Lessons In Leadership, With Titi Cole

In a world that has become incredibly complex, the need for simplicity is more important than ever. Titi Cole, the CEO of Legacy Franchises at Citi, is at the front lines of delivering that simplification. In this episode, she joins J.R. Lowry to share with us how she is leading her team through that simplification process with pride, excellence, and empathy. Aside from taking on a very important leadership position, Titi is also breaking down many barriers in her career. She is the first black woman to serve on Citi’s Executive Management Team and was recognized among the Most Powerful Women in Banking by American Banker. Titi tells us the journey she took to be where she is now while imparting key lessons she learned in leadership. Staying on top of what’s happening in the world, she then talks about digital transformation and innovations happening in the banking industry. She shares what she loves about consumer banking and how Citi is lowering the barriers to access for low-income consumers. Follow along to this conversation and hear more from Titi about simplifying banking and leading an organization against all barriers.

Check out the full series of “Career Sessions, Career Lessons” podcasts here or visit pathwise.io/podcast/. A full written transcript of this episode is also available at https://pathwise.io/podcasts/titi-cole

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Lessons In Leadership, With Titi Cole

CEO Of Legacy Franchises At Citi

My guest is Titi Cole. She is the CEO of Citi’s Legacy Franchises and is responsible for overseeing the bank’s consumer businesses and colleagues in Asia, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and Mexico. Titi is a veteran of the financial services industry and has broken many barriers in her career. She is the first Black woman to serve on Citi’s executive management team and was recognized among the most powerful women in banking by the American Banker.

She has been a longtime champion of diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts and co-leads the Citi Women Inclusion Network. Titi joined Citi in 2020 and prior to that, held leadership roles at Wells Fargo, Bank of America, BMO Harris Bank, and McKinsey. She earned a Bachelor’s degree in Economics while in Nigeria and an MBA from Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management. She also serves on the board of trustees of the Queens University of Charlotte. Titi, welcome. Thanks for joining the show with me. I appreciate it.

Thank you. I’m glad to be here.

It’s been a very long time since we worked together. It’s always fun for me to do these conversations because it gives me a chance to catch up with people I worked with a long time ago. It’s great to see what they have done in their careers and hear more about that. Thank you again. Let’s talk about your current role. What is it and how is it advancing Citi’s overall strategy?

I have the privilege of leading our Legacy Franchises organization. That is essentially our international consumer businesses where we have made the strategic decision to divest, to focus on five interconnected businesses that reflect the globality of the firm, and simplify the firm. We are a tangible expression of the banks simplifying. These are great businesses that have performed very well for decades.

In many countries, iconic businesses. As we think about the value proposition for Citi for our clients, they need to simplify in an increasingly complex world. We have focused on five interconnected businesses that benefit from a global connection and consumer banking internationally doesn’t have synergies across countries. My job is to execute that part of our strategic refresh and help simplify the firm.

What made you want to take on this role? I know it wasn’t your first role at Citi.

It wasn’t my first role at Citi, but it was my second, and it came down to two things. Impact and leadership. Impact because this was going to be one of the most immediately tangible demonstrations of simplifying the firm, which was a key part of the strategy that our new CEO rolled out. To get to be on the front lines of delivering that simplification was very compelling from an impact perspective.

The second reason why I chose the role is this role has allowed me to put to practice everything I have learned in the last thirty years in financial services. Leading through change, motivating teams through difficult times, staying focused on what’s important delivering for the clients. It was a great opportunity to take everything I have learned over the years working across a range of roles in financial services and bring it to bear and lead. When we started this journey, 65,000 great employees at Citi went through what would probably be the most impactful career change they didn’t ask for. To get to lead them through that with pride and a focus on excellence and empathy has been a great opportunity and one I couldn’t say no to.

When you are in those situations and I have worked with people before who have had to deal with a business that’s being wound down or being spun out, it’s hard. It changed for the individual people. What are the biggest challenges that you faced in the role so far? What are you learning from dealing with those challenges?

