Jane Fraser, CEO of Citi: Lead with Empathy

(upbeat electronic music) [MODERATOR] Jane, welcome to View From the Top. [JANE FRASER] Thank you. [MODERATOR] We are so excited to learn from you today, so let's jump right in. [JANE FRASER] Yep. [MODERATOR] You have quite the international background. [JANE FRASER] Yeah. You grew up in Scotland, with this weather, you leave. (laughs) [MODERATOR] Well, you did leave. [JANE FRASER] Yes. [MODERATOR] You moved to Australia at a young age, and attended an all-girls school that's known for creating a lot of powerful female leaders. How did your early education shape you? [JANE FRASER] Yeah, it was one of

those weird experiences. I was in a conference in the Middle East, and they had a whole group of Now friends who run the different financial institutions. And there were two women out of this group of 20 of us and everyone was from all over the world. And the two women had been at the same high school in Sydney, Australia. And we were both going, "Wow, that says something about that school." Um, I'd left Scotland when I was 12. My parents immigrated to Australia. And the school was fantastic. It taught you to go for it, and

that's not really what you Get taught as a girl in the '80s or '70s in, God, that makes me so old-- in Scotland. And the headmistress there just equipped you to, you know, you gave it a shot, you gave it a go. And it didn't matter if you didn't succeed, just try it, go for it. And also an insatiable curiosity about the world, about how things worked and other pieces, so it was a wonderful education. Amazing. And this, yeah, it's to this day I think that was a great foundation. [MODERATOR] So your school sets you

up with a strong foundation. Let's fast-forward a few years. [JANE FRASER] Yeah. [MODERATOR] After graduating from Cambridge University, you began your career at Goldman Sachs in London. [JANE FRASER] Yep. [MODERATOR] And then attended Harvard Business School. We're not gonna hold that against you. (laughs) (unintelligible) By 30, you made Partner at McKinsey. Your career was on fire, but then you chose to step back and work part-time. Tell us about that decision. [JANE FRASER] Yeah. So back in the '80s, when I was looking at other women, I was at Goldman as an analyst, and there were very

few women in financial services at that point. And those who were, weren't exactly role models. They were either trying to be more male than the men and didn't really like that or they were just miserable. So I had switched over to McKinsey where I felt there was A just a better chance of still having fascinating strategic discussions, career learning, and all of those good things but at least the chance of having a little bit more balance. And when I the year before I made partner was I wanted to have a family. And so we had

our first son was born right before I made partner. When I made partner, the phone call came in, and I was just so desperate to get the head of the firm off the phone because our son needed feeding. I was two weeks into a newborn. And at that juncture, I thought, "You know, I'm gonna go part-time as a partner there." So I was part-time for five years. And for me, it was the ability to have both the career, but also be a mom, you know. If you have a kid, I wanted to be, have the

chance of spending time. And so I found the way that I could do so. I had one less client. And several mentors had all said, "You know, just tell everyone that, no, you're not working this day. If you had other client meetings on that day, you wouldn't be able to do it." So they helped give me a bit of the courage to stay the course. And I worked the entirety of the time I was a partner, five years part-time. And that's given me a lifelong belief that you do need to make choices which will be

more in favor of your personal life rather than your professional life at certain times. And that's okay, because as someone told me, "Your career, you're gonna have many careers in your life, and you're gonna be measuring them in decades. So why are you so fussed about something that will be probably 5, 6% of your professional life? You know, make some of those trade-offs and have the courage that it won't slow you down." [MODERATOR] Wow. So it sounds like McKenzie-- [JANE FRASER] Yeah. [MODERATOR] Was a very supportive environment. [JANE FRASER] Yeah, it was pretty supportive. You

know, I still think they got their value for money. (laughter) I would say on a 60% program they were getting 70, 80%. But still, you know, these are the ones where you just, you know, You have the courage that at certain points in your career, you will have other priorities. You'll say no to jobs, you'll say no to mobility opportunities, and that's the point where you have to have the courage that you'll have other opportunities that will come up. [MODERATOR] Of course, of course. [JANE FRASER] And that, you know, you find a balance. [MODERATOR] Well,

toward the end of your time at McKinsey, you co-authored this book. [JANE FRASER] If anyone has any trouble sleeping at night, I really strongly recommend it. (laughter) [MODERATOR] Well, Race for the World is a book about building global businesses. [JANE FRASER] Yes. [MODERATOR] And by the way, I'm gonna ask you to sign this before you go. I'd love your autograph. When you joined Citi in 2004, one of the most complex global institutions in the world. [JANE FRASER] Mm-hmm. [MODERATOR] Was there anything you realized you had underestimated in your book? [JANE FRASER] Yeah, I think particularly

now the speed of technological innovation and how quickly It moves around the world, and then the geopolitics. The geopolitics at the time were pretty simple, whereas now the impact as a CEO you end up having to spend a lot more time worrying about what's happening in terms of the voice of the people. You're much more worried about what are the different tensions that are going on, and that was something that this was much more purely the business dimensions of it and not understanding the full range of stakeholders the same way. [MODERATOR] Got it. [JANE FRASER]

