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Story 234
1/2 Story 228 highlights the degree to which the powerful men in finance are complicit in keeping women in check and the uphill battle we face on Wall Street. It’s not just about individual behaviour, but the systems that enable it and then distance themselves from the consequences. We’re encouraged to focus on the incident, the personality, the “bad actor,” while ignoring the fact that the…
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Story 233
Citi called it transformation. It fossilized in place. There was a reorganization. We were told it would put the right people in the right roles. Performance would be managed. This institution was serious about change. What happened instead is this: the people who had no business being in ERM technology stayed. People with no knowledge of data governance were moved into data roles. Incompetent personnel were…
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Story 232
To Story 231, I am a retired advisor from Merrill, and feel terribly for your friend. As a woman who made her career in the 1980s, I know all too well the culture you’re describing. I looked at the LinkedIn post you reference, as I’m familiar with many of the players. I knew what to expect, though others may not. The lack of gender diversity is…
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Story 231
The Charlotte market executive for Merrill Lynch shared the ‘2026 Forbes ‘Best in State Wealth Advisors’ celebrating his team on LinkedIn yesterday – Several years ago, I was first hand witness to a peer female intern enduring weeks of ongoing sexual harassment by one of those ‘celebrated’. He literally referred to himself as the ‘Wolf of Wall Street’ and wore it like a badge of honor…
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Story 230
There is a manager in Rutherford — a long-time protégée of a senior data executive in Citi’s Data organization — who arrived in a Tech group without any relevant technological background. No engineering history. No product experience. No prior exposure to ERM. And yet she was handed technical teams to lead. What followed was predictable. Daily calls that go nowhere. Problems that are never solved, ownership…
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Story 229
As the chair of a fintech board, I want to respond to stories 227 and 228. BoD’s have a clear legal responsibility to set the tone at the top; oversee ethics, conduct, and culture; and address executive misconduct or systemic issues when they arise. The suggestion that, in both cases, conduct about an executive is severe enough to warrant media coverage and yet no meaningful action…
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Story 228
*This story has been edited. See below for detail. My story involves one of Wall Street’s most powerful lobbying organizations in Washington, Investment Company Institute and its CEO Eric Pan. Pan is known to act out towards his staff and really can’t handle strong women who disagree with him. Sometimes his behavior goes farther. A group of ICI staff have written to its Board of Directors…
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Story 227
I was a 19-year employee in Citi Wealth when I was displaced in January. I won’t say which department or regions I worked in to avoid being identified. Either way, the company, thanks to Jane Fraser and [REDACTED], have developed an allergic reaction to loyal longstanding employees. I’ve debated for a long time whether to post here, but yesterday’s earnings were the final straw. There’s no…
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Story 226
I saw Citi posted record earnings today. Good for them. Anyone, like me, who chooses to work at a bank is a capitalist so no judgment. That said, it’s fair to ask whether the firm might be even more successful if it reinvested just some of those profits into meaningfully improving its culture, rather than spending hundreds of millions of dollars on law firms YoY managing…
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Story 225
When the institution betrays those it employs for their livelihoods. Managers who don’t manage. Leaders who don’t lead. There’s a question that gets wielded like a weapon at Citi: If you’re not happy, why don’t you leave? It sounds like honesty. It isn’t. It’s a deflection — a way of avoiding accountability while making discontent seem like a personal failing. A lack of personal resilience. A…