If you think about the backdrop when we announced a strategic refresh a few years ago and where we are now, it’s been a very active geopolitical environment. Think about the war in Ukraine, increasing tensions between Taiwan and China, and the state of the world economy. One of the most impactful things we have had to navigate is how do you keep this agenda moving forward in a world of increasing complexity.

Geopolitical tensions. One of the countries that I’m responsible for is Poland, which as you can imagine, is right next to where the war has been in Eastern Europe, and also navigating the economic cycle as we have had a threat of a recession. Maybe a mild recession in parts of Europe to a looming recession in the US which could have knock-on impacts in Mexico, which is also one of the franchises I get to lead.

The biggest piece has been navigating the geopolitical and also keeping our employees, who have done an amazing job for decades. A lot of them have been at the bank for 20 or 30 years. Citi is an important financial institution, not in the US but especially outside of us, quite frankly, because of our presence for decades in 95 countries.

Helping our employees understand the decision and then embrace the decision and execute the decision. The biggest source of pride or joy I have found in this role has been leading our teams through the stages of hearing about the decision, the sadness invariably to the acceptance and now embracing the future.

As we have been able to have 9 signed deals out of the 14, we have got great buyers for these great franchises. I now get to see them as they exit the organization with a lot of pride about what they have accomplished, and they are going to be great Citi alum forever. The opportunity to lead them through that career transition has been incredibly impactful. It’s been an amazing experience, not just for me but for my entire leadership team and also for the employees who are in Legacy Franchises as they now move on with pride toward what’s next for them.

Is there a timetable for all of this that you are working toward? Are you trying to make sure you do the transitions in the right way without a firm timetable?

We do have a sense of urgency around this. There’s an imperative to simplify the firm and also not to prolong the uncertainty for the teams unnecessarily. The good news is we have nine signed transactions. Seven of those have closed. We have two more that will close in Taiwan and Indonesia. We have also announced that we are winding down our businesses in Korea, Russia, and China, and those wind-downs are progressing very well.

These are the consumer businesses, with the exception of Russia, where we have announced that we are exiting the country. Now we have got two other transactions that we are still working on through. We announced that we are going to be doing an IPO in Mexico and also in Poland where, because of the geopolitical environment, it’s taking a little bit longer, but we look forward to restarting that process later as well. We are making great progress in simplifying the firm and we will be down to our Mexico IPO, which is well on the path towards that, and then the Poland market to resolve.

You have had a chance. You cover a lot of the world. I would imagine that you have had a lot of opportunities to compare what consumer banking looks like in different parts of the world. How do you see that playing out in different parts of the world? Where are the innovations happening? What happens with things like branch banking? Where do you see it all going?

I will tell you, digital transformation and technology enablement continues to accelerate, not just in our industry but in a lot of industries around the world. As I look at the footprint in Legacy Franchises, a lot of the innovation I see comes out of Asia. They are way ahead in terms of global interconnectedness, payments, and digitization. You go to parts of Asia and you try to bring out cash and people look at you funny like, “What is that?”

Titi Cole: Digital transformation, technology enablement, continues to accelerate not just our industry, but a lot of industries around the world.

They are way ahead of where I would say we are in the States, especially around payments, global payments in particular. As I think about the future of banking, you will continue to see a lot of technology enablement. I think the branches will continue to have a role, but as you and I know from our days at McKinsey, it’s less around service and more around consultative sales and advice when it comes to branches.

When people have high value, high impact, and high ambiguity type transactions or decisions to make, they do like coming in. It could be a branch or financial center, but they do like that personal touch. I do think the personal touch, even as technology continues to accelerate, will be important in our industry and even through it all.

If I think about the last several years, the things that the consumers care about remain consistent. If you think about consumer banking, there are three themes that resonate worldwide. Access and convenience. That was around mobile. That’s about technology. That’s about 24/7. That’s about, “Enabling me to do the transactions smoother, easier, and with less friction.” That continues to be a theme. Show me you know me. Relevant and personalized solutions that are tiered to my needs. Being client-centric and making sure that the sales, the service, and the capabilities are tied to addressing client needs.

