Citi CEO Jane Fraser: ‘If grandma’s investing in crypto, we better have protections in place.’

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Transcript

Alan Murray: Leadership Next is powered by the folks at Deloitte, who, like me, are super focused on how CEOs can lead in the context of disruption and evolving societal expectations. Welcome to Leadership Next, the podcast about the changing rules of business leadership.

I’m Alan Murray, CEO of Fortune Media, and I’m here with my incomparable co host, Ellen McGirt. Ellen.

Ellen McGirt: Alan, I love those introductions. I am not the CEO of Fortune Media, but I am a happy reporter in the Fortune Media shop. We’ve got a really great episode today. Don’t we?

Murray: It’s a special one for a couple of reasons. We talked to Jane Fraser, the CEO of Citi, the first woman to be CEO in the bank’s history. Really the first woman to run a big Wall Street bank. The other reason was special is that all three of us were in the same room together. It was not virtual. It was the real thing, like pre-COVID type stuff.

McGirt: I know. And our producer was there, and it was so exciting. It was very cool to be able to sit together and see each other and see each other’s response to everything instead of just talking through multiple screens, and it reminded me of the vision that we had for this podcast way before the pandemic started.

Murray: And by the way, I know Jane is someone you’ve wanted to get on the podcast since the day she became CEO. Tell us why.

McGirt: Yes, you know, I first met her in late 2019, actually at Citi headquarters, at a talk about women, and women and banking, and equity, and building trust within the financial system. She had been the CEO of Citigroup, Latin America, at the time, and she kind of blew me away with her very succinct and clear vision about gender and equity and what that meant in financial services and what that meant in the world. And her particular journey has been so impressive to me she, if you don’t know, she became CEO of Citi in March of 2021, which was such a difficult time for the world and the bank.

Murray: Yeah, and I would emphasize that it was a difficult time for the bank. I mean, this was really considered a turnaround job. In fact, if you look at the coverage at the time she was appointed there were some people who raised that notion of the glass cliff, that women get the job at the time where you’re most likely to fail, because it’s such a such a difficult job. And what’s so fascinating about the conversation we had with her is that her focus on culture and diversity is all critical to her notion of how you engineer a turnaround. It’s not something you do on the side, it’s core to her view on how you make a successful company.

McGirt: Absolutely. And I do believe that Fortune, and the Most Powerful Women community in particular, talk a lot about that glass cliff, and we were able to talk a little bit with Jane about how this community of executive women means so much to each other, and talk about empathy.

Murray: Who knew there was empathy in banking? Jane also had some some interesting thoughts about the current economy, the return to office debate, which is a hot one in the financial sector in New York, and the crypto currency meltdown. So let’s get right into it.

I’d like to start by talking about what’s on top of everyone’s mind, which is the state of the economy, a lot of crazy data going back and forth. You have better data than we do. So tell us what’s really going on. Are we headed into a recession or are we not?

Fraser: Well, it depends a little bit where in the world you are. If we take a step back, I’d say there are three Rs that are having an impact on the world at the moment. That’s rates, that’s recession, and it’s Russia. They’re all converging in Europe right now. So we certainly see Europe heading into a recession, if it’s not already in one. And we expect a rolling series of recessions around the world. U.S., if we go into one, more likely in the second half of next year, because right now the economy is pretty strong. The consumer is in good health. Employment is very strong. Thank goodness, that’s something we were all worried about coming out to the pandemic, the corporate and the consumer balance sheets are strong. So we’ve got a lot of demand in the states. And I think that’s that’s going to take Mr. Powell, Chairman Powell, quite a challenge to get the painfully persistent inflation under control.

Murray: Thank you for coming to inflation. You’ve talked about the three R’s, but we have the big I, inflation, are we going to be able to get it under control and without a serious recession?

Fraser: I think we can get it under control without a serious recession coming through. Partly because banks are in strong place, the consumer’s got pretty strong health, same with corporate so we’re coming into it in a good place. But we do think that he’s going to have to increase rates quite a bit more,  and he’s going to have to keep them a high for quite a long time to make sure that the inflation in services gets addressed, because goods are coming off. The goods inflation is really coming off quite quickly. It’s all about services.

McGirt: Do you have another question about inflation you usually do?

