What advice would you offer
prospective candidates on transitioning from school to the
workplace?
View your transition to the workplace as a
learning opportunity to be maximized. You have to learn the
nitty-gritty details of how work gets done before you can really
add value to the more strategic, big-picture issues of the
business.
If asked about your career at a dinner
party, how would you describe it?
I think I have the
best job in the world – I get to try things out and learn on
the job. The goal is to ultimately end up managing part of a
business in our bank, but the expectation is that my career will
span lots of different types of jobs in financial services, keeping
things interesting for a long time to come.
What do you consider Citi’s competitive
edge?
I think Citi’s competitive edge is its
globality – operating in 100 countries across all kinds of
financial services gives us an unbeatable scope. I think you
see the effects of that in our employees – we tend to attract the
type of person who’s excited about the possibility of working all
over the world.
What skills have you found to be the
most useful in your position?
What I’ve found to be
most useful in my position is quite simply: attitude.
Sure, having a business school knowledge of how to make a business
case for an investment or put together a good Powerpoint has come
in handy now and again, but I’ve found that if I approach each new
experience with an open mind and as a chance to learn as much as I
can, it opens up all kinds of opportunities.
Where do you see yourself in 5
years?
In five years I’d like to be running my own P&L – “owning” a
small part of our business. But I know that I’d also be
thinking about my next role – people here tend to try out lots of
different types of work over their careers, which to me makes
things exciting and keeps you sharp.