Business Blog: Hoover’s Business Insight Zone

The great question about the promotion of Vikram Pandit to the head of the table at Citigroup is whether “new CEO” equates to “new direction” for the mammoth bank.

I am one of many who thinks that Citi needs a new direction — one less beholden to Sandy Weill’s vision of consolidation, one more beholden to getting the most out of an incredibly huge array of assets.

In the words of this BusinessWeek story, Pandit has placed his emphasis on “improving productivity, positioning the company for the future, and fostering key talent.” This is a good start.

1. Productivity: Citigroup has been getting less out of more than its peers, and efforts to streamline the bank went sloooowly under former CEO Chuck Prince.
2. Positioning for the future: I’ve argued before, parroting Jack Welch, that the hard work of management is to balance the short-term versus the long-term. That’s especially a challenge for Citi, which hasn’t been doing too great on either front.
3. Fostering key talent: Along with the balance of short and long term, this is the other term in the Grand Unified Equation of business leadership. The fact that Chuck Prince (and, even more so, Stan O’Neal at Merrill Lynch) failed at this was a hallmark of the lack of leadership during his tenure.

Pandit has his work cut out for him. It will be interesting to see whether he’s up to the job, especially if that means carving Citigroup into pieces.