Murray: No. No, I’m waiting for I’m waiting for you to liven in this thing.

McGirt: I was going to ask if I could renegotiate the interest rate on my my Citi card. That’s where I was. Jane, the last time I saw you, and I remember was such a fun—so it was September 2019. Nobody knew what was coming. But we were having a conversation about gender and equity in the workplace. We were talking about women and finance. And it was also an opportunity for us to just go through your career at Citi. You didn’t grow up here like so many people did. You were fully fledged adult when you got here and you had some very, very big jobs. Looking through now including running the private bank, the U.S. consumer and commercial banking, and CEO of Latin America. So I’m curious about your transition to CEO at such a challenging time. But given what was already on your portfolio, how did you set your agenda going forward and looking back now, were you making the right steps?

Fraser: We started off with vision, then move to strategy, looking at talent and culture. And then what are the transformation we needed of our operations and risk and controls and others to support it. So possibly boringly textbook around that, but we started off with the vision for the bank and then on to what does it mean for how we operate at the speed and scale and agility that a digital world demands.

Murray: Can we dig down into the culture piece?

Fraser: Please.

Murray: I would love to know, I mean, this was a turnaround job. It was considered a turnaround job. I think you saw it as a turnaround job. But you saw culture as key to getting the turnaround right. So what what had to change and what did change in culture?

Fraser: For me, it was also informed not only by what needed to change it was also what was already strong in the bank. But then it was therefore very mindful of the environment. And there were really two E’s that came to my mind as to what we want to be. We want to be known for excellence. It’s a tangible bar, but it’s a very important one. And in this type of world, very competitive, excellence is is table stakes, I believe in our industry.

But the one that for me was very important that I felt was already in the bank, but needed amplifying and needed amplifying in the industry was around empathy. And for me, empathy we were at the time we’re going through a human crisis, a healthcare crisis. So thinking about how do we make our people feel as comfortable as possible, not fearful for their health, also motivated to deliver for the communities they’re operating in and for the clients who are going through very difficult times. That was something that was important. And understanding what the client needs and this and really listening to them, and being empathetic around that helps build a strong relationship helps build very competitive solutions. So instead of selling what you want to sell, you’re actually providing solutions for the client needs.

Murray: I’m pretty sure no one who held this position before you did or no one at the head of any of the major New York City banks has ever made empathy one of their key initiatives. Is it because you’re a different person? Is it because this is a different time. Is it a combination of the two?

Fraser: I think it’s a combination of the two. I view empathy as a hard skill. It’s not soft. This isn’t about being nice. This gives you competitive edge. Empathy in our workforce has enabled us to attract and explore and retain an extraordinarily diverse group of people in our organization. We’ve become an employer of choice. People want to work here because of the positions that we’ve taken. And so no, I believe that empathy is about delivering excellence. It is about competitiveness. It is about edge. I’m not sure that was a mindset that existed in the world a number of years ago. I think more and more leaders today are recognizing that that’s the case.

McGirt: So does that mean that you’re screening for talent or developing talent differently? If we look at empathy as a hard skill. Listening, active listening is going to be part of it, drawing together stakeholders pulling together multiple solutions you mentioned. It sounds like you’re talking about co-creating solutions in a complicated world when there isn’t, isn’t an easy answer except a, you know, a hammer or an axe.

Fraser: I do think leadership and what you look for in your people was changed. And part of that is data. You think back when Alan and I grew up all those years ago. You just didn’t have the amount of information available to everybody that we have today. Now as a leader, you don’t have the answers. Your workforce has it, your people have it. And that’s completely changed how you have to lead an organization. You have to unleash the creativity. You’ve got to make sure it’s a collaborative environment. The innovation isn’t happening because there’s a genius at the top of the company that’s coming up with the answers for everything other than a very few handful of cases and God bless them but that’s not what the rest of us are like.

So it’s really about you know, how do you unleash this in an organization? And you need collaboration, you need diversity, you need an environment where there’s constructive challenge from everyone. And you know they’re having at until better ideas come come through. That’s very different from the more command and control followers that follow and do what they’re told, as opposed to inspiring a group of innovators and making sure that they’re all moving in the same direction. Very different. It’s exciting, but we’re certainly learning as we go on this one.

