Executive View by Marshall Loeb: The Gnome of Wall Street

Executive View

When he was in his early 40s, a mere stripling, Nicholas Deak parachuted into the Burmese jungles and the Balkans on many spooky missions as an agent of the Office of Strategic Services in World War II. Now, in his early 70s, Deak has slowed down only a bit. He runs—not jogs, runs—three to five miles every morning on his own track at his estate in suburban New York. Then he is chauffeured to the global headquarters of Deak & Co., in the Deak-Perera Building near Wall Street, where he directs the largest foreign exchange business in the...