John S. Reed has reached outside Citicorp to bring operations back home.
The Citicorp chairman rose to prominence in the 1960s and 1970s by applying industrial principles to Citibank's back office. But none of the top five managers currently reporting to him focuses exclusively on operations.
He changed that Tuesday, naming Federal Express Corp. operations executive Mary Alice Taylor to fill that void. He said she has the "world- class talent" to take Citi to a new level of globalization and "cost- competitiveness."
When Ms. Taylor arrives as executive vice president-operations in January - after seeing Federal Express through its holiday rush - she will be the sixth member of the inner circle that Mr. Reed has been assembling during the past year.
Mr. Reed's successor could come from that group, which includes chief financial officer Victor Menezes and credit card executive Roberta Arena.
Ms. Taylor's hiring also follows Citi's tradition of bringing in executives from outside the industry. The chief of Citibanking, or global consumer banking, is William Campbell, the former head of Philip Morris U.S.A. Mr. Reed himself came from Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co.
After 16 years at Federal Express, Ms. Taylor, 46, will have a similar opportunity to transfer nonbanking skills.
"We are always looking for new processes and greater efficiencies," she said of FedEx, where she is senior vice president in charge of North American delivery operations and half of the 124,000 employees. "We look for technology to make that easier."
Industry observers see the Citicorp appointment as a reaffirmation of the company's commitment to technology across all commercial and retail activities.
"They have gotten so dependent on computers and technology globally, in all facets of corporate and personal interaction, that it becomes mandatory to have someone in place with a total perspective on the operations," said Ronald Powers, a one-time Citibank operations officer who is chairman of Boardroom Advisors Inc., Tampa.
"It's obviously an effort to pull together the increasingly disparate activities of the bank," said Martin Mayer, a longtime student of Citicorp and author of the forthcoming book "The Bankers: The Next Generation."
Having made vast investments in back-office and leading-edge technologies, and reversing its more decentralized approach of past years, Citicorp is making "an effort to avoid duplication and to use some of the same investments for different purposes," Mr. Mayer said.
Citicorp spokesman John M. Morris said Ms. Taylor's arrival would not affect the role of Colin Crook, who as chief technology officer is a high- level technical muse, trend-watcher, and strategist.
"Ms. Taylor's position is more the application of that technology," said the spokesman.
Ms. Taylor, who said Citicorp had approached her last spring, does not believe her foray into financial services will be markedly different from her prior experience.
"There are a lot of similarities from the customer's standpoint," she said. "They trust you with their packages, they depend on you to deliver them, and they want information to show they got there. It's the same when someone hands you their money."
Federal Express' experience in remote computing and global on-line tracking could be instructive for Citicorp's exploration of the Internet, among other activities.
Ms. Taylor joined FedEx in 1980, rising through various operations and planning jobs. Before that, she held management posts at Shell Oil Co., Cook Industries, and Northern Telecom Inc.
Her replacement has not been named. She is the second FedEx-bred executive to cross over to a financial company: William Razzouk, a former head of worldwide customer operations, recently became chief executive officer of Advanta Corp.'s information services unit.
Ms. Taylor has a finance and accounting degree from Mississippi State University. She is a director of Allstate Corp. Among other roles, she is executive director of the Chickasaw Council-Boy Scouts of America.
Jeffrey Kutler contributed to this article.
