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.

Cantor Fitzgerald

Cantor Fitzgerald, L.P., is a financial services firm that was founded in 1945. It specializes in institutional equity, fixed income sales and trading, and serving the middle market with investment banking services, prime brokerage, and commercial real estate financing. The firm is also active in new businesses including advisory and asset management services, gaming technology, e-commerce, and other ventures. It has more than 5,000 institutional clients.

Cantor Fitzgerald & Co. is one of 22 primary dealers authorized to trade U.S. government securities with The Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Cantor Fitzgerald's 1,600 employees work in over 30 locations, including financial centers in the Americas, Europe, Asia/Pacific, and the Middle East. Together with affiliates, Cantor operates in over 60 offices in 20 countries and has over 8,500 employees. In 2011, Cantor's affiliate BGC Partners expanded into commercial real estate services through its purchase of Newmark Knight Frank and the assets of Grubb & Ellis to form Newmark Grubb Knight Frank.

Howard

Howard is a popular English given name originating from Old Norse Hávarðr, which means "high guard". A diminutive is "Howie" and its shortened form is "Ward" (most common in the 19th century). Between 1900-1960, Howard ranked in the U.S. Top 200; between 1960–1990, it ranked in the U.S. Top 400; between 1990–2004, it ranked in the U.S. Top 600. People with the given name Howard or its variants include:

Howard, given name

Chief executive officer

A chief executive officer (CEO in American English) or managing director (MD in British English) describes the position of the most senior corporate officer, executive, or administrator in charge of managing an organization. The CEO of a corporation or company typically reports to the board of directors and is charged with maximizing the value of the entity. Titles also often given to the holder of the CEO position include president and chief executive (CE).

Responsibilities

The responsibilities of an organization's CEO are set by the organization's board of directors or other authority, depending on the organization's legal structure. They can be far-reaching or quite limited and are typically enshrined in a formal delegation of authority.

Typically, the CEO/MD has responsibilities as a director, decision maker, leader, manager and executor. The communicator role can involve the press and the rest of the outside world, as well as the organization's management and employees; the decision-making role involves high-level decisions about policy and strategy. As a leader of the company, the CEO/MD advises the board of directors, motivates employees, and drives change within the organization. As a manager, the CEO/MD presides over the organization's day-to-day operations. The term refers to the person who takes all the decisions regarding the upliftment of the company, which includes all sectors and fields of the business like operations, marketing, business Development, finance, Human resources, etc. The CEO of a company is not necessarily the owner of the company.