The third one, keep me safe and secure. As we saw recently in the States, there was a huge flight to quality for the large banks as a result of what happened with Silicon Valley and the First Republic. That’s a reminder that says regardless of the innovation and all the things going on in the industry, these are consumers’ financial assets that we have the privilege of being custodians of and making sure that their data, information, and funds are safe and secure must continue to be top of mind for all of us in the industry.

Let’s go back to the beginning of your career. I know you grew up in Nigeria. What led you to banking?

I was born in the States, but I grew up in Nigeria because my parents are academics. After their PhDs, they went back home. I was a college kid. I grew up on a college campus. My very first job was in our industry in Lagos, Nigeria. I was an Econ undergrad, and banking was one of those industries then where the banking sector in Nigeria had been deregulated. You went from having three large state-owned banks to those plus a whole lot of what we would now call FinTechs, which were the startup banks. That was the place to work because they were more modern and they were bringing new capabilities. They had less ties to the physical infrastructure.

They were hiring lots of young undergrads to help innovate. That was a natural coming out with an Economics undergrad. A couple of years later, I went to business school at Kellogg at Northwestern. The pitch of coming out of business school for a lot of us was consulting because you get to learn about a whole lot of different industries and do different things. I bought that pitch as you did as well and ended up at McKinsey Chicago. About six years later, after I had my children. I decided that traveling every week was not a good idea.

At that point, I had done most of my studies in financial services and I went back into financial services at BMO Harris in Chicago, right back into the consumer part of the industry because that is the part of the industry I love because of the sense of purpose around helping consumers save for retirement someday. Helping them start their businesses, lift out of poverty, invest in their communities, and that sense of purpose is what has kept me in the industry for years.

Going back to some of the things we were talking about around branch banking and why people have always valued the branch. Neighborhood banking means a lot to people. As global and digital as the world is now, that’s still an important piece. The underbanked have been a big topic in the industry in terms of being able to bring the services into the neighborhoods that maybe haven’t had the banking services that the wealthier areas of a big city like Chicago have had. That’s been a big focus for the industry for many decades now. It’s good that you spend some time focusing on that in your time there.

At Citi, it’s about how you enable access, which is part of our focus around economic progress for all. Access could be through branches. Access, thankfully, is also through a lot of the digital channels and access around making sure the products themselves are accessible to all. When we say we are the first bank to do away with overdraft NSF fees is because we recognize that those fees can be more punitive, especially for low-income consumers, and can be a barrier to access to be able to use their checking accounts. That ability to drive convenience, drive access, and relevant value propositions and keep consumers safe and secure as they invest and build toward their goals is why I love consumer banking.

When you think back to your early days, how did people help you along the way?

I had lots of help and anybody who says they didn’t, they are not self-aware or they are delusional because you can’t do this by yourself. For me, foundationally, I’m a working mom. I’m very fortunate that I married a guy who was very hands-on and we built a partnership where we both worked all the way through our kids’ childhoods and still were able to raise our family.

That support system for me, I would say, was a foundational element and especially for working mothers. Having a good support system is critical to being able to stay in the game, which is to continue to focus on what is important to your family, but also use all those talents and skills you have in the workplace.

With a support system that’s strong, you have a good shot at doing that. Without a support system, it gets hard. I always start with that because I had a good support system, and that made it possible. In the workplace, I had people who took an interest in me. Some looked just like me. Some looked exactly the opposite of my demographic, but they took an interest and they leaned in.

I would always say three things that mentors and sponsors have done for me that helped. One was they gave me feedback. Feedback is a gift and sometimes women or underrepresented minorities don’t get feedback because people are maybe hesitant or not as engaged in their development or not sure how to approach feedback. Feedback is a gift that allows you to continue to refine how you show up, how you engage, and become a better leader. They gave me feedback.

The other thing that they did was they helped create opportunities. It could be opportunities to be part of a project. It could be opportunities to speak at an event. It could even be opportunities to join nonprofit boards. Mentors and sponsors have always been very active in helping create opportunities for me and it’s something that I have taken on as doing for others because you have to pay that forward.

