Former co-head of Deutsche Bank, Anshu Jain, dies

Anshu Jain, co-CEO of Deutsche Bank, addresses the bank’s annual general meeting in Frankfurt, Germany, May 21, 2015. REUTERS/Kai Pfaffenbach

Aug 13 (Reuters) – Anshu Jain, a top CFO best known for helping German lender Deutsche Bank AG ( DBKGn.DE ) take on the biggest Wall Street firms, died overnight on Saturday after a five-year fight against cancer, his family. so. He was 59.

Jain, who was born in India, spent two decades building Deutsche Bank into one of the world’s best universal banks. He was the first non-European to head the German institution.

In the wake of the 2008 financial crisis and subsequent European debt crisis, Jain pushed Deutsche to remain Europe’s “last man standing” as US firms pulled ahead in global banking.

The years of expansion into risky investment banking businesses came back to haunt the bank, as regulation made complex trades more expensive. As co-chief executive, he struggled to cut risk and get a handle on a long series of scandals that led to billions of dollars in fines.

He resigned from the German lender in 2015, and had been president of US financial firm Cantor Fitzgerald since 2017.

“He will be remembered for his leadership in financial services and his deep commitment to conservation,” said Larry Fink, chief executive of BlackRock Inc, who said he knew Jain well.

Born in the Indian city of Jaipur, Jain earned his bachelors at the University of Delhi before completing an MBA at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.

He was a lifelong vegetarian and loved wildlife photography, safaris in Kenya’s Masaai Mara and wilderness conservation, his family said.

He joined Deutsche in 1995 to start a division specializing in hedge funds and derivatives. He then headed bond trading and emerging markets, and later, as head of the investment bank, out-earned his boss, then-CEO Josef Ackermann.

He was appointed to Deutsche’s management board in 2009 and was responsible for the corporate and investment banking division from 2010. From 2012 to 2015, he was co-CEO.

“Everyone who worked with Anshu experienced a passionate leader of intellectual brilliance,” said current CEO, Christian Sewing.

Jain was diagnosed in January 2017 with duodenal cancer, which affects the small intestine, but managed to survive his initial diagnosis by four years, the family said.

“Until his last day, Anshu stood by his lifelong determination to ‘not be a statistic,'” the family said.

Reporting by Vera Eckert in Frankfurt and Maria Ponnezhath in Bengaluru, Editing by Franklin Paul and Clelia Oziel

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