Flatt was born in Canada in 1965. Following university, Flatt worked as a chartered accountant at Ernst & Young. Flatt joined the predecessor to Brookfield in the company’s investment division in 1990, became chief executive of Brookfield Properties (Brookfield’s property group) 2000 and CEO of the entire business in 2002.

Bruce Flatt (born 1965) is a Canadian businessman and the CEO of Brookfield Asset Management. He joined Brookfield in 1990 and became CEO in 2002. He has been referred to as “Canada’s Warren Buffett” due to his “value” investment style, extended tenure as CEO, and large investment in Brookfield. In 2019 he was ranked #1717 on Forbes’ Billionaires list with a net worth of US$1.3 billion.

Flatt was named CEO of the Year by The Globe and Mail in 2017, 60th in a list of the top 100 best-performing CEOs published by Harvard Business Review in 2018, and one of Bloomberg’s 50 people who defined global business in 2019.

As CEO of Brookfield Properties, Flatt led Brookfield’s response to damage caused by the September 11, 2001 attacks in Lower Manhattan. Under Flatt, Brookfield became the second largest alternative-asset manager in the world, following the acquisition of a majority stake in Oaktree Capital Management in 2019.