The third thing I would say people have done for me in my career, including our CEO Jane Fraser, they have, at the right times, given me that nudge out of my comfort zone to say, “It’s time for you to do this. You can do this. It’s going to be a great opportunity for you,” and that’s where growth has happened. I’m in this role because our CEO said, “I want Titi to do this.” I didn’t raise my hand, but she leaned in and said, “No. It’s time for you to do this. You are good at what you do. I think that translates into this role.” It’s been probably the most impactful role I have had in my thirty-plus year career.

That is an amazing statement in and of itself. You talked about mentors and sponsorships in that last response. A lot of people don’t understand the difference between a mentor and a sponsor. How would you define the difference between a mentor and a sponsor?

I do think they are two very important parts of what people call your advisory board or people rooting for you, but they are quite different. As mentors, they could be assigned formally through mentoring programs or informally through you got to know each other who, on a regular basis, gives you feedback or gives you advice. It may even create an opportunity for you maybe and they are helping you along in your development. A mentor could be somebody more senior to you. It could also be somebody deep in your organization who’s mentoring you on a specific skill or helping you have a certain experience.

Sponsors are a much high impact level of advocacy. I like to think of a sponsor as they essentially are putting their stamp on you. They are sharing some of their credibility and saying, “I not only advocate for this person, but I am willing to actively say, ‘This person is good. This person has my support. This person is credible.’”

In some way, they are lending their cloak of credibility to you, and that creates a much more compelling platform for growth. Sponsors do tend to be people who are more senior to you in the organization who can open transformational doors for you and are almost vouching for you. A mentor is important, but the level of credibility and credence that a sponsor carries and personal accountability for you because they are essentially saying, “I vouch for this person. They are good. I sponsor them. I advocate for them.” They share in the potential risk of you working out or not. There’s a level of advocacy that sponsorship or a lens that’s a little different from mentorship.

Titi Cole: Sponsors do tend to be people who are more senior to you in the organization and who can really open transformational doors for you.

It is different. A lot of people will focus on having a mentor. Not even everybody does that, from my experience, but too few people think about that notion of sponsorship. They place their career in the hands of their manager. Single threading yourself through one person and depending on them to control the next part of your career is usually not the best option. It’s always helpful to have a broader group of people, as you said, a personal board of advisors or whatever you want to call them. Also, some people who are maybe a bit more senior than your manager are looking out for you.

Mentors can be assigned. You have formal programs. You can’t assign a sponsor because by lending your credibility to somebody else, you got to know them and be sure of what you are vouching for. Sponsors can be in your organization. They could be people from different spheres of your life, but they generally have gotten to experience your leadership. They have gone to experience you in action to then be able to feel comfortable being a strong advocate.

Let’s switch gears a little bit and talk about leadership. You have had a number of roles in several different banks, very senior roles. How would you describe your leadership style and how has it evolved over the years?

I always say this is a question that maybe is better asked by people on my team. They are not here with us so I’m going to have to do my best. If I reflect on feedback, I have gotten and 360 feedback and informal feedback. If I were to describe my leadership style, I would say it is inclusive, engaged, and adaptive. Those things, especially the adaptability, things that I have worked on, learned, and gotten better at over the years because it’s a journey.

I don’t think there’s any perfect leader that everything is figured out. I think of myself as a student of leadership and I’m constantly learning in organizations, roles, or situations I’m in. Sometimes you learn amazing things you would want to do, and other times as impactful, you learn things you will never do when you are the leader.

I always tell people regardless of how difficult the situation might be, there’s always that opportunity there to learn, even if it’s what you won’t do. Sometimes those are the things that make you a better leader. As I think about how my leadership style has evolved, there’s always been a strong sense of curiosity and inclusion because of my background, where I showed up in Corporate America as the other. I understand what it’s like to be the other and try to have a White tent.

