Banking News

Citi CFO Gerspach to step down March 2019

(4 September 2018 – USA) Citigroup’s CFO for the past decade, John Gerspach, is set to step down in Q1 2019, ending his tenure as the longest serving CFO on Wall Street.

Three of Citigroup’s most senior executives are leaving the bank over the next six months including CFO John Gerspach, the Bank’s EMEA Head Jim Cowles and Citi’s North America CEO Bill Mills is also stepping down over the coming months and will not be replaced. Citigroup stated that Mr Gerspach will retire in March next year and be replaced by Mark Mason, the current CFO of Citi’s investment bank while a new EMEA head has not yet been announced.

Citi has performed strongly since repeated government bailouts during the 2007 GFC, securing market share from retreating European banks and consolidating its position as a global bank in competition with other major group’s including HSBC and JPMorgan. Mr Gerspach, 65, has spent nearly 40 years at Citi in roles including controller and nine years as CFO. Brian Foran, analyst at Autonomous, described him as “by far the longest tenured CFO among the big banks”, and said his longevity was “remarkable” given that the average big bank CFO presently has a tenure of three years. Mr Cowles, 63, is a 39-year veteran of Citi and is leaving to “pursue a long time passion and establish a non-profit organisation”. Mr Mason, 47, formerly led Citi Holdings, the “bad bank” subsidiary set up after the financial crisis to manage Citi’s troubled assets. A senior executive at Citi’s investment bank in London described the moves as a “generation change” that should not surprise observers, going further to state that Mr Cowles’ departure would not impact on the bank’s Brexit planning and that his successor as EMEA head would be based in London.

“Three members of our leadership team have made the difficult decision that it is time for them to leave Citi and begin the next stage of their lives,” said Michael Corbat, Citigroup CEO. “They all worked incredibly hard to get our firm to where we are today.”