Murray: So you were talking about culture. One of the great culture debates we’ve had in this city and in the world over the last year has been about do we work together in an office or does everybody stay home in their jammies and do it from there? And it’s been interesting to watch from here because right down the road, David Solomon [CEO of] Goldman Sachs said a year ago, I want everybody back in the office. We’re in an office culture. [CEO] Jamie Dimon, in the other direction, at JPMorgan said, I want people who hustle, bring them all back in the office. And you said right off the bat, we’re going to be a hybrid culture. So what was going through your mind as you were making that decision?

Fraser: Reality.

Murray: It’s not a commentary, I assume.

Fraser: No. Just in terms of what we’re seeing in our own institution, listening to our people, but also seeing the reality of what was going on, which is, I still remember the day that we closed the books for the first time with not one person in a city office. And we closed the day ahead of when we normally do. What we saw and what we learned was that you didn’t have to be in the office all the time. So we took a step back and said, so we know that can work but also where is it that actually we are better when we’re together? And we so what was the why, of why we do want people together part of the time? Apprenticeship, and I think anyone who’s been a working mom and dad, recognize that homeschooling was challenging as opposed to when the kids are in the school. And there’s value from them being together. The learning they get from the teachers may be a bit older, but it’s not that different. There is a lot of value that you get from being together and some more of the spontaneity from that and the collaboration, the apprenticeship. So collaboration, apprenticeship, some of it is productivity in certain areas. But for me, it’s also a sense of belonging. We all felt that it was lonely on your own. And the firms you work with, if you’re proud of them, if you’re proud of the job they’re doing, it inspires a sense of belonging and a higher purpose for what you’re doing every day rather than just going through the set of tasks. But that being said, that doesn’t mean to say you’ve got to be there all the time. And some of the culture that I felt was a bit 1980’s was why do we need to have our junior bankers, they don’t have to be in the office late at night, if they’re working on a deal. Once they’ve done the work collaborating together, they can do that at home. We know if they’re doing a good job or not. And if they’re not in a groove, the team is going to say you know, get back in the office and have those conversations. But we know, we honestly feel you can you can do both and be successful.

Murray: So where have you ended up? I mean, how many days a week are people in the office versus at home?

Fraser: It varies a bit by different jobs. So our traders tend to be here pretty well five days a week. They’ve got infrastructure at home, if there’s a school play or something like that, if they want to run home at lunch at lunchtime so they could see the kids or other things like that. But typically they’re here five days. Our call center staff are far less that way. They’ll be coming in if they need training. If they’re a poor performer, and they need some coaching from near their manager and help them and then they can go back home and working from home again. So they’re much more at home, probably coming in a couple of days a week. So it very much depends what job you’re doing as to how often the majority of people we are asking to come back two or three days a week. And for the teams to work out which of those days make the most sense so they can be together. Let’s face reality, as well. It’s a tight labor market out there and so people tend to also vote with their feet on these ones.

[Music]

Murray: I’m here with Joe Ucuzoglu, the CEO of Deloitte US, and the sponsor of this podcast for all three of its seasons. Thank you for that.

Joe Ucuzoglu: Pleasure to be here, Alan.

Murray: Joe, we’ve had this rising talk about the notion of stakeholder capitalism that businesses have a responsibility not just to their shareholders, but to their employees, to the communities they operate in, to the natural environment. Is all of that talk real and will it last, particularly when times get tough?

Ucuzoglu: I see a pretty durable shift Alan with a lot of momentum here. CEOs are prioritizing sustainability. They’re prioritizing purpose. They’re prioritizing trust. You certainly see some noise. On one end, there’s some skepticism as to whether this is virtue signaling. On the other end, there’s some lingering debate about whether this broader focus on stakeholders detracts from shareholder returns. If you cut through all the noise, what we’re seeing is actually a huge convergence of interests. This is core to sustaining a vibrant capitalist system. If you take a long-term view, the only way that you’re going to deliver sustainable shareholder returns is to take really good care of all those constituents that you referenced.

Ucuzoglu: Business was at the heart of leading society through the pandemic. Business is at the heart of addressing the climate challenge. We’re seeing massive momentum with very tangible commitments and tangible actions towards decarbonizing the economy. So yes, I think the evidence is ample.

