Anshu Jain, former head of Deutsche Bank, dies aged 59 of virulent strain of cancer after surviving diagnosis by 4 years

Anshu Jain, president of Cantor Fitzgerald who was known for leading Deutsche Bank traders to the heights of the lender’s investment banking, has 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 tonight,” his family said in a statement. He has been president of Cantor Fitzgerald since 2017 and was previously co-CEO of Deutsche Bank AG.

Jane survived her initial diagnosis in January 2017 by four years “through a combination of exhaustive personal research, tactical skills, amazing caregivers and sheer willpower,” Jane’s family wrote.

“There are few reliable statistics on life expectancy for stomach cancer in the third, fourth and fifth years because so few people survive these stages,” they wrote. “Until 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 the highest ranks on Wall Street and turned one of Europe’s most famous lending institutions into a global trading powerhouse. He nurtured generations of traders as he rose through the ranks at Deutsche Bank. Many of the risk takers and bankers he mentored went on to work for Wall Street’s biggest banks and tech firms.

More recently, Jane recruited teams of traders from larger rivals to work at Cantor Fitzgerald as that firm’s boss, Howard Lutnick, expanded his ambitions in trading and global investor relations.

“Intellect and Charm”

“Anshu always stood out for his intelligence and charm,” billionaire investor Mark Lasry, co-founder of Avenue Capital Management, said in an interview. “You enjoyed his company and thoughts, which is rare for someone in his position.”

After graduating from business school at the University of Massachusetts Amherst—where Jane first learned the inner workings of derivatives—he held positions at Kidder Peabody & Co. and Merrill Lynch before following his mentor, the late Edson Mitchell, to Deutsche Bank in 1995. Over time, he turned the bank into a fixture on Wall Street as his team began working with hedge funds, competing with financial giants , including Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Citigroup Inc.

While leading the credit derivatives and emerging markets expansion, Jain was appointed head of the investment bank in 2010, where he assumed responsibility for the corporate finance and transaction banking units. Jane assumed the position of co-CEO within two years together with Jürgen Fitchen. He overhauled the bank’s strategy and stock management following losses during the credit crisis in 2008. Jain was the first non-European to head the German firm.

A stormy year

Jain’s early tenure at Deutsche Bank was met with a cascade of bad news – an investigation into tax evasion in carbon markets and raids by police and tax investigators – making his first year tumultuous. He worked alongside Fitschen to steer the bank through an internal investigation into possible money laundering by Russian clients just months after Deutsche settled an interest rate rigging probe. On June 7, 2015, Jane resigned amid uproar and two years later found her way to Cantor.

Since joining Cantor, he has added teams of trading executives and investment bankers from New York to London.

In his personal life, Jain enjoyed playing and watching cricket and golf and was a Bollywood movie buff. He is survived by his wife Gitika, whom he met when he was 17, and their two children.