And some of the things we got right, some of the things we got wrong. Yeah. [MODERATOR] You joined Citi at A pretty interesting time. Let's talk about 2008. [JANE FRASER] Yeah. [MODERATOR] You served as Citi's global head of strategy during the peak of the Great Financial Crisis. [JANE FRASER] Yes. As a woman who likes shopping, I certainly spent all my time selling things. (laughter) [MODERATOR] Fun time to be a banker. During what may have been the lowest point in Citi's history, What did the institution need the most from its leaders? [JANE FRASER] Look, I think

there's a couple of different pieces. I learned a lot. I'd been at the firm for three years when the financial crisis hit and then was put into strategy and the M&A role, which was really divesting. And we chose a different CEO, and the previous one was fired. And Bob Jos remembers this time well, sitting in the room. I think at that point, you need incredibly clinical thinking. You can't have emotional attachments to different areas. CEO at the time was a trader, and one of the things traders are very good is they're unemotional about the different

positions, different things they hold, and also someone who's very smart. And that mindset was something I really learned at that point from him. Another element that I think is important is courage. And you have to be courageous to take some of the tough decisions, and I think having seen how far awry the firm had gone at that point, it gave me long-life courage to take the tougher, longer-term decisions. And those are things that I saw that group of leaders doing. Like, they really took bold decisions, and they put a bit of time in. They got

to move on but they put enough time into the thinking, and then they would move quickly. And I think those were the things that I saw that was important. What got us there was a lot of poor management decisions. What I then saw was just sticking to certain principles, and I've tried to follow that too. It's very hard to follow, to set all the rules You need, but certain principles were in place. So we had one of, we're not in the business of manufacturing. We're in the business of distribution, so we will sell everything that's

to do with manufacturing. And that way, we can be true to our customers of finding the best product for them and giving it to them. So those types of principles certainly I found incredibly valuable for sticking to certain things. Same way we used it in COVID. You know, we had a set of different principles about how we would respond as a firm. We stuck with them. So that would be one of the things I saw from the leaders that I shamelessly copy-pasted for the rest of my career, was be courageous, was be very clinical about

decisions. Like, get your ego and get the emotion out of the way. The ego's usually the toughest one, and the third one was this other element of sort of curiosity involved and decisiveness. Yeah. [MODERATOR] I'd love to ask you about courage. I think a lot of people in this room are or about to graduate from the GSB, Thinking out what they do next. When you think about your own risk appetite, what do you do to increase that for yourself? [JANE FRASER] Yeah, my risk appetite used to be awful. If I didn't feel I was to

this day, I still have to catch it. If I'm not, don't feel I'm 120% prepared for something, you know I, I'm not, I'm out of my comfort zone. And, you know, my hand up in class used to be like this, and I learned it better be like that. How, you know, and you just had to get comfortable with those pieces. So some of the courage comes from trusting yourself and taking certain leaps. Through my career, I've done all sorts of what p-- sometimes lateral, other times almost downward moves in order to build different skills. And

so being courageous to go an unorthodox path is something you guys are going to have to do in spades, given where the world is going to be. And, you know, have, be not just getting comfortable. You're going to fail at a few things. That's okay. And you're your own worst enemy. So those are the areas that I think the greatest courage is in your own emotional resiliency and your willingness to grasp at opportunities and not worry that if you fail, you know, you'll pick yourself up, and you'll go for it again. That, that's one of

the reasons I came to the States. I hated that about the UK, that there was none of that mindset, whereas I do think this country is pretty remarkable in that, and this part of the world even more so. Yeah. Courage is tough. [MODERATOR] It is tough, and-- [JANE FRASER] It's learned. [MODERATOR] And-- [JANE FRASER] You don't need-- You can learn courage. You don't need to be born with it. [MODERATOR] I think you showed a lot of courage in some of the moves that you made during your time at Citi. Yes. [JANE FRASER] Yes. [MODERATOR] Because

after the crisis-- [JANE FRASER] Yeah. [MODERATOR] You repeatedly chose to lead parts of the bank That were in tough spots. [JANE FRASER] Yeah. [MODERATOR] For example, when you took over Citi Private Banking in 2009, the division was losing $250 million a year. Why did you pick these tough jobs? [JANE FRASER] Yeah. I mean, 'cause someone once asked it, is it because none of the men wanted to take them? (laughter) There might be a bit of truth in some of that. Um, I, I'm n-- and one of the things, I'm not a tweaker, so I wouldn't

I never wanted a job where you, where you'd just be tweaking things to make it better. I, I think I'd be awful at it. I think a lot of people in this room would be awful at tweaking jobs too. It's more fun to be bold in making changes. And then there, it, if something's not in great shape, it's amazing how you get left alone to fix it. Whereas if something is actually going well, you have everybody giving you helpful advice and opinions on What you can be doing better. So one of the fun things about

turnarounds or changing things more radically, quite often you're left a little bit more on your own. Then when it starts getting successful, then everyone jumps onto the train and heads that way. But I, I, I've always quite enjoyed transforming things a bit more. And then you learn a playbook of what you need to do, and you can repeat a lot of it in the different situations. Like, get the team in place that you need, as a first step, 'cause otherwise you're gonna be doing everybody else's job and be really lousy at the one you've actually