Murray: Joe, thank you.

Ucuzoglu: Alan, it’s a real pleasure.

McGirt: You came into the CEO role with an advantage of some of your peers in that you had already thought deeply and thoroughly about equity and diversity and inclusion issues. It was something you were already fluent in that language and you thought a lot about it, and you were in a position to advise on a lot of it. How is that work going? How are you meeting your targets and what new targets have you set?

Fraser: We set some targets so Mike Colbert, my predecessor was really strong on this. He really felt this this mattered and I think he set most of this in motion and we’ve been building upon the tone he said, which is a wonderful position to be. So Mike had set three-year goals. We met them in terms of representation. In fact we exceeded them by a bit, which is always good. And that was on gender representation. So effectively, we looked at the 100,000 of our 220,000 roles that we have at Citi, we wanted 40% or above to be held by women for the100,000 most senior roles, and we exceeded that target. And we measure it at every single level in every single geography. And we look at recruiting, we look at metrics around retention, development and promotion in each of those. We, we we manage the processes around it to try and make sure that we provide everyone with the opportunities that they deserve. But it takes a lot of work to get the inclusion to work and make sure people paint that. Similarly with our Black colleagues in the states, we set a target, we exceeded it, it’s not a huge target. And we have clearly more work to do there going forward as we do on all fronts. We’ve then extended those to more representation globally beyond gender and set targets. We’ve done the same for more groups beyond just our Black colleagues and our female colleagues. And we’ve done so for the next three years of targets. We’ve made them public. You need to get comfortable with the uncomfortable. Transparency works and making those commitments public definitely helps as a forcing device that we all need so you don’t slip.

And the other area that we’ve put in place has been pay equity, which again, we publish. We measure for every single job in the firm every year, and every year we do have to make a small adjustment to that. Because there are biases in the system and the like and we do that we have a third party to do the measurement. And we publish externally what is our adjusted pay gap but then what the raw pay gap is and that raw pay gap shows that we still have to get more women into more senior roles and more high paying roles. And every year we try and make that move further forward.

McGirt: Wow, I knew that you were as an organization taking this seriously, as I was invited to an HBCU internship recruitment event, and I was astonished at the level of executive involvement, people who came and spoke. And also that you had a differentiated strategy per per college per university, each one on its own recruiting strategy, which is something I had never considered before. HBC is not a monolith. Women are not a monolith, either coming from communities or coming from backgrounds. That I thought was really powerful.

Fraser: One point you’re raising up is a very important one. We look at this across all of our diversity inclusion efforts. We look at it also in our ESG agenda. This has to become part of the bank. It’s not a layer that sits above. It has to get embedded into how you do business. I can run through many, many different efforts. But when you know that you’re going to make it sustainable is only if you make it part of how the bank operates every day, rather than being something special.

Murray: You took this job at a time when companies were really rethinking their role in society. Diversity and inclusion was certainly a big part of that. But it also was around climate. You had a big rise in ESG investing. You had a big rise in companies making net zero commitments. Now we’re seeing pushback. The governor of Florida who may well be the Republican nominee for president at this point is attacking companies that adopt ESG as being woke corporations, saying that they should focus on making profits for their shareholders. You see that line being picked up by others? What’s your response to that?

Fraser: Oh, this is not mutually exclusive. I think we firmly believe that you can responsibly serve your shareholders at the same time as looking at the needs of other stakeholders and that there’s a big concentric circle there. Let’s take energy and let’s go back to empathy again. As we sat down and looked at climate, we talked to our clients, whether it was users or producers of energy, they all need help with the transition. It is not an easy transition and this country is going to be the country that will be the one that comes up with the new sustainable energy technologies, the carbon capture at scale and a cost that can be afforded. Because we came up with the vaccine in extraordinary time. We came up with the shell, shale, oil and gas technologies and capabilities out of the private sector. Never, never don’t bet on the American entrepreneur. It’s extraordinary. So when we listen to our clients, they want to have cleaner energy, they want to transition to this they want to ensure there is an energy security. We’ve got to work on the how. So for our bank, and I think many of our peers, we’re focused on both we don’t see them as being mutually exclusive. And it’s not changed what we’re trying to do. Because the reality is, there’s a lot of problems to be solved. And let’s get on with tackling them and get them solved and get to the win win.

