Good morning, Broadsheet readers! Oracle CEO Safra Catz is among the top-paid chief executives, Wimbledon ditches its all-white dress code for women, and Citi CEO Jane Fraser reflects on leading with empathy. Enjoy your Wednesday!
- Citi says. Earlier this year, the state of Texas booted Citigroup from its bonds business. Texas's conservative lawmakers said that Citi "discriminates" against the gun industry—the bank limited its engagement with the sector in 2018 after the Parkland shooting—and prevented Citi from underwriting $3.4 billion in municipal bonds.
Citi CEO Jane Fraser has been level-headed about the fallout of that decision, as she told Fortune CEO Alan Murray in an interview at a Fortune CEO Initiative dinner late last month.
"You focus on what it is your company stands for," she said. "You focus on what it is that your clients need, and you get on with the day job. [If someone says] you can't sell our bonds, you then suck it up."
Fraser's status as the first woman to lead a major Wall Street bank may help her navigate those moments without going into panic mode. "I'm a Scots woman running an American bank—a global bank," she says. "So I hope I bring some different things."
The value of a different perspective became even clearer to Fraser during the pandemic, when all of a sudden she wasn't the only finance CEO talking about empathy. Fraser had long been comfortable talking about the human side of business. She earned praise for continuing some degree of flexible work after most of Wall Street called workers back to the office full-time, acknowledging that flexible work benefitted women—but then clarified that employees could still be called in for "coaching" if they underperformed while working remotely.
She calls empathy a "hard skill"—not a soft skill. "I see empathy as listening to clients and being in tune with your talent," she says. "You'll come up with a competitive advantage in the talent market or you'll be listening to your clients instead of pushing your idea on them."
Emma Hinchliffe
emma.hinchliffe@fortune.com
@_emmahinchliffe
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