been put in to do. So there's just different steps that I put in place each time now. [MODERATOR] Wow. [JANE FRASER] And they've been helpful so far. [MODERATOR] Well, with every new challenge you took on, you stepped into a different part of Citi, with different people-- [JANE FRASER] Yeah. [MODERATOR] Different rules, different ways of life. When you join new teams, how do you earn their Trust and the right to-- [JANE FRASER] Yeah. [MODERATOR] Be their leader? [JANE FRASER] So I'll give you an example. I was running the private bank in out of London, and we

were s-- it's a fantastic job. You're serving the world's billionaires who, and their families, and they all have incredible stories about how they made their fortune, they usually then lost it, then they made it again. And it was one of the most humbling jobs too because you would, by definition, were never gonna be As successful as any one of the clients. So it kinda keeps you grounded. But I'd been doing that for four years And I could tell, I, I felt the business, it was time for the business to have a different leader, and I

thought it was time for me to do something else. So I had a list of criteria of different things I thought would be good, and I moved into, I moved from London to 45 miles outside of St. Louis, Missouri to, from running the private bank to running the mortgage business at the back end of the mortgage crisis out of a call center. And everyone thought I must have really screwed up to be doing that move. For me, it was logical. I'd learned how to run a factory business. I was in something in the middle of

a big crisis at the end of the Great Financial Crisis. I'd have exposure to the, the Hill and Congress. I'd learn different risks. So I had this whole categories of things I thought it would be good for. And I stood in front of the cafeteria, and there were 22,000 people in the mortgage business, and the market had just Crashed again in mortgages, and they all knew half of them were probably gonna get fired. And I stand up in St. Louis, Missouri with my accent, having never worked in mortgages in my life before, and that was

one of those moments that I was like, "Okay, you might have the job, but you have to earn the right to lead." And I thought the only way I could get these people to follow me is if they feel I'm really in it with them. I thought the only way I can persuade them is my son, who is 11, who was rather upset about being told to move from London to the States-- um, as 11-year-olds are, I, I explained then that he had Just co-- he had come for the day, he had had his day

at the new school he was going to, and I explained he'd run round the baseball pitch the wrong way because he didn't know which way to run-- 'Cause he's used to cricket, where you go backwards and forwards. And I felt that would be the only way that that audience could say, "Okay, she is coming here. If her kids are moving here, she's going to be here." And then we just always talked to them straight. But those are some of the things of part of it is they'll trust you if they feel you're gonna talk to

them straight, and you put yourself into their shoes. So how would I want to be communicated to? What would it be? And then get good people around you when you don't know anything. Just go and get people who know, have that courage to have a team that is better than you are at any of their jobs and just lead them and help them be successful. So those are the things that I learnt how to, I don't know if you ever earn the right to lead, but that was the way that you capture the hearts and

minds of people. [MODERATOR] Well, you clearly did Something right. Because on March 1, 2021, you became CEO of one of the most systemically important banks in the world. You also became the first woman to lead a Big Four U.S. bank. When you stepped into that role, did you feel a sense of responsibility beyond the institution itself? [JANE FRASER] Yeah, it's weird. The first day you become a CEO, I remember walking into my boss', what I felt was my boss's office, and you sit down in the chair, And you suddenly feel the weight. Like, there's a

weight around you. And I see it from my friends who are CEOs when they stop and they just say the weight's lifted off because you are, and many of you have probably run your own companies before this or will be shortly, you know, if you're the CEO, that is, defines who you are. You're no longer Jane. Even to friends and other people outside, you are the role all the time. Even Friday night, when you just wanna go out and relax with your husband and have dinner and, you know, You are the role to everyone around.

So that sense of responsibility is there. And then I definitely felt it a bit more for being the first woman in the role. Um, just a sense of you just, I just sat there, you've got to try and get, you've got to do the Taylor Swift 'Shake It Off', because you're not gonna do a good job if you're feeling that pressure and that, that element of, I better, I better be in the job for, I better do a good job. It doesn't help, but you definitely Felt the responsibility. You know, and you also think of,

it made me more mindful about how I did things rather than just the what I was doing. And that I think everyone should probably feel when you're going to leadership positions, 'cause people will remember you for how you led or how you turned up much more than they'll remember you for whatever decision you made or you took. So I think that piece is important. [MODERATOR] When you first sat in the CEO chair, you had a bit of a job to do. In your early days as CEO, You said that Citi was failing to match the

efficiency And profitability of rivals like JP Morgan, and you were ready to roll up your sleeves and make some changes. When you need to change a complex organization of 250,000 people, where do you even start? [JANE FRASER] Yeah. I was lucky, I knew the company, so I knew the things I thought needed to get changed strategically. And so I started with, it's gonna sound, you're all gonna be like, 'Oh,' I started with the vision and said, 'What is it the firm is going to be?' And define that around the client base we'd be, and what

would the different business that fit together where we had a competitive advantage, where there were synergies across them, and I felt we could really scale and win, and then get rid of everything else. And the world had gone very, it was starting to get incredibly complex, and we were running businesses that were both global in nature and incredibly local in nature. And my view was I had to get out of everything that was locally Defined, so I would only be in businesses that could have global platforms and then the last mile could be local. But

