Citi’s Fraser Forms New Operating Team to Handle Regulatory Work

(Bloomberg) -- Citigroup Inc.'s incoming chief executive officer, Jane Fraser, created a new global operating team aimed at improving accountability among its top executives, as the firm continues to address a litany of concerns raised by regulators last year.

The new team will consist of Fraser's executive management team along with the firm's treasurer, it said in a memo. Also on the team are leaders of Citigroup's investment-banking group, consumer operations in Mexico, the company's new global wealth unit, trading, the firm's treasury business and its U.S. consumer unit.

“A key element of our transformation work is to hold our business leaders accountable not only for the performance of their own teams, but for how we collectively operate our firm and deliver the outcomes for which we are responsible,” Fraser said in the memo Tuesday.

Citigroup was dinged last year by both the Federal Reserve and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency for failings with its technology infrastructure and internal controls. The firm has vowed to rectify the problems regulators laid out, with Fraser leading much of the remediation effort.

Fraser said she and current CEO Michael Corbat have asked Zdenek Turek, who has been the firm's chief risk officer on an interim basis, to keep the role permanently. A 30-year veteran of the firm, Turek has both front-line banking experience and was also previously CEO of Citibank Europe.

Sunil Garg, who oversees the lender's commercial banking arm, will become CEO of Citibank N.A., the primary bank subsidiary that houses 75% of the firm's assets. Garg will also oversee the risk and controls project group as part of the bank's regulatory homework.

“As the CEO of the commercial bank, he unified the business into a global one, with a clear strategy and target market,” Fraser said. “His keen eye for risk and controls as well as his operational skills will serve him well in these roles.”

The firm will hold a search for Garg's replacement as head of the commercial bank.

Fraser also tapped Margo Pilic to be her next chief of staff. Pilic was most recently the finance lead for the firm's institutional clients group in Latin America, a region that Fraser oversaw up until 2019.

“Investing in our talent is going to be one of my top priorities as CEO,” Fraser said. “It is critical to creating the culture of excellence that we want for Citi and to the success of our transformation.”

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