Citigroup, Fraser is the first female CEO of a large American bank

Changing of the guard at Citigroup, and something more. For the first time, one of the large American banks and Wall Street groups will have a female chief executive officer: next February, Jane Fraser, a 53-year-old veteran of 16 years in the institute, will take the reins from Michael Corbat, where she had arrived after ten years as a partner at McKinsey and where he is now CEO and leading all consumer banking activities. To underline the importance of the promotion is the observation that high finance today remains a predominantly male world, especially at the top. Citi is the third largest US bank by assets. 

Extensive and profound experience

In announcing the appointment, Citi board chairman John Dugan indicated that Fraser has the necessary "in-depth experience across all of our business lines and geographic regions." With the ability, he added, to œthink strategically and also manage the business. Outgoing CEO Corbat, who is 60 and has been driving Citi for eight years, said he was "proud" that Fraser is replacing him. The management of Corbat is considered by analysts a success for having restored and relaunched the institute from the after-effects of the financial crisis. Under him, Citi's annual net profits jumped from $ 7 billion in 2012 to $ 20 billion last year. 

Fraser, from Goldman to Citi

Fraser is CEO of Global Consumer Banking as well as President of the bank. Assignments received last year and which had already made her considered among the top executives in pole position for the current appointment. She had become responsible for operations spread across 19 countries, from retail banking to wealth management, from credit cards to technology. Previously she was in charge of the Latin America division between 2015 and 2019. In the period 2013-2015 she led Consumer and Commercial banking in the United States. Before that, she had been at the helm of the group's Private Bank and its merger and acquisition strategy. His career began at Goldman Sachs in London. He has a business degree from Cambridge and an MBA from Harvard Business School. 

A Glass Ceiling that lasts

According to optimists, Fraser's appointment represents a crack in the œglass ceiling, that impenetrable or almost crystal ceiling that has so far dominated in finance, clipping the careers of women as well as of black executives. But whether this crack will widen remains to be proven. During a hearing of the House Financial Services Commission with the six CEOs of major banks, when asked to raise their hand if they felt their chair would be inherited by a woman or black executive, no one, not even Corbat, had spoken out. . The Glass ceiling is still very widespread in fact throughout Corporate America, with only 31 female CEOs in the large stars and stripes companies that make up the S&P 500 index. However, other women may soon be at the center of possible and revealing important promotions in Wall Street Elite: Candidates for the succession of longtime Jamie Dimon to JP Morgan are Marianne Lake and Jennifer Piepszak.

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