that got us out of retail banking, branch-based banking, out of local credit card, we got out of all of those businesses. But I was always very motivated, like, you will inspire people with where you run to, not just what you're getting out of. And so it was always mindful of defining what we would be. But the vision wasn't just enough, it was also what were the cultural changes we need to make? So one of the first things we did was a from to, in terms of some of the culture and then putting That into the

leadership principles that we use for how we recruit and evaluate people. And I ended up putting the time in, and I had a pretty clear view of over a 5-to-10-year period where I'd imagine the org structure would go how we'd need to be re-engineering and changing the bank. So, I had a pretty good sense of the journey, and a lot of the decisions were then the timing. When's often the toughest piece, so I knew I had to sell everything before I could re-org. Once we'd re-orged, I knew all the different pieces that we thought would

fit together. So, there, a clear sense of who we were. But the most important bit was just, it's that always have, never make it a no vote, always make it a yes vote, right? What is it that you want the firm to be, not what you want to fix 'cause you will not inspire people with, 'We're gonna fix this. We're gonna fix that.' You will get incredible things out of people and they'll take the mountain for you if you lay out something that they get really excited by. And you see that every single day in

this part of the world, but even in boring financial services that's true. And we're able to get a lot of talent to come and join 'cause teams like, some teams just love, they love running into the fire. Right? Some people are just made that way. And so, you know, if you can galvanize a team to run into the fire and do amazing things it, they surprise themselves and it becomes infectious in an organization. And that can be true of a team, it can be true of a company. Yeah [MODERATOR] I think there's something really powerful

about how you galvanize teams, and I think we can see that in a lot of the transformational work that you've done. I wanna talk about one transformation in particular. In 2023, you launched a massive restructuring project-- [JANE FRASER] Yeah. [MODERATOR] That completely redesigned the accountability structure at Citi, and put five core businesses directly under you. How do you deal with resistance and bring people along with you? [JANE FRASER] Yeah. So we often find if we're in companies you'll have multiple layers within the company, and, you know, that just slows down communication, it slows down innovation

and productivity. So we took out four layers in our company. One was the layer beneath me and that then brought the management of the bank much closer to the actual businesses day-to-day. And then we took out three layers in the middle of the organization, which is often the treacle, or, you know, dulce de leche or whatever you wanna call it, that stops things inside a company. And if you're trying to get somewhere to be agile, That's sort of stuck in there, but we've always done it this way, you need to put a lot of change

through. So we changed through a huge number of people, 50,000 people in our bank had different managers in a three-month time period. But that's when you can then put new norms in, you know, get rid of more of the bureaucratic processes, get things to be agile, and then get people to suddenly believe they can innovate and that's remarkably powerful. 'cause some of you will go and work in companies that, or your own companies which will be smaller and you don't have to worry about the legacy. Others of you will be in institutions where, you know,

you, you've, you're going to have legacy to deal with, and you want to have your cake and eat it of what are the best strengths of that, but then what are the areas that are really getting in the way? And, the, "We've always done it this way," people getting comfortable a lot of folk can be very complacent. The biggest thing is fire every asshole in your company. Right? 'cause good people in a bad culture, you know, they'll go back to being good people again and fix the culture. But if an asshole's always an asshole, and

it's amazing how that just drains energy. So the people that just take energy away from the team, get them off the team. Help them find another opportunity. You don't need to be an asshole about it. Right? So you can help them get them into something else, but get rid of them. You know, and my favorite one on that was one of my friends who was beating McKinsey with me, runs one of the big German Insurers, and he'd said he'd done the same, he'd got rid of people who were draining energy on the board, on his

management team, two superstars, but they were there And then he said, "And I only see my mother once a month now rather than every weekend, and that's really helped my own emotional energy completely." So, those are some of the things that make a difference. [MODERATOR] Good. [JANE FRASER] Yeah. [MODERATOR] On the note of firing the assholes-- I think there is an element of empathy that you have to do that with. [JANE FRASER] Yeah. [MODERATOR] One of my favorite quotes from you is that empathy can be a competitive edge. [JANE FRASER] Yeah. [MODERATOR] How do you

lead with empathy while making decisions like layoffs-- [JANE FRASER] Yeah. [MODERATOR] That will fundamentally change peoples' lives? [JANE FRASER] Yeah. So, it's a bit like that story in mortgages where you're standing and you go to a site, and you're Gonna tell everyone that the site is gonna get shut down. And, you put yourself and say, "Okay, I, I'm an em-- I'm a member of that site. How do I want that to be communicated? I want to be told straight. I want to be told it clearly up front, and then I want you to tell me

what are you doing for me." So it's, empathy for me is putting yourself in the other person's shoes and understanding their position. I don't know how you sell a thing to a client if you don't put yourself in their shoes, and don't, If you're sitting there saying, "What is it I need to set? What is it I want to sell to them?" As opposed to, 'What do they need?' And if you go into the, Okay, what do they need, you unlock a whole range of things that you would never do if you were just pushing

your own agenda or pushing your own pieces to it. So to me, empathy is about understanding needs of your employee base, of your customers, you know, of someone, we had an activist shareholder in our stock, and I remember my coach telling me I had to deal with him with empathy, And I had a very rude response to that one. (audience laughing) And they said, "No, but understand the pressure they're under, and then you'll be able to, if you can solve for them, they'll get out of you." And he was absolutely right. And I wouldn't quite

