kraft, whom Buffett had hired in 2006. Though 2009 proved a bright spot for Gottschalk—Buffett listed her as one of the execs who increased profits despite declining sales in Berkshire’s annual report—Pampered Chef’s more recent years were bumpy. According to Berkshire’s annual reports, earnings declined in 2011—and in 2012 and 2013 both revenue and earnings took a hit. The company also thinned itself with layoffs: Since 2008, its headcount has declined 20%.

    To be sure, Buffett has admitted publicly that Berkshire has struggled with retail, in part because of technology’s constant reshaping of shopping behaviors. But for the past few years, he’s sent Tracy in to clean a few of his retail companies up; now he’s hoping she’s the one to right Pampered Chef’s path.

    Tracy Britt Cool isn’t an attention-seeker. She doesn’t command or crave the spotlight or spout rhetoric on small screens and conference stages the way some of her more media-trained peers do. But Cool’s earnest, Midwestern sincerity and her kind demeanor give her an unstudied relatability not unlike her billionaire boss’ folksy charm.

    She’s also quite serious. Growing up on her dad’s farm (her parents separated, and each ran one), her work ethic has often been described as meticulous. “I always said she was an old soul growing up,” Cool’s stepmother Lou Britt told Fortune in March. (Cool didn’t cooperate for this piece; her comments in this story are from past conversations with Fortune.)