Citigroup CEO Jane Fraser, a fate’s most powerful woman — and the top female executive on Wall Street — is pushing ahead with nearly 1,000 job cuts and warning employees that “we are not ranked on effort” in a fiery internal memo setting a tough tone for 2026. The cuts are part of a multiyear overhaul that could eventually end tight demand and end tighter demand. What she calls the bank’s “old, bad habits.”
In a memo previously reported by Bloomberg, Fraser told the City’s roughly 200,000-plus employees that “the bar has been raised” and that stressful performance will be judged on results rather than intent or long hours.
“We are not graded on effort. We are judged by our results,” she wrote, adding that the bank is pursuing a leaner, more commercially aggressive culture in 2026, hoping to shed “the last vestiges of old, bad habits.” The language is one of his sharpest internal messages that he has been paid under Transcut’s plan in 2021.
Fraser’s approach also shows why fate Contributor Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, the Lester Crown Professor of Leadership Practice at the Yale School of Management, chose Citi CEOs as his top performers of 2025. Fraser’s “Project Bora Bora” restructuring resulted in full-year revenue tracking to $84 billion in 2025, the highest of the five Gs in last year’s turnover. quarter All five business segments saw quarterly record hits in the latest earnings quarter. The stock’s performance ranking, up 67% in 2025, made it the best among major US banks in a year in which Fraser was elected chairman of the Citigroup board of directors and Euromoney was named “Banker of the Year 2025”.
Citigroup is set to cut about 1,000 positions this week, as previously reported by Bloomberg, a move that brings the bank closer to a broader plan to cut about 20,000 jobs by 2026, or 8% of its global workforce, according to people familiar with the matter. The cuts are tied to a sweeping restructuring unveiled in early 2024 that aims to simplify management layers, streamline businesses and deliver up to $2.5 billion in cost savings. Citi has shed more than 10,000 roles under Fraser’s overhaul.
Fraser’s memo signals a cultural reset at a bank long criticized for lagging rivals in profitability and efficiency, and she calls time on what she describes as apparently legacy behaviors that undermined Citi’s competitive edge. She urged bankers to adopt a more “professional mindset,” ask employees to “ask for business,” fight for a “full wallet” with clients, and stop settling for secondary roles or missed opportunities.
