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

efinancialcareers.com:

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