Jane Fraser

Meet the first woman to lead a major US bank.

When Jane Fraser stepped into the CEO role at Citigroup in March 2021, the bank was bloated, fragmented, and falling behind its peers.

Its global sprawl had become a liability, its tech systems were outdated, and regulators had lost patience.

Citi wasn’t in crisis but it was stagnating.

Fraser didn’t come in with slogans. She came in with a blueprint.

In her first three years, she sold 9 of Citi’s 14 consumer banking businesses across Asia, Europe, and Latin America.

She rolled out a complete corporate restructuring... removing layers of bureaucracy, eliminating silos, and flattening the org chart.

The result? 20,000 job cuts and $1B in severance costs… not exactly headline-friendly.

But Fraser called it necessary if Citi was going to survive the next decade.

She’s not here for quarterly wins.

She’s here to clean house.

In January 2025, she and Citi’s CFO announced a $20B stock buyback plan.

The market responded: Citi stock rose more than 20% in Q1, outperforming nearly every other major U.S. bank.

And while profits dipped from $14.8B in 2022 to $9.2B in 2023, Fraser has consistently hit guidance targets and kept investor trust.

Something few thought possible when she took over.

But what makes Jane Fraser stand out isn’t just the strategy.

It’s how she leads.

She’s the only big bank CEO who didn’t walk back hybrid work.

While rivals like JPMorgan doubled down on 5-day mandates, Fraser kept remote flexibility in place... especially for roles that don’t require facetime.

Her logic is simple: great people want autonomy.

And working parents, especially women, need it.

Fraser knows that firsthand.

When she was at McKinsey, she worked part-time while raising two sons.

Later, she ran Citi’s Latin America business from Miami while rebuilding its private bank from red to black.

And now she’s running a $1.7T global institution without mimicking the men who did it before her.

She’s not trying to be Jamie Dimon.

She’s trying to build a modern bank.

And she’s doing it under more scrutiny than any of her peers.