Tasnim Ghiawadwala runs one of the world's largest commercial banking franchises out of New York, but she leads from the field, wherever Citi's clients are. This summer she was in Poland one week, Brazil the prior month and Hong Kong and Shanghai before that.
"I'm a big believer that you have to be there with the teams, to talk directly with the folks on the ground and make sure there's a good alignment of strategy and vision," Ghiawadwala said. "I could go to a country 15 times and there is always something new to learn," from her bankers and Citi clients.
Her instinct for proximity has driven the expansion of Citi commercial bank, or CCB, during her tenure as its chief. Citi has grown its commercial banking business to more than $5 billion in annual revenues, with double digit growth in 2025. In the five years since she first presented her vision for CCB at a Citigroup investor day, there has been 20% growth in average revenue per client, a 25% growth in active clients, and a 60% jump in CCB clients also doing investment banking with Citi. There's still plenty of opportunity: Citi says CCB is just one-third the size of the market leaders.
Ghiawadwala's global perspective helps the bank in pursuit of the increasingly cross-border business focus clients have. "They are very, very keen to understand how we are thinking about the world," she said. A particular trend has been foreign businesses — she cites recent projects out of Poland and China — looking to CCB to help their expansion into the U.S.
Citi sees CCB as a growth engine for the overall business. The approach is to build deep relationships with growth-oriented companies early and scale with them as their ambitions do. Spice and flavorings company McCormick & Co. illustrates the model. CCB partnered with McCormick more than a decade ago by supplying working capital, supplier finance and risk management. This spring, when McCormick elected to merge with Unilever's food business in a $65 billion deal slated to close in 2027, it chose Citi as its strategic advisor with the bank leading $16 billion in committed financing.
"Her focus on digitalization and cross-business collaboration has been central to capturing the mid-market opportunity," Viswas Raghavan, Citi head of banking and executive chair, said. "No other institution can offer midsize corporates the same combination of local expertise and global access. Our success with this segment is a direct result of her leadership and execution."
Part of her current vision is to build out CCB's capabilities in the U.S., which she sees as an underdeveloped opportunity for Citi. The bank is hiring senior industry and subsector heads to focus on client verticals while also building out regional offices, especially the West Coast and Southeast.
"We'll have somebody who is part of the fabric that can help us grow into where the opportunities are."
After five years of expanding a global franchise, Ghiawadwala knows opportunities come both from the next continent and next door.
