I found this story yesterday. This isn’t exactly a new story, but being it is September 11th I think it is beautiful to hear something like this, and I’m sure it’s new to many of you.
19 years ago, a lot of financial institutions suffered the loss of employees, but the wort was Cantor Fitzgerald (a global financial services company).Their offices were in the North Tower on the 101st through the 105th floors, and they lost 658 employees that day.
That day the CEO Howard Lutnick was taking his son Kyle to his first day of kindergarten, which is why he’s still with us today, and he considers that morning the last morning of his old life.
Howard lost his brother, his best friend, and hundreds of employees that day, and instead of closing down shop to honor those who had fallen, he decided the rest of the team was going to work harder than they ever had before, because they were going to give 25% of everything they made to these families affected.
And he delivered! Howard and the company distributed more than $180 million to the families of victims, and on top of that he offered a job to every single child of a lost employee. He said if they want to work with him, he will find a way to give them a shot, and he has done that by employing dozens and dozens of their kids.
Will any of these gestures make good in the hearts of these families? Absolutely not. But I just find it beautiful how far one CEO was willing to go within the power of his reach, and that was indeed powerful.
Photo: Getty