call that empathy, in the sort of traditional form, but when I did put myself into, okay, what are the things that these guys are embarrassed about that, you know, they're, you know, they're not looking good to the outside world in, And what's a successful off-ramp here? That's when we had a breakthrough. So that's where I think empathy gives you a competitive edge, because there's far too many people that don't try and understand the other perspective. And then just not being a jerk to people. And Warren Buffett he was in our stock for a while, and

he had two things, pieces of advice he gave me which I'll pass on. He said, "You can always call them an asshole tomorrow." Really good piece of advice. So never in anger, respond to that email Or other pieces. And then he said, 'Criticize by category, praise by name.' And that's also another really good piece of advice, 'cause you're always gonna regret the if you criticize someone by name, it's gonna come back and bite you. So those are different elements of empathy. Empathy is not being nice. You know, but it's just being thoughtful about the other

side of the table. [MODERATOR] In addition to empathy, you're also known for leading with humor. [JANE FRASER] Yeah. (audience laughing) [MODERATOR] A few years ago, the Wall Street Journal called you-- Citi's chief executive prankster. That is. [JANE FRASER] My team's gullible. (all laughing) [MODERATOR] Okay, oh. Well, I was gonna say you stole my dream job title. That's pretty cool. Tell me more about your favorite prank, and how you use humor as a leader. [JANE FRASER] My favorite one was, Normally, we have a team building exercise when we have the quarterly management offsite. And we have

a site up in upstate New York. It's about an hour's drive out of New York City. And so we decided that, and we told everyone, bring athletic gear. You know, comfortable athletic clothing. We were going to do an outside activity in the evening. And then on the Thursday, this was the Monday, was the offsite. And on the Thursday, we found a website For the most dodgy skydiving club near the site. And we sent out the waiver form from them. Told everyone to sign them. And the only one who really didn't fall for it was our

general counsel who said, "There's no way that the insurance would cover having the entire senior management team of Citigroup jumping out of an airplane on a night skydiving team building exercise." So he didn't fall for it. But we had all the other excuses come through. "I'm too fat." (all laughing) There were various other ones, and others who signed up for it. And then the next day, on the Friday, we sent out a, just a note. This, and Friday was April Fools Day. And we sent a no out a note saying, "It's always good to get

ahead of April Fools Day with your team." So, that was fun. The best bit, though, was the actually, that was the other cruel thing we did. As soon as the note went out, we had a 65-year-old leader on the team, woman. And we had her send a note out responding to everyone saying, "Sign me up. I did this a few years ago. Best thing I've ever done." (audience laughing) None of the 50-year-old men were gonna say, 'I'm too scared, after that.' [MODERATOR] Well. [JANE FRASER] Gotta find the twist, right? [MODERATOR] If you ever do decide

to go skydiving, I would love to come with you. [JANE FRASER] There we are. [MODERATOR] Please feel free to hit me up. [JANE FRASER] There'll be several people pushing me out of the plane if I do. (all laughing) [MODERATOR] Well, luckily, the team's still around. [JANE FRASER] Yes. [MODERATOR] You didn't go on that dodging skydiving adventure. So now we can talk about the future for Citi. [JANE FRASER] Yes. [MODERATOR] Citi's vision is to be the preeminent partner for institutions with cross-border needs. [JANE FRASER] Yeah. [MODERATOR] But between tariffs and geopolitical conflict, it feels like our

world and financial system are becoming more fragmented. Does that change how you lead a global institution? [JANE FRASER] Yes and no. I think it doesn't change certain things. So trust and your reputation are probably two of the most critical elements. You know, particularly as a bank, but I think for any institution, reputation is absolutely critical. And so, thinking about, for example, today, not just fragmentation, but the political environment, you need to run a company as independent of the, you know, who's in power in whichever country, and make sure that your decision-making is the right thing

for the institution. And that's hard. And I think when you're a global company, you know, we've had operations in Venezuela for years, Haiti, other places. You know, you understand a bit more of what that is like. We have a bank in Ukraine. So, you get used to some of the geopolitical tensions that are out there. But I think we are moving from a world where America dominated to one where China is far advanced of America in many different industries. And ultimately, will be moving to much more of a multi-polar world. The famous middle powers will

be rising up as well. This will all take time. But I think it's one where you really appreciate diversity because there isn't one model that's the right model. There isn't one way of doing things that is The right way of doing things. And so, as the world becomes more fragmented, we'll find a greater diversity of different approaches. We'll find different diversity of business models. We'll certainly have a lot of tensions to manage. And as a leader on a global institution, you then have to keep going to what is it that your clients need? And then

is that different in different parts of the world? And you adapt accordingly. But always, those principles always go to the use case. You know, don't get outraged by, "Oh, this is shocking. This is happening in the world. I can't believe it." It's just a waste of time. Focus on what are the things you can control? What can you do about it? And how do you help people succeed in that environment? And, you know, we'll all be in client service in different forms. The most important thing is be really clear on the use case, 'cause there's

lots of hammers in search of nails. You know, hone in on the nail and then get the hammer to, you know, crush it. But be very clear in a fragmenting world of, you know, what your job is and what your company's job is, and stick to that. And don't get distracted by the noise. [MODERATOR] On the note of sticking to business, Citi is systemically important. [JANE FRASER] Yeah. [MODERATOR] And for the audience, that basically means failure would seriously affect the global economy. [JANE FRASER] So just to show you, give you an example. We move $2,000

