Citi says it will hire new chief compliance officer

Citigroup, which is updating its risk management and internal control systems after being hit by a pair of enforcement actions, plans to hire a new chief compliance officer.

Mary McNiff, who has held the post since June 2020, will step away from the job later this year when she begins a new role at Citi, according to an internal memo that CEO Jane Fraser sent to Citi employees on March 4.

And effective immediately, McNiff, who had been reporting to Fraser, reports to Brent McIntosh, according to a company spokesperson. McIntosh joined Citi as general counsel in October 2021.

Victor J. Blue/Bloomberg

The change in managerial reporting is related to a 2020 consent order issued by the Federal Reserve, which stipulates that Citi’s general counsel must oversee compliance, the Citi spokesperson said Monday. However, the compliance department will maintain its independence in making sure the company adheres to applicable laws and regulations, the spokesperson said.

Citi did not say what McNiff's new job, which she is expected to start later this year, will be.

Citi will conduct a search for a new chief compliance officer, Fraser told employees. That person will not sit on Citi’s executive management team.

Reuters earlier reported on the planned changes to Citi’s compliance team.

McNiff, one of 18 current members of Citi’s executive management team, is the company’s former chief auditor and a onetime CEO of the company’s bank.

She became chief compliance officer about four months before the Fed and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency publicly identified “deficiencies” in Citi’s risk management structure and slapped the firm with two consent orders.

The OCC also imposed a civil money penalty of $400 million.

McNiff has been a mainstay on American Banker’s Most Powerful Women to Watch list, making the cut in 2018, 2019, 2020 and 2021. Last year she described a digitization goal that involved being able to push a button and see Citi’s risks in real time on a dashboard.

Citi is spending millions of dollars to update its risk management systems, which Fraser called her “top priority” last week at the company’s investor day. In 2021, Citi spent $10 billion on technology, including the costs tied to the overhaul, and it has budgeted $11 billion this year.

Citi submitted risk management remediation plans to the Fed and the OCC last fall and is now “refining and executing on those plans with urgency,” Chief Administrative Office Karen Peetz told investors last week. She emphasized that it will take multiple years to make the changes.