Excellence in leadership in North America 2020: Citi

Awards for Excellence 2020

As of late June 2020, Citi, together with its charitable Citi Foundation, had committed some $100 million to Covid-19 relief efforts. While the targets of its aid are varied, the bank has made a special focus on supporting people and communities of colour, recognizing the disproportionate impact the pandemic has had on these communities.

Individual employees at the bank have played their part, donating some $2 million to the efforts, which Citi has matched through its Double the Good programme.

“Covid-19 has changed our thinking of how we can have the most impact,” says Brandee McHale, head of Citi Community Investing and Development. “We are 100% convinced that we cannot approach society’s issues in silos if we want to create resilient communities.

“The health crisis is an economic crisis, which is a housing crisis, which is an education crisis… In order to drive systemic change, we have to start thinking beyond verticals and look at broader outcomes.”

As chief executive Michael Corbat acknowledged on the bank’s first-quarter earnings call, historically Citi has not been a big player in small business lending. But the bank has stepped up a gear, promising to donate any net profits from its participation in the US government’s Paycheck Protection Program, delivering $25 million to the Citi Foundation so far as a result.

The foundation is helping to support Community Development Finance Institutions (CDFIs), and is specifically deploying $15 million to these institutions to assist businesses owned by people of colour and low- and moderate-income individuals and communities.

The other $10 million is going to the New York Forward Loan Fund, which helps small businesses get the working capital they need to keep payroll and maintenance going.

As Corbat said in a statement in late June: “Covid-19 has brought to the forefront the racial, economic and social inequalities that exist in our communities. Partnering with community-based financial institutions to support those businesses and populations most impacted helps address the disparities that persist and support our communities in need.”

In New York specifically, the bank has been tireless in its initiatives. These have included donating 50,000 masks to Memorial Sloan Kettering Hospital.

But it’s not just healthcare supplies. The bank has also been vigorously supporting food programmes, not least through its North American rates business, which has pledged to donate $1 for every $1 million traded electronically in interest rate products in the US. It has also funded meals for 1,000 workers at New York-Presbyterian Queens hospital.

And Citi has even turned itself into a food bank. It worked with its catering supply partners and United Neighborhood Houses NY, a settlement house organization, to turn kitchens at the bank’s 388 Greenwich Street headquarters into a production centre for 1,000 meals a day, distributed across the city.