trillion around the world every single year. But how do you sleep at night with that, right? (all laughing) Cause if we go down, and this is for 5,000 multinationals. This is payroll, supply chains, cash management, the foreign exchange hedging, et cetera. It's the working capital of the multinationals around the world. So when you say systemically important, the wait I talked about earlier, it's if something goes wrong in our company, and that causes chaos for everyone else. So you're constantly with that weight of making sure You're trying to stop bad things from happening, or recovering very

quickly when they do. That's what systemically import means. [MODERATOR] I'm trying to wrap my head around what $2,000 trillion looks like. [JANE FRASER] I know. (audience laughing) [MODERATOR] If you would like to move some of that into my bank account, I wouldn't mind. [JANE FRASER] It's 5 trillion a day, [MODERATOR] Wow. [JANE FRASER] Right, it's bigger than the GDP of Germany. Yeah. [MODERATOR] Well, you work closely-- [JANE FRASER] But this is America, right? This is the soft power of America. These types of things that the multinational companies have done everywhere around the world, it makes

all the world works. It's something to be proud of. We often don't talk about. There's times you don't feel so proud at the moment, but there's plenty to be proud of. [MODERATOR] When you're working closely With the governments of nearly 100 countries. [JANE FRASER] Yeah. [MODERATOR] Maybe even more, when economics and geopolitics now become more and more intertwined, how do you preserve Citi's neutrality while still maintaining this global financial stability? [JANE FRASER] Oh, you're not a politician, so, right? you are, and thank God. But it's a much easier job. I mean, and it, in a

sense, if you are, you have a set of fiduciary responsibilities, you have a set of stakeholders, your shareholders, Your employees, your customers, society at large, depending on the company. And your job is to do a good job at the day job, and run the organization, not for the renters, but for the long-term owners. And they have different, they say, a renter and a long-term owner has very different sets of principle, things that they want you to do, let's put it like that. And I don't find it hard. It gets pretty clear what I need to

do, and what our company needs to do. And, you know, what you don't want to do is turn yourself into a politician, right? Nope. No one can, I don't have the right to tell Mexico what the government should be doing there. I can advise them on economic policy and what will help development and growth, and progress from that point of view, but stay clear of having the arrogance of telling them what to, you know, how to run their company better. But advise them on what is better economic policy, what's worked in different places, different pieces.

And frankly, as soon as you move into that mode, you are far more powerful, because they know that you don't, you know, it's not your agenda you're working on, or your ego, you're just there trying to help and counsel. And that's power. [MODERATOR] Wow. Definitely some notes to be taken in there. Let's talk about technology. [JANE FRASER] Yep. [MODERATOR] With the rise of fintechs, Financial innovation today is happening at startup speed. [JANE FRASER] So cool, yeah. [MODERATOR] Yeah. How does a bank with Citi's scale compete with newer companies on innovation? [JANE FRASER] Yeah. So, the--

And you said the keyword there, I think today there is a race for scale, like, again, where Europe's struggling and America and China are winning is scale. And the ability to innovate at scale is what's critical. That's where all those things about having an agile Organization, it's not BS. You need people to be nimble, you need to be willing to shut down businesses or things that are going to get disintermediate and disintermediate yourself. But the most critical thing with fintech, think about it, we were talking with a company the other day in payments, and they

were saying, we move, you know, we've hit a trillion dollar mark. It was an IPO pitch. And they turned round and said, "So how many trillion do you move?" You're like, "$2,000 trillion a year." It's like, (audience laughing) "Get on our platform, we'll help you scale." It was probably the lower point of the IPO, it's not where you're endearing yourself to them, you know, who are so much bigger than you. But there are places where scale makes enormous difference today. And it's a race for scale, and we often see companies topping out. So a fair

amount of what you're trying to do is innovate so You're getting rid of the things that you're gonna get disintermediated on, but you're also wanting to incorporate onto your own platform where many of these different FinTech players can be augmentative, but you can also help them. Everything, your competitors and your collaborators all start merging and you're better off trying to find win-wins each time rather than zero sum games. So that's a lot of the approach, is, you know, how do we get our egos out of the way, find win-wins with different players. But, equally, where

you don't think someone's Got a good business model or you don't think they're good, you know, not doing business with them either. Some of the crypto players are in one bucket there, and others are in the good guy bucket-- [MODERATOR] Okay. [JANE FRASER] For example, yeah. [MODERATOR] When I was looking into some of the technology that Citi's working in today, I was surprised to learn that you're actively exploring tokenized assets-- [JANE FRASER] Yeah. [MODERATOR] And even your own stablecoin. When you think through emerging technologies, How do you differentiate between a true structural shift in finance

versus another cycle of tech hype? [JANE FRASER] You don't know, right? So you need to be, if we're looking at tokenization, stablecoin, different areas, no one can tell you which one's, you know, which approach is going to win, what it is. So you do want to have a portfolio, and you want to be learning. And you want to be able to pivot if you need to. But again, it comes back to this hammer and nail. If we look at where finance is headed, it's moving to always on and instantaneous, right? And our customers want you

