To Story 266. You raise meritocracy as the standard. Agreed entirely. So let us apply it.
For the first five years of Fraser’s tenure, the vast majority of her direct reports have been men.
On your logic, one of two conclusions follows: either Citi employs the most talented concentration of male leadership in the history of financial services (doubtful in the context of Citi’s performance), or something other than merit is determining who sits at that table.
Diverse interview panels exist precisely to give people a chance — because the assumption that the current distribution reflects pure capability requires us to believe the alternative. And the alternative is becoming increasingly difficult to defend.
We are not asking for favoritism. We are asking for the arithmetic to make sense.
By the way, I don’t know the Head of USCC well but from what I’ve seen, she’s a fabulous leader … and not Citi-bred ! Which probably explains why. I would hate for her appointment to be gender-reduced.