I’m very focused on women in the workplace. I grew up with sisters, so there are some natural elements that I have always had. As I have gotten more senior over the last decades, the notion of adaptability is one that has sunk in, which is it’s not about, “Here’s my leadership style, and here’s who I am,” but you have to flex across cultures, situations, and different personality types on your team.

When we talk about diversity and inclusion, it’s not a typical race and gender, but sometimes it’s a processing style and problem-solving style. Leadership adaptability is about being able to meet my team where they are. There are some people where I say XYZ, they get it immediately and they are off and running. I don’t need to check in. The others with different problem-solving styles where it’s a different approach.

Part of leadership is knowing how you are who you are, but you have to flex and adapt both to the environment, to the person, to the team you are leading, and also the cultural conditions. It’s very different in Vietnam versus Mexico versus New York. Part of that leadership adaptability is figuring out how to be effective within all those different local contexts.

You make a great point there. Culture, situation, the people you are dealing with. Being adaptable and adapting your style in all of those situations is incredibly powerful. I see too many leaders who tried to have too much of a one-size-fits-all approach to managing their teams. As you said, everybody is a bit different. They learn and work differently. If you are going to meet them where they are, you need to adapt to that. What do you see as the most important decisions that you make as a leader?

The people’s decisions. As a leader, you are only as strong as your team. I spend a lot of time thinking about our team, the skills, how we work together, how we complement each other, and hiring and firing decisions when you have to make them, but the most important decisions I make are around the team. Who’s on the team? What are we rewarding? What are we recognizing? What culture are we building?

What do you seek if the people’s decisions are important? What do you look for when you hire people in your organization?

At these levels that I hire in, I assume technical competence. I’m not screening for the most brilliant boy or girl in the room. I’m screening for things like self-awareness, collaboration, listening skills, flexibility in their approach, how they think about working on teams, and decision-making. Those are the things that I’m screening for less around technical expertise. I learned this at McKinsey. You probably remember it.

They have these phrases that we talked about for years, and they are a handful that stick with me. One of them was from an engagement manager. It’s my 2nd or 3rd year at McKinsey. He said, “We don’t do brilliant jerks,” and that stuck with me. Every time I’m hiring since McKinsey, I play back that, “I don’t want or need brilliant jerks on my team. We don’t need that.” Brilliance, yes. Jerks, no. The work we are doing, we don’t need brilliant jerks. We want people who are smart and motivated but also want to work with other people and collaborate to get things done the right way. I screen out brilliant jerks.

I maybe think about it in some ways similarly and in some ways different. I put a premium on people who are low-drama. The problem with brilliant jerks is they always bring drama with them and drama is a massive time sucker, which you don’t want to have as a leader. Since we are talking about time now, what do you think about spending your time? Where do you try to focus the time that you spend?

If I had my ideal day and it’s not always ideal, I would spend at least half of my time with our team and with my clients. Maybe another 20% with what I call external stakeholders. The industry, our regulators, and folks that matter in DC. Another 25% or 30% in the internal workings of things we have to do. When I talk about spending time with the team, it’s with the team working through the things we have to do. I do like to spend my time with our team and with the clients, and to make sure I’m not insular, but I’m also connected to what’s going on across the industry and with our key stakeholders.

As you were coming up the ranks, I’m sure there were some things that you worked on developing. You talked about learning to become more adaptable. What were the strengths that you were able to draw on again and again as you progressed through these different roles over the years?

As I think about the last few decades, some of the things that I would say are hallmarks that have helped, so, to your point, strengths, one was I have always had a strong sense of curiosity. Every single day, it’s about what can I learn that’s new. Questions that should be answered. That strong sense of curiosity has kept me learning over the last several years, which makes you a much more interesting leader or a much more effective leader because you are pretty plugged into what’s going on within your organization and also outside your organization. That guides against insularity. There’s that natural curiosity and a quest for learning that has made a difference for me.

The second piece, some of it is my cultural background and some of it is my attributes. On Myers-Briggs, I’m one of those people with the Fs. I remember at McKinsey, they are like, “Fs have a tough time here because you are always feeling stuff.” It’s hard when you have to make tough decisions. It’s hard, but I’m a very empathetic person.

