{"id":246,"date":"2026-05-28T23:19:05","date_gmt":"2026-05-28T23:19:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/crosscountrymovingteams.com\/?p=246"},"modified":"2026-05-28T23:19:05","modified_gmt":"2026-05-28T23:19:05","slug":"jane-fraser-defied-the-glass-cliff-to-engineer-citis-long-awaited-turnaround","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/crosscountrymovingteams.com\/?p=246","title":{"rendered":"Jane Fraser defied the \u2018glass cliff\u2019 to engineer Citi\u2019s long-awaited turnaround"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p>We at MPW Daily write a lot about the glass cliffs, the well-documented phenomenon in which boards turn to women leaders when a corporate cleanup job is exceedingly difficult or impossible.<\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/crosscountrymovingteams.com\/?p=244\">As AI slashes white-collar jobs, Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff says almost no one is being hired\u2014except in sales<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Jane Fraser stepped into such a scenario when she became CEO of Citi in March 2021. The appointment was historic in that it made her the first woman to ever run a major Wall Street bank, but it was also a doozy of a turnaround job. Citi had repeatedly tried and failed to shed its reputation as Wall Street\u2019s laggard and slim down from the gargantuan \u201cfinancial supermarket\u201d into which it had grown.\u00a0<\/p>\n<div>\n<div>\n<div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>There was a risk her tenure would follow the familiar glass ceiling script, but instead Fraser defied it. This April, Citi logged its highest quarterly revenue in a decade. The bank\u2019s all-important return on tangible common equity hit 13.1%, the highest since 2021. As of mid-May, Citi stock was up about 83% since Fraser took over as CEO. And the bank has largely addressed regulatory reporting issues, and shed management layers and bureaucracy. That record cemented Fraser as <em>Fortune<\/em>\u2019s No. 1 Most Powerful Woman this year.<\/p>\n<p>Fraser has led Citi\u2019s comeback with a remarkable sense of self-assuredness, even through the rough patches (job cuts, divestitures, and big hires who\u2019ve come under fire). When I asked her if there was ever a point when she realized her strategy was working, she said she never needed that kind of \u201caha\u201d moment. \u201cI never had a lack of conviction. This was the right path,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p>The question is what comes next, not just for Fraser but for women leaders on Wall Street. My recent feature on Fraser is the third in an unofficial series on women in banking. First came my 2019 story on why Wall Street still didn\u2019t have a female CEO; then came a 2020 feature on how Fraser had finally broken that stubborn ceiling; and now there\u2019s the tale of her turnaround at Citi. Fraser, for one, is focused on shifting Citi out of repair mode and into a genuine growth trajectory. But while she does that, the hard truth is that she remains one of one at major U.S. banks. She\u2019s hopeful that will change: \u201cThere\u2019s a generation of incredibly talented female leaders who are coming up across Wall Street,\u201d she told me. It remains to be seen when the second woman will break through, though there\u2019s a fairly good chance the next one is already on the Fortune Most Powerful Women list.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>You can read my new feature on Fraser here.<\/p>\n<div>\n<div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><em>Claire Zillman<\/em><br \/>claire.zillman@fortune.com<\/p>\n<p><em>The Most Powerful Women Daily newsletter is<\/em> Fortune\u2019<em>s daily briefing for and about the women leading the business world. Subscribe here.<\/em><\/p>\n<div>\n<div>\n<div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<h3>ALSO IN THE HEADLINES<\/h3>\n<p><b>Carroll under DOJ perjury investigation. <\/b><span>Former magazine columnist E. Jean Carroll is <\/span><span>under DOJ investigation<\/span><span> for possible perjury in her two civil lawsuits against President Donald Trump\u2014one for sexual assault, one for defamation. Investigators believe she may have lied about not receiving outside funding for the cases, despite LinkedIn cofounder Reid Hoffman paying some of her legal fees.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/crosscountrymovingteams.com\/?p=242\">UBS says Ron DeSantis has a problem with his plan to help 92% of homeowners save on property taxes: His own state\u2019s data<\/a><\/p>\n<div>\n<div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><b>Colombian senator enters presidential race; Trump backs off Venezuela probe. <\/b><span>Colombian conservative senator Paloma Valencia <\/span><span>is a leading candidate<\/span><span> to become the country&#8217;s first female president ahead of the first round of votes on May 31. Also in South America, the Trump administration has <\/span><span>directed<\/span><span> federal prosecutors in Miami to stand down from criminal investigations into Venezuela&#8217;s acting President Delcy Rodr\u00edguez.<\/span><\/p>\n<div>\n<div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><b>Best Buy beats expectations ahead of CEO transition.<\/b><span> Best Buy CEO Corie Barry, in her penultimate earnings release before handing over the reins, <\/span><span>touted<\/span><span> the company&#8217;s &#8220;momentum&#8221; after it beat revenue and earnings expectations, sending shares higher. Company veteran Jason Bonfig is set to succeed her after seven years in the job.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Abortion restrictions linked to reduced miscarriage care. <\/b><span>A <em>Journal of the American Medical Association<\/em> report <\/span><span>found<\/span><span> that states with abortion restrictions are increasingly limiting access to miscarriage care. Rather than providing medication, these states are more often choosing to monitor the miscarriage passively instead of intervening.<\/span><\/p>\n<h3>ON MY RADAR<\/h3>\n<p><b>The era of the Tiger Mom is over. Enter the Beta Mom<\/b> <i><span>Wall Street Journal<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n<p><b>\u2018The publicists have to be stopped!\u2019: Keke Palmer, Lisa Kudrow, and Quinta Brunson on the Comedy Actresses Roundtable <\/b><i><span>Hollywood Reporter<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n<div>\n<div>\n<div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><b>\u2018Seriously the best boss ever\u2019: Inside the world of Jeffrey Epstein\u2019s assistant<\/b> <i><span>Guardian<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n<h3>PARTING WORDS<\/h3>\n<p>\u2014Actress and singer-songwriter Hilary Duff delivering the commencement address at Northeastern University<\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/crosscountrymovingteams.com\/?p=240\">The EEOC chair knows gutting diversity reporting will blind the agency to discrimination. She\u2019s doing it anyway.<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>She turned a daunting cleanup job into Citi&#8217;s strongest results in years.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":245,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[72],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-246","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mpw-daily"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Jane Fraser defied the \u2018glass cliff\u2019 to engineer Citi\u2019s long-awaited turnaround - Cross Country Moving Team<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/crosscountrymovingteams.com\/?p=246\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Jane Fraser defied the \u2018glass cliff\u2019 to engineer Citi\u2019s long-awaited turnaround - 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