Tag Archive for: Citibank

Valeria Vitola: Managing Director, Anti-Money Laundering Region Head – Latin America (Except Mexico), Citibank

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Valeria Vitola“Any difference you think you may have is not a shortcoming. It’s always your springboard,” says Valeria Vitola. “You have to embrace that diverse part of you, because it’s only through diversity that we thrive.”

Born and based in Guatemala, Vitola speaks about why you have to dig even deeper to understand any problem, moving from shame to pride from the inside-out and the true value of bringing your difference to any situation.

Making a Societal Impact

Valeria comes from an Italian family who fell in love with the textiles of Guatemala and began a textile factory and textiles related industries in the country. Coming from a history of family-owned business, she never envisioned herself at a multinational company.

Now, twenty-two years have passed since accepting her initial offer and postponing her master’s degree indefinitely for the experiential MBA of Citi. Before working in anti-money laundering/financial crimes prevention, Valeria had witnessed the consequences of corruption in her country and found meaning in work that helps to narrow the inequalities that it helps to create.

“I am from a country where corruption impacts society – contributing to a gap between those who have lots and those who have not even a dollar a day to live, and denying access of vital services such as health, education and safety,” she says. “For me, to be in the frontline, making sure that the financial institution that I work for is not used by criminal organizations to launder money, or move proceeds, really feels like having an impact on society.”

Getting Way Underneath the Problem

Valeria brings unexpected diversity to the table – she’s a woman, she leads Latin America from Guatemala (even though Guatemala is not a major regional hub for Citibank), English is not her first language and she is part of the LGBTQ+ community.

“Being from a diverse environment allows me to see everybody’s perspective from a different angle, with empathy,” says Valeria. “I’m a good listener, so my leadership begins with listening. I’m really interested in understanding not only the job and the problem that people are bringing to the table, but also the whole situation they’re experiencing when they bring the problem.”

This proves especially valuable when conducting financial crimes risk assessment on client prospects and transactions. Her ability to get underneath a situation, and ask the critical questions, is one of the key skills that has supported both her career and her life.

“I like to take complex problems and divide them into simpler ones, and I like to do that very fast. Every single problem, no matter how big, can be dissected, once you understand the root cause,” Valeria says. “But when you think you know the cause, you have to dig deeper and deeper. Once you have the root cause, everything else gets easier. You can find the paths to resolve the problem.”

Speaking to a skill that applies in all areas of life, Valeria likens this analytical skill to what empathy asks of us – when it comes to understanding why a person is feeling or behaving a certain way, and not jumping to a conclusion.

“The brain works in a way that sometimes likes to trick you into into thinking that you already know what the problem is,” she says. “But once you go layer after layer after layer, you identify there’s always something deeper. You usually have to go at least three layers, to make sure you’re addressing the true causes of the problem.”

Valeria also possesses an instinct for accountability: “I’m that person that when I see the ball being thrown, will run, catch the ball and make sure that I don’t drop the ball until it gets delivered to where it needs to be.”

Being a Leader is For Others

Vitola confesses that as an economist, what drew her into her profession was the notion of working all by herself, at a desk, analyzing numbers, with nobody reporting to her.

She stared at Citi as a sole contributor and she says that during her tenure she sought positions where she did not have to manage others. Reluctant to be working with and be responsible for so many others, Vitola remembers what her female boss and mentor, told her: “You have to believe that you are enough and more, and that you need to inspire people – and not for your sake, but for the sake of the people that are below you.” And that is how Valeria now leads a group of around 400 financial crimes professionals in over 18 different countries.

Before she speaks in front of an audience or accepts a role with more exposure and responsibilities, Valeria remembers those words. While working with others can be energy-absorbing and disruptive to an introverted disposition, she has come to understand her mission is not about tasks, but inspiring people to achieve their own whole potential, which is part of why listening has become essential.

180 Degrees From Shame To Pride

Within her family and her work, Valeria never felt held back by being a woman. Being comfortable sharing about her family and personal life as a lesbian, however, has taken longer to relax into.