to be able to move money around the world, you know, instantaneously, 24/7. And they want to do it with no hassles. So, if the new technologies come that are enabling that, tokenization is one, we're gonna adopt it very quickly. We move billions of dollars in tokenized deposits around the world all the time, and we merge the fiats, so dot, actual cash with the, you know, with the coins or with The tokenization all on the blockchain. So, for us it's just a question of, what's the use case? How does it help our clients? If it's better

than the solutions we have today, you jump on them, and then you shut them, make sure they work, and then shut down the old stuff and be willing to do that. So and the benefit again, scale. If you're looking at doing tokenized deposits it's much easier off our platform where you're moving trillions a day, than it is if you're trying to start it up. Yeah. But you've got to be willing to shut down Things and disintermediate yourself, which is hard. [MODERATOR] Well, we've talked about tokenized assets. [JANE FRASER] Yes. [MODERATOR] There is another technology that

is top of mind for everyone in this room, and that is AI. AI has now officially entered the world of finance through credit memos, risk analysis, and now even AI investment banks. What role does human judgment continue to play inside of banking that AI is not going to replace? [JANE FRASER] Look, trust. If you're sitting there with a CEO, fellow CEO and they're looking at doing a massive merger, a transformational deal, another piece like that, and you're sitting there going through, what are the different decisions they gotta make, how are they thinking about it, pros,

cons, what approach? And you're then imbuing confidence into them to helping them confidence in their decisions, so they'll go ahead. That, AI can't teach you. It can teach you the, what's the right answer to do, does this make sense, et cetera, but there's still this relationship, trust, human element that's absolutely critical. And I see it with relationships. We have a great connection between American Airlines. Before you were all born we had a credit card with American Airlines and it's been a multi-decade relationship, but if the CEO and I didn't really get on, we were negotiating

a renewal of the relationship, AI couldn't do that. That was about two human beings saying, "Okay, we're committing to do some pretty bold difficult things together, and we're in it together, and we both trust each other." Those are things that AI doesn't replace, and it also gives me, I look at it and go, We still need to have apprenticeship is still how a lot of humans learn, and you still, we're gonna be greatly enabled by AI. It's gonna do amazing things. It's gonna make jobs fascinating. But we're still gonna need pyramids and we're still gonna

need people to learn 'cause human beings are still gonna be critically important. Jobs will be much more interesting and we're all gonna have to get used to changing jobs and reinventing ourselves regularly, but I think the notion that human beings are gonna be sitting on their rear end watching Sports all day long and not having a valuable role to play is we're better than that. I don't believe in that. But it is gonna be disruptive. Yeah. [MODERATOR] Thank you for sharing the importance of relationships. And I wanna pause there to pass the floor to a

few members of our audience to ask you some of their questions. [VANESSA] Okay. Hi. I have a question. [JANE FRASER] Yeah. [VANESSA] Can you hear me? [JANE FRASER] Yes. [VANESSA] Hi, I'm Vanessa. [JANE FRASER] Hi. [VANESSA] I'm an MBA too. Thank you so much for being here. I appreciated a lot of what you shared on just human-centered leadership and there not being one right business structure to do things. You touched a little bit on earlier on the question that I had, but I really wanted to talk About just as you steward so much systemic capital

and wealth in the world, how do you think about the responsibility to support on the fronts of wealth and equality domestically and globally? And what are some specific levers that you believe that institution like Citi can pull to actually help support there? [JANE FRASER] Yeah. I often think, I say this quite often, you have to be a bank with a brain and a bank with a soul, and the soul is your people. And, you know, we're in all, you know, I look at Ukraine. Our people in Ukraine, they have not, our bank, it's the only

American bank and one of the only international banks in Ukraine. Our people have not let that bank shut one day. Because if it does, the payrolls of the multinationals that operate in Ukraine will not work. The supply chains into Ukraine will not work. We run the Visa network and the Clearstream network there, so the credit card system. I mean, all these different things will not work if our people didn't turn up. And when just, just before the war broke out we moved half our people to the border, Lviv, who we've all heard of now, and

then when the war started, they we set up operations with the bank we have in Poland and all our people moved who could. The men couldn't move. But all of the women moved and the wives and families of our employees. We moved them all to Poland and they live with our Polish employees. And we set up a school in the building in Poland for the kids. And this has been the case for four years. Right now, our employees, we gave them all generators because they only get, at most, four hours of power a day, and

it is cold as hell at the moment in Ukraine. Like, it is brutal. But they know that if we go down, it is highly consequential for the country. UThe same, we're the only bank in Israel U.S. bank and we play an important part similarly there. The same in much of the Arab world and the rest. So, it's easy in the developed world to be sanguine about this because we have it pretty damn good. But when you go to other countries and you just see the motivation people have to make sure that things are working so

their country operates well. So we, I find our people will do extraordinary things to make sure that the bank can support companies and keep economies open. And the other bit, we saw it in COVID, we saw it many times again, you know, folk will get out of bed to serve a client. They'll get out of bed to, and be really motivated, if they're feeling that what they do matters. We're the number one affordable housing lending in America. We have a chronic housing shortage. And the team that does that, they are so proud and they go

the extra mile to try and make sure that we can get more units built, get tax policy passed to help that and other elements. So those things, it's not just this corporate social responsibility, tick the box BS stuff. It truly motivates people to work for a company that is trying to do good things, trying to do the right things. And I think that's, those companies that can do that, it's a competitive advantage. It can't be the raison d'etre, but it's gotta be part of the package. Yeah. [CAROLINE] Hi Jane. [JANE FRASER] Hi. [CAROLINE] I'm Caroline.

