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Who

Vikram Pandit is the embattled chief executive officer of Citigroup. He was appointed to the top job 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, realigned the company's management structure, ravamped the firm's marketing message, and slashed tens of thousands jobs. (Embarrassingly, he was also forced to shutter Old Lane, the fund that brought him to Citi in the first place.) His efforts did little to prevent the bank from nearly going bust as the global financial meltdown deepened in the fall of 2008. Thanks to a bailout from Washington, Citigroup managed to survive, but both the bank and Pandit's future at Citi remain on shaky ground.

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, John Havens, who heads up Citi's securities and investment banking divisions, and Don Callahan, the bank's chief administrative officer. Bob Rubin served as the bank's senior counselor until his resignation in early 2009.

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.