Citi CEO Jane Fraser is adopting a player-coach mentality with her team this year, and she’s making clear she expects them to run another lap.
In a memo sent on Wednesday titled “The bar is raised,” Citi CEO Jane Fraser told the firm’s more than 200,000 employees that she expects higher performance this year.
“Every one of us has to adopt a more commercial mindset: asking for the business, competing for the full wallet, and not settling for a secondary role or missed opportunity. We are not graded on effort. We are judged on our results. And I expect to see the last vestiges of old, bad habits fall away, and a more disciplined, more confident, winning Citi fully emerge in 2026,” Fraser wrote in the memo, which was earlier reported by Bloomberg. “That evolution is a direct consequence of the higher expectations that we’ve set and the standard required to meet them consistently.”
The bank has made clear it’s sticking to a plan that Fraser established in early 2024 to slash up to 20,000 jobs over three years. The streamlining effort is part of the corporate overhaul the bank has dubbed the “Transformation” — a sweeping initiative to upgrade antiquated tech and maximize efficiencies. At the time of Fraser’s original pledge, the bank projected a $2.5 billion cost savings from the cuts.
“Over time, we can expect automation, AI and further process simplification to reshape how work gets done — some roles will change, new ones will emerge and others will no longer be required,” Fraser continued in the Wednesday memo.
Citi said that more than 80% of its Transformation effort is complete. The completion of the project will also result in “some overall role reductions as our head count continues to come down, ” Fraser said. The firm was set to cut about 1,000 jobs earlier this week, Bloomberg and other outlets reported.
The bank’s headcount plans
In a media briefing ahead of the firm’s fourth-quarter earnings call with shareholders, Mark Mason, the bank’s outgoing chief financial officer, tied the cuts to investments in artificial intelligence.
This year, “I would expect to see head count continue to trend down,” Mason told reporters on Wednesday morning, adding that the firm had made “headway” over toward its goal.
“As we make progress on our Transformation, we’ll see that cost and headcount come down as we continue to improve productivity and tools like AI,” he said.
Like its other Wall Street rivals, Citi has said that amplifying the adoption of artificial intelligence across the firm is a priority. Last year, it announced multiple AI leadership shakeups to drive its strategy.
Beyond the ‘Transformation’
In its fourth-quarter report, the bank said it generated about $85 billion in revenue in 2025, up roughly 6% from a year earlier. Investment banking fees of nearly $1.3 billion rose 10% from the prior quarter and 35% from a year earlier, while advisory fees of roughly $650 million jumped more than 80% year over year.
After several years of restructuring — including pulling back from some legacy franchises like consumer banking in Mexico — executives have signaled a desire to move beyond the heaviest phase of the overhaul. Fraser has tapped high-powered executives like former JPMorgan dealmaker Viswas Raghavan to steer investment banking; and Andy Sieg, a former leader from Merrill, Bank of America’s financial advisory business, to steer wealth management.
“With much of our Transformation behind us, we are shifting our focus to how we can use AI tools and automation to further innovate, re-engineer, and simplify our processes beyond risk and controls,” Fraser said on Wednesday’s earnings call with shareholders.
And she touted other ambitions.
“We’re going to continue to bring in top talent to fill in remaining gaps” in the investment bank’s workforce, particularly in North America, she said in response to a question from a bank analyst. “While we have some more work to do, I do feel really good about where we are.”
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