Citigroup just handed a 37-year old rising star a seat on the firm's most powerful management committee
- Citigroup chief executive Mike Corbat has named his chief of staff, Sara Wechter, to replace Mike Murray running human resources, according to an internal memo.
- The promotion hands Wechter, who is 37 years old, a seat on the firm's most powerful management committee.
Citigroup has tapped a 37-year-old woman to run human resources for its 209,000 employees, a title that hands an up-and-coming executive a seat on the firm's most powerful management committee.
Chief Executive Officer Mike Corbat has named his chief of staff, Sara Wechter, to replace Mike Murray running human resources, according to an internal memo. Wechter officially takes the job in June, when Murray, a 20-year veteran of the bank, is set to leave. Her replacement will be named later.
Wechter joined Citigroup in 2004, working in investment banking and then corporate strategy during the financial crisis, before becoming chief of staff to then-chairman Richard Parsons. In 2013, when Corbat named his management team, the CEO made Wechter his chief of staff. More recently, she's added responsibilities running the firm's diversity efforts and serving as head of talent.
"Sara has become not only a trusted advisor to me and members of my management team, but also to many of our colleagues as well,'' Corbat said in the memo. "I am very happy that she has agreed to take on this new role.''
Wechter will take the job at a critical moment. Wall Street firms like Citigroup have increasingly had to adapt their staff policies to appeal to younger employees and better compete for talent with the likes of Silicon Valley.
The bank redesigned its lower Manhattan headquarters with an open-office environment meant to more closely approximate startup culture, started a program to give some employees a year off to do charitable work and made the path to promotion easier to navigate.