Cancer kills secret hero

Jeremy Hill. Photo / Supplied

Jeremy Hill made his home in the city famous for yellow cabs, kerbside hotdog stands and big talk.

But when others were talking up their achievements, the Kiwi high-flier maintained his humility.

Even as the 43-year-old faced death from skin cancer, he never told his family of the massive contribution he made to a charity helping young people struggling with the same disease.

Hill, a managing director and co-head of global equity finance at banking giant JP Morgan Chase & Co, died on March 7.

His brother Tim said yesterday that the family had not known of Jeremy's role as a board member on SAMFund, a non-profit group that gives grants to young people getting on with life after cancer.

"He never said anything about it," Tim said. "He wasn't a big talker, he didn't do it to impress people at donor parties, he did it because he thought it was the right thing to do. He was very loyal to people he cared about."

Hill sent SAMFund a $500 donation after he was treated for a less aggressive skin cancer in the mid-2000s. He continued to support the group, including working as a guest bartender at a fundraiser.

By the time he received his more serious diagnosis in 2010, he was also involved with the New York University Cancer Institute, where he was appointed to the institute's advisory board, alongside billionaire Home Depot co-founder Kenneth Langone.

The goal of the institute is to discover the origins of human cancer and end the burden it places on society, according to its website.

Hill was raised in Auckland, Te Awamutu and Thames, and graduated with a Bachelor of Commerce from Auckland University. He lived in London and Sydney for several years before moving to the United States to study at the University of Chicago's Booth School of Business in 1999.

"It wasn't just that he understood the numbers, he was commercially astute as well," Tim said. "He had the whole package."

Hill wanted his funeral to be held in New York, but asked his family to scatter his ashes at a favourite beach in the Coromandel.