Citigroup Inc. will eliminate layers of management focused on specific regions as part of Chief Executive Officer Jane Fraser’s biggest restructuring in at least two decades.
(Bloomberg) — Citigroup Inc. will eliminate layers of management focused on specific regions as part of Chief Executive Officer Jane Fraser’s biggest restructuring in at least two decades.
The revamp, which Fraser unveiled last week, is meant to bring the organizational structure in line with the firm’s long-stated strategy, David Livingstone, who was named the firm’s chief client officer as part of the changes, said in an interview with Bloomberg Television Monday. Livingstone was previously CEO of Citigroup’s businesses in Europe, the Middle East and Africa.
“We started with the need to simplify our structure and our management routines, and therefore the job cuts are the output,” Livingstone said. “There is my former role as the chief executive of Europe, the Middle East and Africa — that layer, the Asia Pacific layer and so on, they are being taken from the organization.”
Citigroup will now operate five main businesses that each report directly to Fraser, eliminating the three regional chief roles that oversaw operations in about 160 countries around the world. As it seeks to reduce bureaucracy, the bank has said it will evaluate the tens of thousands of workers it has dedicated to back-office functions such as finance, human resources, operations and technology whose roles were tied to a certain region.
Livingstone is taking on a newly created position running a division meant to ensure Citigroup is offering as many of its capabilities to clients that it can in order to generate more revenue from each of its relationships.
“We now have a structure that speaks to our strategy,” Livingstone said. “Our strategy didn’t change on Jane’s announcement last Wednesday. What did change is the structure that’s going to implement that.”
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