Story 180

Former Director and people manager. For those unaware of Citi’s officer title structure, its highest position is Managing Director, followed by Director, SVP, VP. Citi has a nasty habit of eliminating jobs held by Managing Directors and Directors and reposting those same positions as lower-ranking Director or SVP roles. Same work and responsibilities, lower pay band and at a much lower pay rate (inclusive of geographic considerations). It’s a dirty little secret that allows Jane Fraser to cut payroll and exploit employees by paying them less than they’re worth while ensuring that these lower-ranking positions already include vast responsibilities (more on that in a moment). This is the kind of tactic that earned her a $40million+ bonus in 2025.

I supervised a team of exceptional employees who replaced a team doing exactly the same thing in New York City. The NYC positions that were eliminated were Director roles, and those roles were reposted in Tampa Florida as Vice President positions. Exactly the same role. Same responsibilities. Two full pay bands lower and at a substantially lower incentive comp rate. What’s important to know about Citi and its HR machine is that they’ve made it virtually impossible to recognize and remedy situations where positions are ranked too low for the role and responsibility. In other words, even if your current job responsibilities align to a role that is otherwise higher than your title and pay band, that in and of itself won’t cause Citi’s HR department to adjust your title and pay appropriately. There is no natural path to advancement in most jobs at Citi, and Citi doesn’t reward its employees for doing an exceptional job or going above and beyond on top of their daily responsibilities. The only way to get a promotion and bump up to the next pay band is to add significant, permanent responsibilities to your existing position responsibilities. Even then, your manager has to justify and advocate for you, and the odds are against it. With this in mind, consider all of those positions that were eliminated then reposted at a much lower rank and pay band, but with the same duties and responsibilities of a higher officer title. Those employees now in the lower-ranking positions are already performing those extra responsibilities, and with 20,000+ Citi positions eliminated over the last 24 months, the ones who remain are stretched thin, taking on more responsibility, and trying to survive the utter chaos created by the resulting void of experienced managers and institutional knowledge. Adding additional position responsibilities, if it’s even possible, means that VPs are now performing the jobs of Directors, and SVPs are now performing the jobs of Managing Directors, but at half the pay and with practically no chance for advancement.


Back to my own team. For years I supervised a team of incredibly talented female employees who were all underpaid. We replaced a team of people doing the same jobs in NYC. However, when the positions were in NY, they were Director positions. Those Director titles were then slashed to VP titles when the same positions were posted in Florida. Same role. Same responsibilities as our NY predecessors. Half the compensation. My employees, however, were significantly more experienced and had a higher quality work product than their NY predecessors. And almost immediately, due to market conditions, our work loads started increasing dramatically. Year after year our work grew in volume and scope. In addition, we made significant process improvements, my employees took on additional responsibilities that included training other groups, committee and working group assignments, and a number of other duties beyond their job description.

Notwithstanding all of this, for 7 years I worked to get these talented female employees in-seat promotions and pay raises to align with their actual roles. For 7 years, Citi’s HR function repeatedly rejected their promotions. The reasoning – if I could get it – was vague and dubious, but mostly no reasoning was given at all. We were stretched thin, but each year were told that there was no budget to hire more staff. Finally, we received budget approval for a new hire and I identified a candidate for hire who was a male. Citi’s HR department suggested to me that I extend an offer to the male candidate that was approximately $20,000 more in salary per year than the current salary of my most experienced female employee, and with a “target” bonus exceeding hers. To put it in perspective, the female had been with Citi over 7 years in that same role at that time, and had at least 12 years more professional experience than the male candidate, who possessed no history in a similar role. When I questioned whether it was appropriate to bring the male candidate in so much higher given his lack of experience, I was told that this is what the market indicates his salary should be. When I pointed out the pay disparity between his offer and the salaries of the experienced females on the team and asked whether HR would consider adjusting their pay upward to reflect market conditions, the answer was pretty mind-boggling. I was essentially told that their compensation (including incentive comp) would not be adjusted, but that one day Citi might recognize the pay disparity and decide to do something about it. I should point out that this was fully two years after Citi purportedly did a global review of compensation to remedy pay disparity, and during a time when Citi claimed that it was “actively” reviewing industry compensation against its own comp structure to ensure that it could attract and retain top talent.

The term “weaponized HR” has been used a lot recently. I have to agree that when an HR department’s mission involves slashing position titles and pay for roles that retain all the same responsibilities and authority, designing ways to ensure that employees can’t get promotions, and turning a blind eye to significant pay disparity between men and women, it’s a really bad sign for employees. My observation about Citi’s HR department is that there’s a general lack of transparency about everything they do. That alone should probably be a big red flag.

As for my own team, we hired the inexperienced male candidate at a salary and “target” incentive comp higher than the more experienced female employee. And of course, she was responsible for training him. Yet another responsibility that she took on in addition to her regular position duties, for which she received no consideration.