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Strengthening Our Partnership and Support with Japanese Clients in a New Era with Jane Fraser's First Visit to Japan as CEO

By Lee Waite, Citi Country Officer for Japan May 13, 2022 10:30 AM

This week Jane Fraser made her first visit to Japan since assuming the role of Citi Chief Executive Officer in 2021. While Jane had hoped to visit earlier, she was unable to because of the pandemic.

Citi is focusing on investing in its institutional franchise and growing its wealth business. During her time with us, Jane praised Citi Japan as a leader in demonstrating banking value in the corporate market and said she is optimistic that Japan will play an even more vital role in the global economy going forward. Her trip offered a valuable opportunity to listen to our clients and some of our most important partners. She considers talking with our people critical to understanding what a franchise needs and how we can best support our clients, even more so now as the world enters the post-COVID era and faces increasing geopolitical tensions. Today, there are 13 Japan desks in 15 of the approximately 100 countries in which Citi operates, Citi Japan is Citi's third largest franchise by revenues, and our Japan workforce includes more than 30 different nationalities. As Jane emphasized several times during her stay, our global mindset and global network are our competitive advantage: the relationships, connectivity, and on-the-ground expertise allows us to serve our clients in ways that other banks cannot. I believe Citi Japan will continue to be a driver of Citi's ICG business as a pre-eminent banking partner to our clients.

Jane has deep experience across Citi's consumer and institutional businesses and, in many ways, helped to shape Citi into the organization it is today. She is now leading Citi on the right path to improve long-term returns and deliver the full benefits of our global network to all our stakeholders. We are proud of her recognition by American Banker in 2021 as the Most Powerful Women in Banking. Jane has reinforced Citi's commitment to ESG, as represented by the Net Zero declaration she made on her first day as CEO, and accelerated Citi's Transformation; an update on progress is outlined in the message to shareholders in the recently published Annual Report. Japan is one of Jane's favorite countries, and during her stay she again expressed her admiration of the quality of service in Japan and shared with our employees that the culture of excellence which Citi is pursuing is deeply rooted in Citi Japan.

I would like to thank everyone at Citi Japan who helped to organize Jane's visit. Jane is the first female CEO of a major global bank, and I am delighted we were able to introduce her to our clients and colleagues in Japan to discuss difficult challenges we face in an increasingly uncertain world, especially on the occasion of our 120th anniversary in Japan. Citi has been part of the solution throughout the pandemic, and I believe Jane's visit will further strengthen the support we provide to our clients in Japan in the new era before us

About Jane Fraser, Chief Executive Officer, Citi