“Back in the 90’s, I don’t think I knew another lesbian, not only in the financial industry but the whole country, so I felt very insecure about letting people inside of my world,” she says. “Citi is an organization that really embraces and encourages diversity, and how diversity brings different views to the table, so it was never about Citi. It was complicated for me because of fears related to my traditional catholic upbringing, my family, my friends and society in Guatemala. Coming out of the closet has been the most terrifying decision I’ve taken in my career.”

Last year, a photo of her family, including her 17 year old daughter and her ex-wife, appeared on the cover of Citi’s annual diversity report. Vitola says that her daughter, Alessandra, has been her greatest teacher: “She’s shown me the path of openness. She’s never been ashamed of her diverse family and has always introduced me as her mother.”

Valeria now feels that pride is the opposite of shame, and the journey towards becoming who you are also includes leaving behind the isolation of shame, which she too long imposed on herself in the workplace. If she has one regret, it’s that she held back for so long, only to suffer stress and fears around her identity, when in the end, it didn’t matter to any of her colleagues, only to her. If she could go back, she’d bring her whole self from day one and hopes that being more visible now shines a light for others, especially those based in countries where it might be more difficult.

In all ways, she’s now come to see her differences as an asset, and encourages those she mentors to do so, too.

“If you have a room full of people thinking the same way, with the same upbringing and same everything, the solution that you’re going to attain is going to be very limited.” she says, “So, you have to embrace who you are. Bring your difference to the table because that is what really adds value to an organization, to a meeting, to a friendship, to anything. That diverse point of view is what makes everything grow.”

Leading and Doing with Heart

Valeria is inspired by how Jane Fraser, CEO of Citi, leads with empathy, giving everybody a seat on the table, and caring about all stakeholders.

“I love having a leader with heart, more than one that just executes,” says Vitola. “Instead of having a chain, like an army, it feels more like a room with friends and family, where everybody is heard and all opinions are taken into account. But someone is responsible, deciding when we’ve all been heard enough and saying let’s move together now, behind this higher vision.”

During the beginning of the 2020 lockdown, and grounded from the three weeks a month she used to spend traveling, Valeria initiated a spare time challenge with her 400 strong Citi team and family, inviting everyone to share their personal interests, as a way of staying connected. The effort was then replicated in other areas and regions of Citibank.

Akin to her fascination of going deep into the mechanics of a problem, one of her own passions is restoring old and defunct machines – from the original espresso machine to a 1960 Vespa (which she rides on the city streets of Antigua, Guatemala on her weekends) – including sourcing all the technical hard-to-find parts they need to work again. As a girl, she watched her father and grandfather repair machines for the textile factory, often with parts imported from Italy that took weeks just to arrive.

“I have a personal satisfaction in bringing something back to its old shine and glory – to see the inside of a machine and how it works, from the time before electronics,” she says. “It’s a tribute to the ingenuity of the people that designed the machine to bring it back to life.”

Valeria is a scuba divemaster and also loves gardening, because it offers many transferable lessons and helps her stay in the present moment, from planting a seed, to waiting for weeks (with trust) until it germinates, to giving it the space to grow, to cultivating the fruit and making marmalade to share with and gift to friends: “Going from the seed to the product, with love, is like sharing a part of me, of my time, of myself.”

By Aimee Hansen

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Voice of Experience: Rebecca Macieira-Kaufmann, Head of International Personal Bank (IPB) U.S., Citibank

Rebecca Macieira-Kaufmann

“Be more of you.”

That’s the one piece of advice that Rebecca Macieira-Kaufmann would share above all others that she’s come across during her career. So many people try to fit into a box of what they think they need to be, she adds, but if you are true to yourself, trust your intuition, and work hard – all of the pieces will fall into place. Being yourself will give you the confidence to discover worthwhile career opportunities that will lead you to the role you were destined for, she says. “I wish I’d taken this advice myself seven to 10 years earlier. That confidence will carry you through to find the best place to be – and it’s probably in a role that you didn’t even know you could handle.”

An International Flair

Macieira-Kaufmann spent the early part of her career abroad, working in France, Finland, Hong Kong and England. As a management consultant in London she spent most of her time traveling on multinational accounts due to her language skills and international experience. After three years in London, she returned home to her native San Francisco and began working in credit card product management at First Deposit, which became Providian Financial.

