Who

Vikram Pandit was appointed chief executive of Citigroup in December 2007, following the ouster of Chuck Prince.

Backstory

Born in Bombay, Pandit moved to the U.S. as a teenager and enrolled at Columbia when he was just 16. He stuck around long enough to earn a Ph.D. in finance and spent a short spell teaching at Indiana University before joining Morgan Stanley as an associate in 1983. Pandit's rise was quick: Seven years after arriving, he was named managing director and by 1994, he was running the firm's equity derivatives business. In 2000, Pandit was tapped by John Mack to co-head Morgan's trading operations and he later assumed responsibility for sales, trading and investment banking. But Pandit's career took a sharp turn in 2005 following Mack's widely lamented decision to leave the company: After Pandit clashed with then-CEO Phil Purcell over his leadership, Purcell responded by promoting two loyalists, Zoe Cruz and Stephen Crawford, to more senior positions. Pandit walked out the door the very same day, and founded a hedge fund called Old Lane with John Havens, Morgan Stanley's former head of equities, and Guru Ramakrishnan, the firm's former trading chief.

The financier didn't have to go it alone for very long. Less than a year after setting up shop, Pandit hammered out a deal with Citigroup's Chuck Prince to sell Old Lane to the banking giant for an estimated $800 million. Critics assailed the hefty price tag, particularly since the fund had yet to generate very impressive returns; others were just relieved that Prince had managed to recruit more seasoned management to the embattled bank. What few expected, though, was that Pandit would end up replacing Prince as CEO just six months later. After Citi announced substantial losses in connection with the subprime mortgage meltdown, Prince was forced out as the company's chief executive and Pandit took over in December of 2007.

Of note

Pandit wasn't the first person that Citigroup's board—led by then-acting chairman Bob Rubin—considered for the top job at the troubled financial giant. John Thain was a leading contender, but he opted to take up the CEO spot at Merrill Lynch instead. Despite the board's doubts about Pandit's demeanor (he isn't known as the warmest banker in town) and his lack of experience running a public company, finding a skilled exec to right the ship proved to be a difficult task and when few other alternatives presented themselves during a month-long search process, Pandit was handed the reins. He's since written off tens of billions in subprime loans, scrambled to raise additional financing for the beleaguered bank from the likes of the Abu Dhabi state investment fund, Kuwait Investment Authority, and Singapore Investment Company, realigned the company's management structure, ravamped the firm's marketing message, and slashed more than 10,000 jobs. (Embarrassingly, he was also forced to shutter Old Lane, the fund that brought him to Citi in the first place.) But more changes may be on the way. After selling Citi's commercial lending and leasing business to Jeff Immelt's GE in April 2008, there has been talk that Citi may divest itself of other business units to raise capital and streamline operations.

On the job

Win Bischoff, who was acting CEO following Prince's departure, is now Citi's chairman. Pandit's chief deputies include chief financial officer Gary Crittenden; Michael Klein and John Havens, who's chairman and CEO of the institutional client group, respectively; and chief administrative officer Don Callahan. Bob Rubin has returned to his former post of chairman of the bank's executive committee.

Board game

Pandit sits on the board of the Upper West Side private school Trinity. He's also a trustee of Columbia University, along with Lee Bollinger, Philip Milstein, Gerry Lenfest, Jose Cabranes, and Mark Kingdon, among others.

Personal

The low-key Pandit and his wife, Swati, have two kids. In 2006, the couple purchased three adjoining apartments at 310 East 53rd Street for $9.8 million. But they're on the move again: In 2007, the couple acquired the late Tony Randall's 10-room spread at the Beresford for $17.85 million.