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Citigroup CEO Jane Fraser’s top challenges, explained
This appeared in The Millennial Source
The pandemic has struck every major bank hard, but the challenges for Citibank could be even greater due to the increased assets that the bank has in credit cards, a type of loan that has seen the greatest risk of loss during the pandemic.
In February, Citigroup’s chief executive officer Michael Corbat will step down after a 37-year career at Citi, the last eight of which he has spent as CEO. Corbat will be replaced by Jane Fraser, who will inherit some of the top challenges that face the bank.
During Corbat’s tenure, the focus was on increasing consistent growth, a goal he achieved by setting the company up to routinely pass stress tests and show an acceptable return on equity. In 2019, Citibank led its competitors in growth, despite being smaller than competitors in almost every metric.
In addition to her clear qualifications as a Cambridge and Harvard graduate, as well as time spent at Goldman Sachs, Fraser will make history as the first woman to lead a major Wall Street bank. But that won’t shield her from the challenges facing Citibank and the other major banks at the current moment.