From there, Macieira-Kaufmann moved to Wells Fargo to run marketing for the insurance division. Her roles expanded over time and she ended up running all of Wells Fargo’s small business segment, overseeing two million customers. This success led to an offer from Citi to become president of Citibank’s retail banking unit in California, where she combined the northern and southern region into one.

Today, 11 years into her tenure at Citi, Macieira-Kaufmann is once again in a role with international elements as the head of Citibank’s IPB U.S. group. In this role she manages the wealth needs of international clients who are based abroad and want to bank in the U.S. An enjoyable position, she is building a high-performance team and focused on nurturing talent that will succeed by working cohesively.

The common thread throughout her career has been her ability to transform divisions and companies and bring them to scale. Currently she is pursuing that same vision by helping make life easier for clients with Citibank’s growing digital capabilities; for example helping large corporations that are moving executives around the world, yet want to pay employees in dollars. “We are making it simpler and safer for our clients to bank as they desire.”

A Diverse Pipeline

Macieira-Kaufmann feels fortunate that throughout her career she has been a part of teams that are focused on people development. “It’s vital to have that supportive person who helps clear your path, and maybe even pushes you to a role you’re not sure you’re ready for,” she says, adding that women will often hesitate to jump in if they aren’t confident that they already know a role inside and out.

“You have to have a bias for action, and go for it,” she says. “Surround yourself with yaysayers, not naysayers, because they will help you go for it.” While she knows that it can be hard for executives to find the time to support and mentor women, she says it’s important to find the time.

She is particularly proud of Citi’s Women’s Diversity Initiative, within Citi’s U.S. Retail Bank and Mortgage group, which supports greater gender diversity in order to improve Citi’s teams and communities, while exploring new ways to empower women at all levels. “We want to provide more visibility into the pipeline and help women build their networks,” Macieira-Kaufmann says.

Citi’s Women’s Diversity Initiative aims to provide women within Citi more opportunities to advance their careers, while arming them with useful tools to help them achieve their goals. She adds that women may not be aware that there is an opportunity if they aren’t looking for a specific role. “We must get information out so that candidates feel like they have been tapped on the shoulder,” Macieira-Kaufmann muses. “We have to open up transparency in the recruiting pipeline to make sure that people aren’t being screened out inadvertently.”

Macieira-Kaufmann herself has been the beneficiary of a number of women’s groups, both inside and outside of the workplace. She has particularly found value in being part of the Financial Women of San Francisco, as well as a cross-industry group called the International Women’s Forum, where she’s been able to interact across industries with everyone from female pilots to authors.

A devotee of the arts, Macieira-Kaufmann plays the piano and participates in a dance class when she’s home. She also serves on the Board of Governors for the San Francisco Symphony. Although she travels extensively for business, she also enjoys personal travel and spending time with her family, including a son who is 22 and a daughter, age 20.

“I have many outlets, and that’s what allows me to be my personal best,” she says. “Every day may not be perfectly balanced, but all in all, I have a whole life.”

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Voice of Experience: Debra Stabile, Managing Director and the Chief Risk Officer for Citi Retail Services

Debra Stabile

By Cathie Ericson

Don’t be afraid to take risks, especially when you’re young, says Citibank’s Debra Stabile.

“The world is changing so fast that being willing to try new things, even those outside of your comfort zone, is the key to continuing to move forward,” she says, recommending that you stay curious and always open to challenging yourself.

“It is easy to access materials that can help you self-educate on any topics you want to explore, but people also love to talk about their own areas of passion so connect with others whenever you can,” she says.

That, along with being open to candid feedback, can help propel your career. “Asking for feedback is vital – ask at the right time, and seek input from your peers as well as your boss.” For example, she suggests inquiring if there was anything you could have done better in an important meeting. “If they really care about you, they are going to give you constructive feedback to help identify blind spots,” she says. And then, she adds, accept the comments without rationalization and learn from them to always be improving your career.

Building Teams and Solving Problems Keeps Her Engaged

A willingness to try new things underscores a career path that Stabile calls “interesting and fulfilling,” encompassing fields from consulting to government and finance. Each role presented new challenges and insights; she appreciated her experience in consulting firms for the birds-eye view it gave her into a wide variety of companies, and her early experience with the City of New York made her a better citizen as she realized that you really can make a difference even in a city as big as New York. For the past 20 years she has been in financial services, 13 of them at Citi.

