Jane Fraser, Chair and CEO of Citigroup, is back in the spotlight following Citi’s third-quarter earnings report. The bank reported net income of $5.2 billion, with revenue increasing 8% year over year, which Fraser described as Citi’s best third-quarter revenue performance in a decade. [citigroup.com]

Fraser became CEO of Citi in 2021, making history as the first woman to lead Citi and the first woman to lead a major U.S. bank. She added the role of board chair in October 2025. [en.wikipedia.org], [carnegie.org]

Fun Fact: A Truly Global Journey

Jane Fraser was born in St. Andrews, Scotland, and spent part of her childhood in Australia. Her career has been similarly international. She studied economics at the University of Cambridge, worked for Goldman Sachs in London and a securities firm in Madrid, and later moved to the United States to earn her MBA at Harvard Business School. [carnegie.org]

Here’s another interesting twist: before joining Citi in 2004, Fraser spent a decade with McKinsey & Company, eventually becoming a partner. While there, she worked part-time for a period while raising her young children, an interesting chapter in the career of someone who ultimately reached the top of one of America’s largest banks. [en.wikipedia.org]

She even co-authored a 1999 book about globalization, Race for the World: Strategies to Build a Great Global Firm. [en.wikipedia.org]

Why We Find It Interesting

Fraser’s career didn’t follow one narrow path from Wall Street to the corner office.

Scotland, Australia, Cambridge, London, Madrid, Harvard, McKinsey and eventually Citi all became stops along the way. Her international background seems particularly appropriate for someone now leading an institution that operates across more than 160 countries and jurisdictions. [carnegie.org], [citigroup.com]

And perhaps the most interesting part of her story is fairly simple: the first woman to lead a major U.S. bank reached that position after building a career that included not only international assignments and executive positions, but also a period in which she worked part-time while raising her family. [en.wikipedia.org]

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