Wall Street's most powerful woman has a brutal message for staff resisting the company's overhaul
Citigroup CEO Jane Fraser has firmly signaled it’s time for change and has called on her staff to start pulling in the same direction or go their separate way.
It comes after Fraser, who took the top job at the firm in 2021, announced a raft of changes to narrow the gap between her business and those of her rivals.
She wants to make the business more agile: flattening hierarchies, speeding up decision making and increasing individual accountability.
However, although moves to reinvigorate Citigroup’s stock—which have virtually flatlined over the past three years—may prove popular with shareholders, an accompanying cut to jobs will be less so.
Announcing the shake-up in mid-September, Fraser acknowledged the cuts would be tough.
“We’ll be saying goodbye to some very talented and hardworking colleagues,” she said in a memo to staff obtained by CNBC.
However, for those still at the company, there’s work to be done—and Fraser wants buy-in from her staff.
“Get on board. We have incredibly high ambitions for this bank and, the train, it’s gonna move fast,” Fraser told Citigroup’s 240,000 employees during a company-wide call, according to The Financial Times.
Fraser reportedly added: “So lean in, help us win with clients, help us deliver the changes, or get off the train,” according to those who heard the remarks.
Citigroup did not respond to Fortune’s request for comment.
Some staffers are already on board. One told The Financial Times there’s “there’s lots of logic to what she is doing, because we were just running too much cost in this business and we need to get to the right place.”
Question marks do hang in the air for some current staffers. A raft of high-profile names are reportedly leaving the business—including Paco Ybarra who heads the company’s investment banking strategy and its institutional client group—and some have not been replaced.
Taking Citi to a ‘different level’
Although some parts of Fraser’s plan remain under wraps—like the number of job cuts—staff will not be surprised that change has come to Citibank.
The boss of America’s third biggest bank has always promised innovation would be in the cards.
When Fraser was named incoming CEO in 2020 she told Fortune: “I think it’s going back and saying, ‘What are some of the root causes and then how do you turn that into an opportunity to really leapfrog and take the bank to a different level?’
“And then how do you galvanize the organization to work toward that? I did that with the private bank, did that with mortgages, did that in Mexico. And I’m excited to do it here too.”
Fraser, named number three on Fortune’s Most Powerful Women list, was perhaps destined to be a breath of fresh air: she was the first female CEO on Wall Street, she’s had feelings of self-doubt and says she’s proof that working part-time doesn’t kill your career.
Under Fraser, Citigroup is also seemingly waving goodbye to its regional system outside of the U.S.
Previously Citi has sought to embed itself in each of its locations as a local banker, with various executives heading up these divisions.
As of September, that’s no longer the case. Ernesto Torres Cantú was named Citi’s Head of International this year, overseeing the 100 territories outside of the U.S.
