9/11 - 25 Years Later: The Company That Lost 700 People and How They Rebuilt
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What happened to Cantor Fitzgerald on September 11 2001 and how did it affect Sean Windeatt?
Sean, welcome to High Performance. Thanks very much. So I want to just start by rewinding the clock. Twenty-five years, you're sitting in a London office. You're on the phone to a colleague of yours in New York when the line suddenly goes dead. And that colleague was inside the North Tower of the World Trade Center. Cancer Fitzgerald would lose six hundred and fifty eight people that morning, around two thirds of their New York workforce. And the next day you were pulled out of accounting and told to help rebuild the business. And what followed, I think, is not just a story of survival, but of responsibility, of leadership, of culture, of extraordinary generosity, all of the values that we hold so dear here on high performance.
And today we have this conversation with you as the co CEO of BGC Group and the Charity Day Born. From that tragedy has now raised more than $220 million. So in this conversation, I want to explore how you rebuild a business when the human loss makes business itself in some ways kind of feel irrelevant, where ambition and success sit once you've been reminded how fragile life is, how adversity can create an extraordinary culture, and how you stop success, scale, and money. from slowly destroying that culture. And ultimately, I guess what twenty five years of rebuilding of learning And giving back has taught you about what really matters. Does that sound okay? That sounds great. So what is September eleventh like for you?
Twenty five years later.
Look, I mean as as you're reading uh you're reading the the the the timeline, firstly it takes me back to to that day. Yeah. And you know, as you as you rightly say Uh I was I was a a twenty seven twenty eight year old uh twenty eight year old ya young guy working in the the finance department of a of a uh you know of a of a large of a large broker. And And I think that day, yeah every morning, every morning I would uh speak with my colleague in in in the in the US, uh go through the business that had been done in the US Treasury market and the interest rate swap uh business uh in London. Every morning. And that morning on September the eleventh. Two thousand and one, like Nothing different on the phone, fifteen minutes into the call.
The line went dead. And uh I was sitting there in the in that finance department. big open plan office. You know, you look across at one of the screens, it wa yeah, you're talking two thousand and one. So it wasn't full of screens in that particular office. But yeah, back then And at first you were trying to work out Goodness, is that is that our building? You know, is it the North Tower? Uh and then within a few moments you realise exactly what's happened. And uh and Yeah, the shock that goes through your the the shock that goes through through your whole system on that on that day, you know, I'll never forget it. And so you'd say to me, What do I think even twenty five years on, every charity day or every September the eleventh?
My first thoughts are always back to that that morning and that uh that time. Uh but then and I think as time goes on Yeah, our view and my view in particular is is turn that into something incredibly positive. Um and I think so now you you make sure so on on uh on September eleventh when we do when we do our charity day, the most important thing is get all of those emotions out in the morning, be ultra focused. Therefore, that way we're going to be as positive as you can to make as much money as you can for the charities. And when it comes to
um
dealing
with your own emotions, as I guess you have to do every September eleventh, when you wake up in the morning. How long did it take to sort of come to terms with the randomness of the fact that you could easily have been in New York? You could very easily have been in that building that day. And how that kind of informs the way you've lived.
Um Yeah, yeah. Well well first you remember the you know, uh my well the ultimate boss of the company, so Howard uh wasn't in the building that day by chance, uh, because he was taking his uh his son to kindergarten.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What happened to Cantor Fitzgerald on September 11 2001 and how did it affect Sean Windeatt?
0:04–4:21
2
How did Sean transition from accounting to rebuilding the business the day after the attacks?
4:21–8:04
3
What leadership decisions kept the firm from selling and focused on family support?
8:04–12:43
4
How did the company create and grow the BGC Charity Day to raise over $235 million?
12:43–17:01
5
Why did the firm invite celebrities and royalty to answer phones on Charity Day?
17:01–21:50
6
What lessons did Sean learn about teamwork, listening, and hiring great people?
21:50–25:48
7
How does BGC balance ruthless success with kindness and charitable impact?
25:48–29:39
8
Where can listeners learn more about BGC’s charitable initiatives and get involved?
29:39–33:24
Speakers
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