Vikram Pandit
Vikram Pandit SEAS '76, MS (Engineering) '77, MPhil (Business) '80, PhD '86 is the current CEO of Citi and one of Columbia's Trustees. His SEAS degrees are in Electrical Engineering. Prior to joining Citi, he was a co-founder of hedge fund Old Lane Partners, which he sold to Citi for $800 million, a sum criticised given Old Lane's lack of history (it was founded in 2005) and lackluster performance. Prior to his tenure at Old Lane, he ran the capital markets group at Morgan Stanley, which he left during the leadership battle surrounding ousted former Chairman and CEO Phil Purcell.
Pandit faces a tall order restoring performance and profitability to Citi. The financial conglomerate's stock is down 40% for the year in 2007, and cannot be said to have performed well at all since it was formed out of a 1998-99 merger between Citibank and Travelers Group. In addition, he faces calls from many activist investors who want to spin off or sell off businesses, or break the bank up entirely.
