Citi appoints co-CIOs, as CEO says deep restructuring will make “some of our people very uncomfortable”

A major restructuring at banking behemoth Citi has put two co-CIOs, Stuart Riley and Shadman Zafar, in charge of digital transformation.

The move comes as Citi continues to try and reduce reliance “from ‘consultants and planning’ to ‘technology and efficiencies’ as CFO Mark Mason put in September 2023 – and drive down infrastructure costs.

Riley was previously global head of the Institutional Client Group (ICG); Zafar was previously CIO, Personal Banking & Wealth Management.

They will oversee one of the biggest tech budgets in the industry.

See also: Citi CTO spearheads new pan-industry ‘Common Cloud Controls’ project at FINOS

Citi’s full-year operational costs this year will be $54 billion.

Some 22% of that figure is for technology. (That spend has helped drive significant automation progress across its IT estate: Citi has reduced manual touchpoints by 90% for its prime finance middle office, 90% for its equities middle office and by 31% for futures clearing it said in Q2.)

Their appointments came amid what CEO Jane Fraser described as “the most consequential changes to how Citi will be organized” in 20 years.”