Despite all her professional success, she says the achievement she’s most proud of so far is the teams she’s built and the people she’s worked with. “When you look back at what matters, it’s not only about making a difference in your job, but also about enjoying the people you work with every day. I’ve been very fortunate to build and nurture successful teams and launched many of them to bigger roles and seniority in their respective organizations,” she says. In certain fields, she notes, such as being a teacher or doctor, you know you’ve made a difference, but it might not be as obvious in a corporation until you realize the impact you have. “You don’t impact just your employee, but also their families, and if they can come to work and feel respected and successful, you can feel that you’re contributing in a larger role.”

With a background in math and economics, Stabile loves problem solving so she finds it an amazing time to be in the industry, where analytics and quantitative methods have become even more foundational to everything they do in risk management. She says the environment today is a quantum leap from where they’ve been before, with the access to a more granular and diverse set of data — a plethora of information about consumers that enable them to make better decisions in real-time.

Stabile and her team at Citi Retail Services leverage these data sources to develop advanced analytic models and other capabilities to more effectively identify, assess and manage risk for their retail partners and customers.

Women Supporting Women

As more women enter the industry, Stabile hopes that the focus on STEM fields will continue to help make women today more comfortable and eager to take advantage of this vibrant career path. “It’s critical at all levels for women to support each other and share opportunities when they see them – to be inclusive,” she says. “Women are becoming much more proactive in recognizing we need to pull each generation up.”

Stabile has benefited from the Citi Women’s Leadership Development program which is attended by middle and upper management and provides coaching by external career development experts as well as internal senior executives. She has also been fortunate to be part of a supportive women’s network outside of Citi — the MIT Sloan Women of New York. A board member since its inception, she has helped organize a number of women’s events, including the first MIT Sloan Global Women’s Conference which was held in New York last October.

With three daughters, two of whom are engineers and one an economist, there is no doubt Stabile is doing her part to help build the female pipeline. The family loves to travel, especially to areas that have a historical or cultural bent.

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Voice of Experience: Anita Romero, General Counsel, Global Consumer, Citibank

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Anita RomeroBy Cathie Ericson

It is who you know. That’s what Anita Romero figured out over the course of her career, and wishes that she had known earlier. “When you’re first starting out, you’re so focused on doing excellent work that you don’t realize the many benefits of seeking advice from peers in your network,” she says. “People learn over time, but had I known that up front it would have really helped.”

From Government to Finance

Romero started her career at the New York City Economic Development Corporation (EDC), which is the City of New York’s primary economic development vehicle. During her tenure with the EDC, her goal was to help keep business in the city, including the redevelopment of Disney’s New Amsterdam Theater and other magnets in Times Square.

After 12 years she went to work for the Traveler’s Group which merged with Citicorp, creating what is today known as Citi.

Since her career up to that point had been in government, she didn’t have direct product experience at a financial services firm, so she completed a rotation through different legal areas of this financial services company. She said that although the experience felt a bit like being a first-year associate again, it was valuable in helping her stretch outside of her comfort zone – advice she offers to other professionals.

“Many attorneys are very focused on a career path that only goes up, as opposed to horizontally, but sometimes doing something complementary can really help you develop, whether you are new to a job or are more seasoned in your career.”

After a year of rotation, she chose a permanent home in corporate law, principally doing securities work as well as mergers and acquisitions, an active area since the company was in a buying mode.

Subsequently, Romero worked as Deputy General Counsel of Citi’s international business segment, in which she had to face one of her first challenges, the 2002 Argentine crisis, which involved lots of “firefighting” as she says. She then returned to the corporate law department to oversee corporate legal functions that support the company as a whole, including human resources, employment law and M&A. Now, she serves as General Counsel for the global consumer business and Citibank NA, the largest subsidiary of Citigroup.

The team that she’s built at Citi is the professional achievement she’s most proud of. “We are committed to having a high-quality and diverse team,” she says. As the Legal Management Committee sponsor of the company’s Talent Development program, she actually spearheads that function for the legal department as a whole.

