Citi Continues to Overhaul It's Board

The latest in Citigroup changes has named Lawrence Ricciardi to its board. Ricciardi served as a number of top IBM positions from 1995 to 2002. He currently sits on the board of Royal Dutch Shell and has been a director at Koninklijke Nederlandsche Petroleum and Readers Digest. He was on Readers Digest audit and finance committees, according to FinancialWeek.

Citigroup’s evolution stems back to November 2007 when CEO Charles Prince was ousted. Prince’s force-out occurred as Citigroup wrote down another $11 billion in bad mortgage assets. Robert Rubin, former U.S. Treasury secretary and co-head of Goldman Sachs, became chairman. Win Bischoff took over as interim CEO.

Vikram Pandit was named CEO of Citigroup in December 2007. Bischoff became Citi’s chairman.

In April 2008, at least three shareholder advisory firms scrutinized Citigroup’s board of directors and recommended that investors vote against the company’s directors at its annual meeting on April 22.

On July 9, Citi announced that the dean of Harvard Business School would join its board. Jay O. Light, an expert in asset and risk management, has led the business school since 2005. His appointment came during Citi’s $40 billion in write-offs and a share price that has fallen more than 66 percent in the past year.

Aside from revamping its team, Citigroup has become one of the latest investment banks to increase its equities division in Dubai, according to The Wall Street Journal. Middle East companies continue to raise money in equity capital markets despite global economic woes.