I come in team situations. I come at problem-solving from not the what but also the how. The brilliant answer and the great answer, but how are we going to execute this? How are we going to communicate this? How are we going to lead our people through this? Having a natural bend towards thinking not about the what, but the how and how it’s going to land on the different stakeholders has helped me in terms of being able to drive change effectively without breaking a lot of eggs, drama, and noise. Getting things done but getting things done the right way in a way that also builds a lot of collaboration and followership.

The third thing I would say has probably been a natural strength that has helped because I have shown up in Corporate America as the other. I have a strong sense of how do you bring people together. How do you reach out across the different silos and get people to work together? I’m the leader who’s always going to ask, “Have you talked to that group about that?” Let’s check with that because I have an instinct for who needs to be engaged, who is not engaged, and how we bring them together. Those things have helped to be able to drive change in large complex organizations to build strong followership, which is important as a leader and then to have an impact.

Apart from that focusing on being more adaptable in the style that you talked about, what are the other areas that you have worked on developing?

Being a better listener. I am fairly quick at things. Early on, it was like, “This is what we need to do,” and now we are off to the races. I have had to work on listening. I have had to work on making sure. Patience. What is the question behind the question and not assuming we have got it all figured out? That’s why, again, learning there as we brought more and more people into problem-solving, you see the power of much more comprehensive and holistic solutions. Listening, in particular, was something I had to work on. Active listening, not just racing ahead in my mind to, “Here’s where you are going.”

Titi Cole: As we bring more and more people into problem-solving, you see the power of more comprehensive, holistic solutions.

You talked about leading through change. You have been involved in some fairly transformative things over the years. How do you cope within lead through change?

I have a natural bias towards change, which helps because I tend to come at change from, “This is an opportunity to do something else, so learn something new.” That helps. The natural bias towards change comes from that curiosity and that need to learn new things that I talked about. Change, by definition, is going to expose you to something different from the norm, which gives you this opportunity to learn at least about something. Even if you might not like it, it’s going to be different.

The natural bias towards change helps. A couple of things that I also try to keep top of mind when going through times of change, either professionally or personally. One is you are going to learn from this one way or the other. There’s a lesson and there are learnings, and those things help you be stronger and more resilient. The second thing that I have learned as I have gone through navigating especially difficult change is you have to keep perspective. No matter how challenging the situation is, this, too, shall pass.

When you go through hard times, you build this amazing muscle of resilience where you are going to look back and like, “If I got through that, then the next version of that is not going to be as challenging or as threatening,” because you know that you have navigated through even more difficult environment.

It’s that sense of, “This too shall pass. Nothing lasts forever. You can get through anything for whatever period of time.” Coming out of it, you are going to be even stronger for that next change or that next opportunity. You are probably going to learn something from it that if you hadn’t gone through the experience, you wouldn’t have, and so it’s a net positive.

This notion of getting comfortable with being uncomfortable to hear people talking about. You talked about now and then you need a nudge and Jane came to you about this role. It wasn’t that you necessarily raised your hand for it. All of those experiences that will feel hard at the moment, you do come out of them stronger and you learn from them.

You then are more confident about the next time you are facing a high degree of change.

I know you are heavily involved in diversity efforts at Citi. You have made reference to being the other in the room a number of times in the conversation and that’s important to you. What are some of the ways that Citi is working to promote diversity, equity, and inclusion?

I would say I have been very fortunate right from our time at McKinsey to work at organizations where there was a pretty active agenda around DE&I and being that leader who was always going to be involved even before I was senior. I would be in the networks. I would join the mentoring programs to mentor people. I did campus recruiting because I always felt the need of I want to pay back those who did that for me, and came through campus, recruited, interviewed, and hired me.

Also, the need to continue to push for change in our industry. Financial services are still… We have made progress, but we are not where we need to be. It’s not race and gender. It’s sexual orientation. It’s all the different diversity dimensions. In every firm I have been at, I have been very involved in this work because the work matters and not for reasons of virtue signaling or whatever, but because research shows that it drives tangible outcomes.

