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Story 363
There is a Managing Director in the tech department in Tampa who is so insecure that he seeks affirmation from female subordinates. It manifests in a couple of ways. On one side are those given explicit leeway, with him stepping in to lead their meetings. The pretext is the stakeholders are difficult. You’d think that inability to handle difficult stakeholders would disqualify you from promotion. Think…
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Story 362
When corporate mandates meet executive privilege Despite Citi’s company-wide push to end reliance on consultants and contractors, ERM Tech & Data leadership secured a free-pass to keep external spending alive. Instead of investing in internal talent, budget was funneled to Big Four consultants (with a clear bias toward specific national networks) to drive strategy, at the expense of capable full-time staff. This wasn’t merely a misallocation…
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Story 361
Citi’s consent order on risk management and the consent order on data are not independent. Yet, the organization has decoupled them to check the box on one while the prerequisite for doing it properly remains unmet. Out of strategy for closure. All the while understanding their dependency. Risk management systems rely entirely on underlying data. If data quality, governance, lineage, and architecture are broken, any risk…
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Story 360
Re: Story 359 The pattern is identical, even if the players change. In my case, the individual has been at the bank for over 23 years, proving how deeply entrenched this behavior is. A perfect example of this mindset: following a major reorganization, she openly stated she didn’t need to address negative employee survey feedback because ‘all the unhappy people had gone.’ When a direct report…
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Story 359
The USCC bully is finally being called out. It is unfortunate that it took this long for this leadership behavior to receive attention. If this is the individual I believe it is, these concerns are not new—they have been a consistent theme since she joined two years ago. Her leadership style has been rooted in fear and intimidation, fostering a culture where employees operate from self-preservation…
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Story 358
“Owning it” only counts when it costs you something. USCC was warned that more cases would surface around a particular repeat bully and discriminator. A two-year record of actionable complaints wasn’t enough for them apparently. Now, more have surfaced. Two makes a trend. Three makes a pattern. Beyond that, are they cultivating a teflon class of bully? Any other bank would have given a warning so…
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Story 357
An MD in the former USPB Risk group started quietly reassigning a Director’s workload onto one of his peers. No explanation was given — none is deemed required. By routing a Director’s responsibilities through another, she could create the appearance that he was supervising and elevating a peer. A paper trail for a promotion, built on optics. The whole thing was an absolute farce. The favored…
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Story 356
Most of Citi’s current and former Black senior leaders were not developed exclusively within the organization. They were recruited because they brought distinguished credentials, significant leadership experience, and proven records of delivering results. They were accomplished executives who chose Citi, many during a period when the company publicly committed to increasing diversity within its leadership ranks. I was one. A few years ago, Citi published a…
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Story 355
Inspired by Stories 353 and 354. In standard crisis management—whether you’re dealing with a catastrophic oil spill or a major data breach—the golden rules are always the same: Transparency, Apology, and Remediation. This ensures public trust is preserved while organizational health is being repaired. Yet, when it comes to addressing systemic ethical failures and HR misconduct, Citi seems to be running the playbook entirely in reverse.…
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Story 354
New here. Former Citi employee who felt like I was in the Twilight Zone every single day, not just because of the toxicity. But the bizarre dynamic that MDs bark at “the little people” all day to do *their* work, while *they* mingle, attend *important* meetings, lunch – and after lunch blame said-little-people that he/she missed the mark on whatever thing they, themselves would be expected…