Citi's apparent demotion of Anand Selvakesari is not what it seems. It's complicated

Anand Selvakesari (Selva) has been the chief operating officer of Citi since March 2023. He isn't popular with all his colleagues, but anyone celebrating his downfall might want to put the party hats away.

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Following Citi's $136m July fine for failing to deal with its data problems as quickly as the regulator wished, the Financial Times reported today that Selva has been demoted and will no longer be sole head of the data overhaul team, thereby losing responsibility for 800 employees. Instead, he will now share management of the team with Tim Ryan, a PWC partner who joined Citi in June. 

We understand it's not as simple as that. In a memo sent to Citi staff today and seen by eFinancialCareers, Selva and Ryan jointly declared that although Ryan will now "assume direct management oversight" of the data team, but that Selva will still "remain closely involved" with the data efforts. Selva will also still be head of the data transformation program overall. 

It sounds like the sort of complicated and blurred structure Citi has been trying to avoid. There will be a new role of 'Head of Enterprise Data Office and Data Transformation,' which will be held by Ash Nawani, who also joined from PWC since 2019. The chief data office will then report to Ash who will report to Tim.

The changes mean that Citi's existing chief data officer, Japan Mehta, who's only done the job since October 2023, is being shunted aside. Ash is effectively replacing him.

As the FT points out, Citi has had a succession of people trying to sort out its data issues. Before Nawani and Ryan, there was Selva alone. Before Selva, there was Kathleen Martin. Before Martin, there was Rob Casper. This is all in a three-year period. 

Martin, who joined from JPMorgan in early 2022 and was fired in late 2023, has brought a court case against Citi and is arguing that she was unfairly dismissed after refusing to follow Selva's alleged commands to pretend that the bank's data issues weren't so bad. Citi, in turn, denies this and is claiming that Martin was simply dogmatic and inexperienced. 

None of this seems to bode well for Nawani and Ryan as they attempt to get to grips with Citi's data problems under Selva's ongoing oversight. People are already leaving for rival banks. - Eugene Gilerson, whom Citi hired from Credit Suisse to work on data in September 2023, left again to become US chief data officer at Deutsche Bank (of all places) in recent weeks.

Citi CFO Mark Mason said in July that the bank's data remediation effort is extremely complicated and will cost $250m or more. Citi needs to get it right. The FT says the decision to give Ryan direct responsibility for the data remediation effort was taken by CEO Jane Fraser along with "bank executives and board members."

Although he's no longer directly responsible for data remediation (but will still be involved), Selva has a big empire at Citi. He's still in charge of enterprise-wide controls and operations. This makes it sound like Selva should really be managing Ash Nawani as head of enterprise data, but Nawani will instead report to Tim Ryan. It's apparently all part of the recognition that data is a technology issue, and Ryan will be responsible for data tech.

In their memo, Selva and Ryan say they appreciate that people in their team are "working long, demanding hours." Citi is hiring hundreds more data professionals, but the demands seem unlikely to disappear soon.

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