Technology As an Industry Game Changer

As technology evolves, so will the industry. “Startups are seeking to disrupt what we’ve been doing as banks in the digital experience, and while some do it well, they are operating under a different regulatory environment,” she says, noting that fintech entities aren’t required to be licensed the same way that banks are. “The world has changed for banks in terms of regulatory expectations, and so we are constantly analyzing and adapting to the new model.”

Romero says that Citi is whole heartedly focused on radical digitization, always seeking ways to reduce friction for customers and improve their banking experience.

Promoting Hispanic Culture through Mentoring Others

Citi supports a number of employee networks, including Citi Women, a corporate-wide diversity effort for attracting, developing, advancing and retaining female talent at all levels within Citi.

Since one of her passions is to give back to the community where she lives, Romero, who is of Puerto Rican and Cuban descent, is the sponsor of the Hispanic Heritage Network for the New York tristate area.

“It’s a terrific organization that is trying to connect network members to each other. Our members appreciate the opportunities for both networking and career development.”

They have sponsored initiatives, such as Café con Leche, where participants have the opportunity to talk with senior professionals within the organization. “They can use them as a sounding board on their career, in an intimate environment where it is comfortable to discuss their career path or other specific situations,” she points out.

“It’s all about developing and advancing our people and realizing that we can harness our different backgrounds and heritages to promote workplace success.”

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Men Who Get It: Naveed Sultan, Global Head of Treasury and Trade Solutions, Managing Director, Citibank

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Naveed Sultan“If there’s a fundamental disconnect in the area of diversity, businesses will not have the outcomes they could, as there will be significant lapses in their performance,” says Citi’s Naveed Sultan. “That’s how important I believe this issue is, not only to me, but to our organization as a whole.”

As head of the Treasury and Trade Solutions division of Citi’s Institutional Clients Group, Sultan oversees one of Citi’s largest global businesses, which handles multi-country client relationships. This business provides an integrated suite of treasury, cash management and trade finance services to multinational corporations, financial institutions and public sector organizations and it runs the industry’s largest proprietary network with banking licenses in over 100 countries. “Our work goes to the heart of the topic of diversity,” says Sultan. “In any global business the talent mix must reflect the footprint, the cultural attributes and ability to adapt and understand the notion of inclusion. For a global organization to be successful, it must incorporate those elements into its business model.”

Sultan began his career in Pakistan, where he worked for a few years in corporate banking before taking a sabbatical to study in the United States for his second management degree, which he earned at Sloan School of Management at MIT. “My decision to study in the United States was driven by my desire to gain exposure to a diverse academic environment and interact with people with different backgrounds,” he says. “It was one of the best decisions I have made because it gave me a very rich experience.”
Upon graduation, he changed his line of specialization into transactional banking, extending into operations and technology, and joined Citi in Saudi Arabia, moving through several positions and geographic locales over his 23-year tenure to his current role.

A Diversity Champion

To Sultan, retaining a diverse talent pool makes business, economic and social sense. “It’s simply the right thing to do, but more than that, there is vital business and economic logic to it,” he says, mentioning a robust body of research that proves diversity contributes to a stronger business due to a better working environment and more informed decisions.
“The notion of diversity in a broader context has always resonated with me, but it’s even more compelling and convincing when you consider the business case,” he says.
Growing up, Sultan says his economist/banker father told him that he would be among the first generation in Pakistan to make the transition into an international environment, to live their lives in a global world. Along with that, he cautioned, would come the need to never pass a value judgment on someone who’s different, but to appreciate people for what they are and have a sense of inclusion.
“That lesson stayed with all of us, and that’s why I realize it’s an important mindset that managers need to have – the ability to value people for what they bring, rather than focusing on their shortcomings,” he says.

Valuing Differences

Sultan realized early on that you can’t confuse style with leadership. For example, somebody who is understated is merely exhibiting a different style and may well be an equally effective leader as someone who is more dimensional and extroverted.
“As managers we have to condition ourselves to develop an appreciation for different kinds of leaders,” he says, even though he has seen that supervisors often subconsciously believe that everyone should converge toward one common style of management.
But, as he points out, if you do that, why do you need diversity? As Citi has evolved rapidly in regards to this dimension he says that awareness has risen exponentially throughout the company. “Ever since I joined Citi, I have been participating in diversity discussions and how we should implement policies to make organizations more responsive to the notion of diversity.”

 

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