I went and found the photo of [REDACTED] and Fraser on LinkedIn, referenced in story 459. It gives off the most incredible “let them eat cake” vibes.
Wall Street is applauding Jane Fraser for turning Citi around, and she’s certainly being rewarded as though the job is done. Her 2025 compensation package was $42 million, and Citi’s CEO-to-median-worker pay ratio is a staggering 1,309 to 1. Apparently, executive compensation can reflect a successful turnaround long before the turnaround itself is complete.
Because here’s what gets lost in all the applause: Citi has been operating under federal consent orders since 2020 for longstanding failures in risk management, data governance and internal controls. Four years later, regulators fined the bank another $136 million because it hadn’t made sufficient progress. And just last month, Reuters reported that Citi was racing to get the orders lifted, even after its own internal auditors rejected part of its remediation work over the summer.
Six years, more than half a billion dollars in regulatory penalties, and the original consent orders are still outstanding. The CEO is collecting $42 million while regulators are still waiting for the bank to demonstrate that it has fixed fundamental problems. If that isn’t a revealing commentary on how Wall Street defines performance, I don’t know what is.
JPMorgan’s leadership is increasingly difficult to take seriously on the hypocrisy front, too. Jamie Dimon’s shifting rhetoric on Trump and tariffs raises questions about whether he’s speaking as an independent business leader or trying to stay in the administration’s good graces. But at least JPMorgan makes an effort to project a corporate culture that isn’t so toxic you choke on it.
The hypocrisy of these people is breathtaking. They preach accountability, integrity and respect while presiding over institutions where those principles seem to apply to everyone but the people at the top. And somehow expect the rest of us to clap.