Fraser: I believe it’s just called getting on with the day job. It’s noise versus signal. Our day job is to help support our clients, both transitioning and also producing the energy that’s needed as cleanly as possible, but without blowing up communities without changing what’s going on. I grew up in a town that saw manufacturing move from that town to Asia and saw coal mines locally get shut down. But there was a very good public private-partnership that helped with a lot of skill reinvestment that eased unemployment that really reinvented those communities. We’ve got to look at how do we do that, and I think again, this is where these points of empathy become so important. We’ve got to do all of it. But how do we do that? We get on with it.

Fraser: And we take that responsibility very seriously. We don’t make decisions based on political perspectives. You know, as a CEO, I move my own personal opinions to the side because they’re not relevant. What’s important is what do our clients need? What do our people need and say, and what do they care about? As a bank that works in almost 100 countries around the world and has done in most of those countries for over a century, we’ve seen the good, bad and ugly. We have a pretty good handle on how is it that you try and push for progress in a way that’s socially responsible but also puts the shareholder front and center there and we generally do find that there is a way to do that and get on with it.

Murray: Get on with it.

McGirt: And file that story to your editor.

Murray: Can we talk about crypto because it’s this sort of massive trillion-dollar financial businesses grown up alongside yours? And then we just recently had the meltdown of one of the biggest platforms that people were trading on, FTX. What effect does all that have on your business and on the economy in general.

Murray: You know, we at Fortune celebrate the women who have made it to the top of business organizations. We have for 25 years. Ellen’s been a big part of building that community and you’ve been part of that community. But I have to say one of the things I heard I’ve heard many times in interviews with the women who have made it to the top is a sense that they felt they had to work harder to harder than anyone else in the room. You know, they had to double down they couldn’t afford to take time off in their careers. They just went went went and either they needed incredibly supportive ecosystem or they made the decision not to have children, whatever. You are, are different in the sense that you actively stepped back at one point in your career and so I’m going to, for now, I’m going to focus on my family. How did you do that? And do you think other women can do that now?

Fraser: Well, I hope I can make you blush to start off with, Alan, because Fortune was incredibly supportive of me. That community of women from the most powerful women and all of all of the effort and thought that goes behind it, for me felt like a warm embrace. And was one of the reasons I actively move from the U.K. to the U.S. Because I felt this will be an ecosystem that would be more supportive of senior female leaders. I was right. And Fortune was was genuinely an important part of that early on an extraordinary network. It made a huge difference. And you’re right you need that supportive environment. My husband was also incredibly supportive of me and he had a big and serious career. And he always made me feel as if we would be a collaborative team, a win-win around it. I also worked for a firm, this is McKinsey when I moved part-time as a partner, right when I made partner, and they supported me for five years or so of working part time…

Murray: Even though people told you don’t have kids while you’re up for partner, right? You were told that’s not the way to get ahead at McKinsey.

McGirt: That is a really beautiful story. And I think where MPW has grown, Most Powerful Women has grown, is outside of who looked like a corporate person or a female version of a corporate acceptable person to being all kinds of people in all kinds of bodies, with all kinds of hair, some of which is federally protected, in the Crown Act, of course. How do you think about—I know you think a lot about gender. How do you think about the intersectional nature of inclusion going forward, particularly for majority culture, women who have succeeded, and who now need to think more seriously, or in a more structured way, about bringing everybody along?

Murray: So when you put all the pieces together, this was a turnaround job. Citi had had regulatory problems, and probably had some cultural problems that you were trying to address. It’s a big institution. These are hard, hard jobs. If you sort of look at a scale of one to 10, where one is where you started and 10 is where you want to end up, where are you now?

Murray: Wow, that sounded like an ending now.

McGirt: She wants to get on with her day.

Murray: Thank you so much for spending the time to talk with us. Really fascinating. Great to be here with you.

Murray: Leadership Next is edited by Nicole Vergalla, written by me, Alan Murray, along with my amazing colleagues, Ellen McGirt and Megan Arnold. Our theme is by Jason Snell. Executive producer is Megan Arnold. Leadership Next is a production of Fortune Media. Leadership Next episodes are produced by Fortune‘s editorial team.

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