Jane Fraser’s empathy doesn’t mean Citi is soft

“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 of 2024.

It’s the right plan, but that doesn’t make it easy in the slightest. Fraser will need steel, guile and great powers of persuasion to kill off Citigroup’s bureaucracy, slash costs and change the culture – all while keeping people committed to their jobs through a process that will likely take years.