Howard Lutnick

Howard William Lutnick (born July 14, 1961) is an American businessman who succeeded Bernard Gerald Cantor as the head of Cantor Fitzgerald. Lutnick is currently the Chairman and CEO of Cantor Fitzgerald, as well as the Chairman and CEO of BGC Partners. After losing 658 employees, including his brother, in the September 11 attacks, Lutnick has become well known for his charity efforts through the Cantor Fitzgerald Relief Fund, which helps to aid families of the attacks and other natural disasters.

Early life

Howard Lutnick was born in Jericho, Long Island on July 14, 1961, the son of Solomon Lutnick, a history professor at Queens College and Jane Lutnick, an artist. Lutnick was the middle child of the family, whose siblings were an elder sister Edie and a younger brother Gary.

In 1978, Lutnick was a senior in high school when his mother died of lymphoma. The following year, Lutnick entered Haverford College in Haverford, Pennsylvania. During his first week at school, Lutnick’s father died while in a hospital being treated for colon and lung cancers. A nurse treating Lutnick’s father gave him 100 times the dose of chemotherapy drugs that he was supposed to receive. Now orphans, Lutnick and his two siblings were largely abandoned by extended family members and instead relied on themselves for support. Lutnick, then 18, was forced to hire a lawyer to settle the debt his father left behind.