Jane Fraser’s Empathy Doesn’t Mean Citi Is Soft
A tough remodeling job at the underperforming bank will test the CEO’s leadership in 2024.
Does being human make you soft? Jane Fraser, chief executive officer of Citigroup Inc.
Photographer: Al Drago/Bloomberg
“You can be a straight talker without being an unpleasant person,” Jane Fraser told a CNN interviewer in 2018, long before she became Citigroup’s chief executive officer nearly three years ago.
It was an early statement of the empathy and human touch that she has made key to her image as a leader. In 2024, Fraser will be testing this to its limit now that Citigroup has finally begun its huge and long overdue remodeling job. Fraser is trying to repair the bank’s poor returns by excising layers of management and dismantling regional fiefdoms. Thousands of jobs are being cut. For some staff, the uncertainty will last well into the first quarter.