Michael Corbat’s Proudest Moment at Citigroup? Passing the Torch to Wall Street’s

Then CEO

Vikram Pandit

quit just after a board meeting. Directors, anxious about the bank’s recovery from the financial crisis, called on Mr. Corbat, who had developed a reputation as a fix-it man. The announcement the following morning stunned the financial world in its abruptness.

“I’m kind of the Monday morning ‘go figure it out’ CEO,” Mr. Corbat said.

Mr. Corbat, 60, was never the prototype of a big bank CEO. He rarely spoke about himself and didn’t draw the spotlight. Yet he is credited with strengthening the nation’s third-biggest bank, simplifying its operations and improving its results even as profits and the share price lagged behind rivals and a series of new crises emerged, including recent regulatory scrutiny.

Unlike his immediate predecessors, Mr. Corbat left on his own terms. He succeeded in giving his successor, Jane Fraser, a carefully-orchestrated transfer of power when he retired in February after more than 37 years at the bank, the only place he ever worked.

Before his final day, Mr. Corbat spoke to The Wall Street Journal about Citigroup’s crises, leadership lessons and legacies of his eight-year tenure. Questions and answers have been edited for clarity and length.

WSJ: When you look back at your time as CEO, what will you tell people you accomplished?

Mr. Corbat: I inherited my position at a very interesting time. It was really coming out of the financial crisis. We had gone through a tremendous amount of restructuring, a lot of which I had led, and I think the question was could we restore the pride in the organization. Could we really go back and reassert strong customer relationships and customer dominance and could we gain share? And could we do those things responsibly? I think we were able to tick all those boxes. There have been some ups and downs along the way, but I absolutely think we have done that.

WSJ: Was there a moment in those early days where you questioned what you got yourself into?

Mr. Corbat: I went into it eyes wide open. I won’t say there were big surprises. But I think, realistically, the challenges that were there, weren’t necessarily the ones externally that were thought about.

WSJ: What do you mean by that?

Mr. Corbat: When you go through crises, I don’t care what crisis it is, the natural inclination is to become inward-focused. You become inwardly focused around survival. You become inwardly focused on ‘what does this mean for me.’ We had to break that.

At the heart of everything we do are our clients. I appointed myself our chief client officer to really represent and exemplify the voice of the client and our interaction with the client. My peak client meeting year was over 400 in 2019. So in general, I’m kind of doing two client meetings a day. I think that really changes the nature of the organization when the organization sees its leader, or its leaders, out…