Thank you for all you're sharing. So, I'm the current student of MSX. So, before I came here, I worked as the investor relations officer For the public tech companies. So, I really appreciate all the help that we had from the Citi, and Citi has been the trust partner in our capital market. So, I have a question that Citi operates across over 180 countries. How do you think about the boundary between the global standardization and the local adaptation today? And in your view, what's the most fundamental structure challenge facing global financial institutions right now? [JANE FRASER]

Yeah. A few different pieces there. The benefit we have is not just we're in lots of countries, but we've been in them, you know, we've been in China 125 years, Japan the same, India the same. We just had 100 years in Australia. We have 100 years in Germany going up. So, often we're, in Korea we were the first foreign bank. Depressingly, we opened roughly the same year I was born. It made me feel ancient. But it gives you a much more local understanding and even when you're global our local teams on the ground who understand

risks, who to do business with, who not to touch, For business in different parts of the world who can also just connect with the clients there, know, you know, who won the soccer that weekend, or you know, what's been going on on the ground. Those other elements. They're very important. So, even for big global companies, that local knowledge on risk, the relationship dimension, these other things, is where a lot of the richness lies. And I think the best global companies, they can have a standard product suite, but understanding all the local nuances and other pieces

Is where a lot of the joy of a global company comes from. And as the world fragments, I think it comes back to the same thing. There is no one model. We laugh at Citi and say the benefit of Citi is we have one language and that's bad English because everyone is from everywhere around the world. But with that comes an appreciation. There is no right way. There is no single way of doing things. There are different ways of doing it. So, I would encourage all of you in your own Companies or wherever you work,

find ones that have that, what I call is a global mindset. That there are many different ways of doing things, 'cause when you have that openness I think that becomes the most important competitive advantage that you could possibly have as a company, is appreciating there are many ways of doing things and not just one. [MODERATOR] All right. [JANE FRASER] Yeah. [MODERATOR] Thank you so much to our audience members for some great questions. Now Jane, in the View From The Top tradition, I have a few rapid fire questions-- [JANE FRASER] Okay. [MODERATOR] That we'll run through

quickly. Are you ready? [JANE FRASER] I'm ready, I think. It's usually when you get asked a question you have no idea what the answer is. Yes. [MODERATOR] It'll be fun. Most fun rule-- [JANE FRASER] Like please don't ask me what my favorite Bad Bunny song is. (audience laughs) [MODERATOR] I don't think I know any Bad Bunny songs. So, we'll avoid that one. Most fun role you've held at Citi? [JANE FRASER] Running the private bank, just because of all the entrepreneurs. And they all tell you their story and what they've done, what their fears and opportunities

are. [MODERATOR] Okay. [JANE FRASER] Yeah. [MODERATOR] Cambridge, UK or Cambridge, USA? [JANE FRASER] Cambridge, UK. (audience laughs) It's the real Cambridge. (laughter) [MODERATOR] Favorite Scottish food? [JANE FRASER] I like haggis. Yeah. [MODERATOR] I'll try it one day. And if you weren't CEO of Citi, what would you be? [JANE FRASER] I would love to be a travel writer or a travel advisor. I love going to different parts of the world. So I have a list on my iPhone of when I'm done, are the other, where are the places that I've gone to, I've actually never been

able to visit that I want to be going to see. [MODERATOR] Amazing-- Well, Jane, I have one final non-rapid fire question-- [JANE FRASER] Yeah. [MODERATOR] To close this out. There are students in this room who want to lead Fortune 500 businesses one day. What is one piece of advice you have for them? [JANE FRASER] So, I'll make it quick. The old CEO of Citi called me up one day and said, "I want you to come to my office and give me your development plan." So I quickly wrote it up that night and brought it with

me. And do you remember when Nancy Pelosi just tore up the things behind the President? That's what he did-- to my development plan. (laughter) And he said, "You're thinking about it all wrong. You are laying out a plan to, you know, as to what are the jobs you, you would like and How you get there." He said that, "What you need to think about is how are you going to succeed in those jobs? So what are the skills, the relationships, and the other things that you need to be acquiring in order to be successful in

the jobs you want and go about getting those?" And it completely changed the next 10 years of my life. I went around doing much more lateral moves. I went out systematically building, you know, what are the different skill sets, relationships, Things I would need to know to have the jobs at the C-suite of Citi, rather than just laying out an aspiration. And I took a highly unorthodox career path, and it-- I'm the luckiest woman imaginable. It's been a fabulous life. So go the unorthodox path, but think about what are the skill sets and things I

need to be successful in the job, not how do I get the job. Because, surprise, surprise, you will get the job if you have the skills to be successful in it. [MODERATOR] Jane. [JANE FRASER] Yeah. [MODERATOR] Thank you so much. Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, please give Jane a hand. (applause) [JANE FRASER] Thank you. [MODERATOR] Thank you. Thanks very much. (upbeat instrumental music)