Citi is making cuts to its data teams. They may be substantial, or not

As we predicted last week, Citi is making cuts to its data team. It's not clear how many cuts it's making or which particular data teams are affected, but there are suggestions that in some teams they may be substantial. 

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Citi's data operations are run by Tim Ryan, a nice guy with six children whose official title is head of technology and business enablement. The data team at the bank is thought to be composed of two groups: people working on data relating to the bank's 2020 consent order; people working on other data matters. It's not clear which of the two is being hardest hit. 

Either way, various senior Citi data professionals have come (and gone) in the past four years and the bank may now have more of them than it needs. Citi said last week that it is now 90% of the way through the consent order imposed upon it by regulators for "unsafe and unsound" compliance practices. In the wake of that consent order, Citi increased headcount by 30,000 people. It's since cut them back again, but still has 9,000 more than before the order was imposed. 

Many of the post-consent order hires were in areas like data and controls. There are suggestions that operations, risk and internal audit teams are also being cut today.

A spokesperson for Citi said: "As we said previously, we will continue to reduce our headcount globally in 2026. These changes reflect adjustments we’re making to ensure our staffing levels, locations and expertise align with current business needs; efficiencies we have gained through technology; and progress against our Transformation work, which is nearing Citi’s target state." And: We are grateful for the contributions these colleagues have made to Citi."

Citi also said last week that it wants to invest $5bn in its business between now and 2028 as it elevates the bank into a new growth mode. That $5bn will be financed by efficiencies, maybe in data. 

Although Citi's transformation work relating to its control order is 90% done, up to 10% remains outstanding. CEO Jane Fraser said in April that the outstanding 10% is comprised of data governance and regulatory reporting. CFO Mark Mason said in 2024 that this was the nub of the issue and that the bank has 30 critical regulatory reports, of which a single one had 750,000 lines of code. 

Last year Citi settled a case brought by Kathleen Martin, a senior data compliance executive hired from JPMorgan. Martin had claimed that she'd been falsely asked to present the data remediation work as more advanced than it really was. Citi denied this, but settled the case. The bank's data remediation effort is now thought to be led by Andreas Noetzel, who joined from Bank of America last year. 

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