Citi Taps Nearly 30-Year Veteran To Lead Citi FinTech

Citigroup announced Thursday (March 9) it has named Yolande Piazza as the head of Citi FinTech, which Stephen Bird, chief executive of Citi’s Global Consumer Bank, said is core to the company’s future.

In a letter to staff, Bird said Citi FinTech will play a vital role in the company’s future with Citi FinTech charged with delivering a “radically simple, connected customer experience on mobile.” The executive said that via co-creation with customers, an agile operating model and next-generation technology, Citi FinTech’s mandate is to change and accelerate how the financial company designs, build, creates, works and, ultimately, delivers, and that will all happen under the charge of Piazza.

“As many of you know, Yo has been leading the team on an interim basis for the last few months. Under her leadership, we successfully launched a new set of features for U.S. Retail Bank clients that make us the first global bank to integrate banking and wealth management on mobile — epitomizing ‘playing to win.’ Client feedback is terrific, colleagues have a powerful platform for engagement, reengineered processes are reducing costs and improving speed, and the team has established itself as a trusted partner with the businesses,” Bird wrote.

Piazza has nearly 30 years’ experience at Citi and has held several key technology leadership roles, most recently serving as the chief operating officer of Citi FinTech.  Prior, she served as chief administrative officer of GCB Operations and Technology for seven years and CIO of the Student Loan Corporation and led a number of change management initiatives throughout her career, he said in the memo.

“In 2016, our progress becoming a world-class digital bank tangibly accelerated. This year, we are shifting into higher gear across the entire franchise to design and deliver the best mobile experience to clients faster than ever before,” Bird wrote.