We should represent the communities we serve. When we do, we are able to come up with more relevant and tailored solutions for them. Back to the show me, you know me that I talked about with our clients at the start. At Citi, I’m proud of the work that the firm has done for decades and continues to accelerate under Jane’s leadership.

We are the first bank with a female CEO that’s a major bank, but it’s not just having Jane in that position. Our board of directors is over 50% female. A few years ago, we publicly communicated goals around Black representation as manager plus levels and also gender female. We exceeded that and we have transparently shared how we got there.

We set new goals for the next five-year horizon and added more categories, including the first bank to have goals around early campus recruiting for LGBTQ team members. No other major bank has that. Beyond just the workaround representation, it’s embedding this into our business strategy. When we have business reviews, we talk about clients, financials, risks, and people. Part of the people segment is how we are doing on hiring and recruiting DE&I in every single business segment.

It is part of our business strategy. We are transparent about where we are making progress and where we are not. We have also made sure that we are not only driving diversity in terms of representation but doing the work around a more inclusive culture, creating a culture of belonging so that you not only hire a more diverse workforce, but they feel they can develop, you can retain them, and they can be promoted and thrive at Citi. We have made great progress. We are not at the end of the job, but I am proud of the work that we do.

People want to feel like they can bring their authentic selves to work and that they can find a sense of belonging in the company that they are in. How do you bring your authentic self to work?

I learned early on that I didn’t have a choice. There’s that saying like, “Be yourself. Everybody else is taken.” Even beyond that, I am so different from the norm when you say executive or banker. I’m a Nigerian American, woman, with a name called Titi Cole, which throws people off. I’m almost 6 feet tall. I have a Nigerian accent. On so many levels, from my days at McKinsey, I’m going to stand out. I learned early on that being who I am and trying to be the best version of myself every single day was so much more effective than trying to be somebody else. There’s a lot of mental baggage and filtering that happens when you are trying to be somebody else.

The key is authentic self doesn’t mean that you are not learning and growing and getting better. An authentic self also doesn’t mean that you are not flexible and adaptable. I show up as my authentic self as this Nigerian American banking executive who works hard with her teams but also is a working mom.

I talk about how important my family is, who is a runner, a music enthusiast, and yogi and all the things that matter to me. I show up as my authentic self in the workplace and I talk about those things. That normalizes the dialogue in the workplace about, “We are much more than bankers. We all have things we care about and people we care about, and all the experiences that we have had inform the person that we are.”

We still have a ways to go, but we have come a long way from the days when you wanted your leaders, especially your CEOs, to be infallible. There was that distance that they worked at keeping the steely-faced, hard-edged, and never let him see you sweat thing. That must have been hard.

It was hard because they were humans, but they had to hold up this persona. It also meant that people didn’t feel connected to them. I always say to feel like you are going to follow somebody and you want them to lead you, and you are inspired by them, you have to feel like you know them. Not be best friends but have some connection to them. If all you get is this box persona that doesn’t show any emotional feelings or talk about anything personal, and they are this tough as nails. How do you connect to that? It’s hard.

I feel like we are all in a much better place now where you don’t have to create this illusion of being perfect. You need to bring your best self to work. You don’t necessarily get to bring all of your baggage. It’s a lot easier for people to relate to you if they understand what’s important to you. They see a little bit of you in the way that you lead. You have highlighted a little bit, but I’m curious. You are in a demanding role. You have been in demanding roles. What do you do to recharge your battery and keep yourself energized apart from yoga? I would imagine that’s part of it.

It is. I learned that I am a much better leader when I take the time for the things that energize me. I’m a better wife, mother, and all those things. For me, it falls into two buckets. One is things that energize me physically. I’m an outdoor runner, at least a couple of times a week, wherever I am, if I’m allowed to go outside.

