CEO, Markel Group; Chief Investment Officer from 1990, co-CEO 2016-2023, sole CEO 2023-present
No book, but the Markel shareholder letters are a long-running owner's-manual style record of a Berkshire-inspired insurance and equity compounder.
40 letters · 6 books they recommend
www.mklgroup.com/who-we-are/shareholder-letters
Every annual shareholder letter from 1986 to 2025 is a separate document on Markel's content CDN at content.markel.com/api/public/content/shareholder-letter-<year> (the 1986 letter uses the slug markel-shareholder-letter-1986), 40 letters in all. Note who signs them: the letters through the mid-2010s are signed by Alan Kirshner, Anthony Markel, Steven Markel and Darrell Martin - the 1995 letter, for example, carries those four names and not Gayner's. Gayner joined Markel in 1990, ran the investment operation as chief investment officer, became co-chief executive in 2016 and sole chief executive in 2023; the letters from 2016 onward are signed by him, and he is the lead author from that point. The earlier letters are kept here because the series is continuous and Gayner's own letters repeatedly build on them, but they are not his writing.
Gayner talks about his reading at length in long-form interviews; investingbooks.org sources four books to a Masters in Business transcript.