Alice Schroeder

Alice Schroeder is an American author, financial journalist, and executive whose career includes roles as a certified public accountant, Wall Street analyst, corporate director, and biographer. Schroeder began her career as a certified public accountant at Ernst & Young before becoming a managing director at Morgan Stanley in the equities division. She later joined the Financial Accounting Standards Board, where she contributed to the development of accounting standards affecting the insurance industry, including FAS 113 and EITF Consensus Positions 93-6 and 93-14. Her expertise in insurance accounting led her to testify as an expert witness about accounting for finite risk reinsurance at a federal criminal conspiracy trial in Hartford, Connecticut.

Schroeder became a leading sell-side insurance analyst covering Berkshire Hathaway. When Berkshire Hathaway acquired General Reinsurance, Warren Buffett asked Schroeder to become the only analyst with whom he would speak. At Morgan Stanley, she was voted the No. 1 property-casualty insurance analyst for two consecutive years and was a member of the Institutional Investor All-America Research Team for seven years. Risk and Insurance magazine described her as one of the most respected thinkers on Wall Street.

Schroeder's relationship with Buffett led to her writing "The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life." She is the first author to obtain Buffett's full cooperation, including access to his files. Schroeder spent approximately 2,000 hours with Buffett and interviewed 250 other people to produce the biography. "The Snowball" debuted at No. 1 on The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and Publishers Weekly lists of hardcover nonfiction best-sellers and remained on the bestseller list for more than three months. The book was also named Amazon's No. 1 Top Business and Investing Book of the year. Time Magazine, People Magazine, and critic Janet Maslin of The New York Times named it one of the ten best books of the year, while The Washington Post, Financial Times, BusinessWeek, and Publishers Weekly each named it the best book of the year.

"The Snowball" was shortlisted for the Financial Times and Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year Award and the Gerald Loeb Award for distinguished business journalism. The Washington Post called it "the most detailed glimpse inside Warren Buffett and his world that we likely will ever get...a bible for capitalists," while the Los Angeles Times described it as "the most authoritative portrait of one of the most important American investors of our time." Reviewers noted Schroeder's balanced approach, providing readers with an in-depth and nuanced view of Buffett.

Beyond her biography of Buffett, Schroeder has contributed to finance and business as a columnist for Bloomberg News. Her business career includes roles as a corporate director, securities analyst, tech CEO, regulator, and CPA, with experience in areas such as cloud computing, artificial intelligence, big data, Brexit, and health care transformation. Schroeder is recognized as an insurance expert and has served as a non-executive director on the board of Prudential PLC. Her combination of regulatory knowledge, Wall Street experience, and narrative skill positions her as a leading voice on business, investing, and financial principles.