There are some parts of the world where it’s a little less safe, but 90% of the year, a couple of times a week, I’m outdoor running. I’m slower every single year, but I’m still out there. I do yoga which calms me but also allows me to run relatively injury-free. I love music. On any given evening, if I’m on my sofa, wherever I am, I’m listening to music. Those things center me, relax me, and ground me.

Family and friends. I love spending time with my kids. They are at that age now where they are entering the workforce, so we have fascinating conversations. Back to the support system. My husband and my sisters, what I call my tribe, it was an amalgamation of friends. Some of us worked together. Others we met in different parts of life over the last few decades. I have a strong support system of folks that make me laugh, cheer me on, inspire me, challenge me, and keep me grounded. All those things energize me.

Last question. Any last career lessons that you’d want our audience to take away?

I feel like we have talked about a lot, as I think about a 30-year journey and 25-plus of those being in Corporate America. To those who are coming, the next generation is coming through. I would say three things. One is to stay on a lifelong learning journey. You will never be bored and you will always be growing. You will always be prepared for what will inevitably be over decades of twists and turns because Corporate America or corporate wherever you are is going to go through a series of transformations over the coming decades. If you are on a lifelong learning journey, you are constantly acquiring new skills, expertise networks, and things like that will allow you to thrive in the variable twists and turns.

Titi Cole: Stay on a lifelong learning journey, then you’ll never be bored, you’ll always be growing, and you’ll always be prepared for what will inevitably be over decades of twists and turns.

The second thing I would say is relationships matter. Prioritize not just the what but the how in building relationships and networks. Not just your employer. It might be people you went to school with or it might be people you meet in your social circles. Build and maintain relationships. They could be peer-based relationships. People are more senior and have relationships with people. Deep down in your teams, you never know where you are going to meet them. The world is surprisingly small and relationships matter.

The last thing I would say is to tap into that purpose. I have stayed in this industry for years because I care about what we do. If I didn’t, it’d been hard because our industry financial services has gone through a lot at least my third major crisis in terms of financial crisis in my working time. I have stayed in it because I care about what we do, and at our best, how we enable consumers to achieve their hopes and dreams and lift generations out of poverty. For me, that’s my why. Find your why in whatever industry, and then it will feel less like work. Yes, it is still work, but that sense of purpose will get you through the tough days, and there will be tough days, but that sense of purpose makes a big difference, so find your why.

All good pieces of advice. This has been good. I’m happy we had a chance to reconnect. I’m deeply appreciative of your time. Thank you again, and have a great rest of your day.

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It was great catching up with Titi, having a chance to talk about what she’s doing at Citi, and the great things that Citi is doing around the world, and also her career journey and the things that she has learned along the way. There is so much good advice in there for anybody who wants to take control of their career and make the most of it.

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About Titi Cole

Titi Cole is Citi’s CEO of Legacy Franchises, responsible for overseeing the bank’s consumer businesses and colleagues in Asia, Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Mexico. Titi is a 30-year veteran of the financial services industry and has broken many barriers during her career. She is the first Black woman to serve on Citi’s Executive Management Team and was recognized among the Most Powerful Women in Banking by American Banker. She has been a longtime champion of Diversity, Equity & Inclusion efforts and co-leads the global Citi Women inclusion network.

Titi joined Citi in 2020 and, prior to her current role, served as the Head of Global Operations and Fraud Prevention and the Chief Client Officer for Personal Banking and Wealth Management. Before that, Titi was the Head of Consumer and Small Business Banking Operations and Contact Centers at Wells Fargo after previously leading Shared Services for Consumer Credit Solutions. She also served as a member of Wells Fargo’s Management Committee. Previously, Titi led Retail Products and Underwriting for Bank of America with responsibility for the consumer credit card, debit and checking businesses, credit card underwriting and fulfillment, and the enterprise payments network group. She has also held leadership roles at BMO Harris Bank in Chicago and McKinsey.

Titi earned a Bachelor of Economics degree from the University of Ibadan in Nigeria and an MBA from Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management. Titi also serves on the Board of Trustees for Queens University of Charlotte.