Anshu Jain, Cantor Fitzgerald’s president who was known for his time leading Deutsche Bank traders into the lender’s investment banking heights, died five years after being diagnosed with duodenal cancer. He was 59.
“We are deeply saddened that our beloved husband, son, and father, Anshu Jain, passed away overnight,” his family said in a statement on Saturday. He had been president of Cantor Fitzgerald since 2017, and before that was co-chief executive of Deutsche Bank AG.
Jain outlived his initial diagnosis, made in January 2017, by four years “through a combination of exhaustive personal research, tactical skill, amazing caregivers, and sheer force of will”, Jain’s family wrote.
“There are few reliable statistics for life expectancy for stomach cancer in the third, fourth, and fifth years, because so few people survive these milestones,” they wrote. “To his last day, Anshu stood by his lifelong determination to ‘not be a statistic’.”
Born in Jaipur, India, the son of a civil servant, Jain rose to Wall Street’s highest ranks and transformed one of Europe’s most prominent lending institutions into a global trading powerhouse. He nurtured generations of traders as he rose through the ranks of Deutsche Bank. Many of the risk-takers and bankers he led have gone on to work for Wall Street’s largest banks and technology firms.
“Anshu’s intelligence was intimidating to me,” Boaz Weinstein, the Saba Capital Management founder who worked closely with Jain at Deutsche Bank. “In the early years I would review notes before our meetings. He was a cut above everyone I met in the industry. Incredible curiosity and a lightning fast mind. He was a towering figure in my life.”
Jain - frequently flying between key offices in London and New York - most recently recruited teams of traders from larger rivals to work at Cantor Fitzgerald. He and Cantor CEO Howard Lutnick, expanded ambitions in trading, prime brokerage, dealmaking and forging deeper relationships with global investors.
“Anshu was the consummate professional who brought a wealth of experience and wisdom to his role,” Lutnick said in a statement. “He will be remembered as an extraordinary leader, partner, and dear friend who will be greatly missed by all of us and by all who knew him.”
Jain took a large personal stake in the firm, and built such a close connection to Lutnick that the duo spent the first working hour of each morning speaking from across continents, according to a 2018 profile.
