North America Operations & Technology > Graduate

Business Description

We have designed these sections to aid you in your understanding of the Operations & Technology program, the services we provide to our clients and how we are structured. In the subsequent tabs we have asked for input from our Management Associates/Summer Associates and also the recruiters to describe the type of person we are looking for as well as the recruitment process.

What is Operations & Technology?

North America Operations & Technology (NA O&T) is a business utility serving the operational and technology needs of the Global Consumer Group North American businesses. While the name denotes operations and technology support, we are also comprised of many other functions leveraged across North America, including: Collections, Transaction Services, Finance, Risk Control, Human Resources, Strategic Projects, Workforce Management and Business Process Reengineering.

What service do we provide to our clients?

What’s remarkable about NA O&T is the sheer number of customer interactions – more than 7.5 billion touch points per year. From paper statements to online transactions, the breakout for 2006 looked like this:

Which means…

That’s enough to fill each of the 57,546 seats in Yankee Stadium with more than 1,500 credit cards!

If you were to make one call a minute for the next 88 years, you’d only complete 10% of the calls NA O&T handled in 2006.

Because of these massive volumes, quality is an essential element for NA O&T. Even if NAO&T were 99% accurate with customer transactions, 880,000 customers would have received credit cards with errors, 4 million customers would not have been able to complete an online transaction, and 3 million ATM transactions would have been incorrect or incomplete. It’s largely because of the efforts of NA O&T’s dedicated and conscientious employees that our customers can depend on Citi for their financial services needs.

How we are structured:

With more than 50,000 employees at over 70 sites, North America Operations and Technology (NA O&T) partners with each of Citi’s Global Consumer Group North America businesses: Cards (including Citi Assurance Services), Retail Distribution (Citibank, CitiFinancial, and Primerica), Consumer Lending (Auto, Real Estate Lending and Student Loans) and Commercial Business Group.

Roles of an MA

To give you a better understanding of what you can expect if you join the Operations & Technology division, we asked for some input from our MA’s. Here they describe their experiences during the program.

Jenna Glasser
2005 Management Associate

Off Program Role: Relationship Manager, Diners and Business Card Operations

I've worked in three areas of Cards: as an analyst in Collections Utilities, centralizing 19 functions from 5 sites to one; as a unit manager in Customer Service Phones for Co-Branded Cards, managing 25 agents; and as a project manager for Sears Operations, developing and implementing an Associate focus group to integrate client feedback into business operations.

In my first rotation, I was exposed to the breadth of what goes into making our operations work. On a team with members of service engineering, desktop development, compliance, process quality, and operations managers from multiple sites, I helped re-engineer 19 functions to optimize efficiency. Recently, I've been immersed in the depth of our work, presenting my developments to senior managers in both the front end and operations side of our business, influencing them (successfully) to implement similar teams in all parts of the Partnership Group. It is an amazing experience to spend your morning talking to Associates at the sites in which you work and your afternoon discussing the sites with my boss's and his boss-and a wonderful lesson in adjusting delivery to suit your audience.

In business school, everyone tells you to specialize, but future MAs should remember the greatest strength of our program is the diversity of opportunity we have, and the advantage that gives us over individuals who only know one part of the business, from one perspective. Take every chance you get to learn something new, whether you take a job in an unfamiliar area or let someone from another part of the business tell you about what they do. The half hour you spend with them could change your life!

Our Programs

North America Operations & Technology has two programs you can apply for:

• Full time Program
• Summer internship

Full time program

Our North America Operations & Technology Management Associate Program was established to bring a continual flow of talented prospective leaders into the organization and to oversee their development within the context of a structured program. Management Associates develop strong leadership capabilities and form a group of professionals who are prepared to meet rapidly expanding and evolving leadership needs in the operations centers.

Over a two-year period, Management Associates rotate through three distinct Operations assignments across different NA O&T business areas. Concurrent with the broad rotations, each MA class collaborates to work on a high-level project chosen by members of the senior leadership team.

Management Associates who successfully complete the program will be prepared for leadership positions managing people or projects within any number of operational areas. During their careers at Citi, Management Associates are expected to progress through a variety of roles with increasing scope, complexity, and leadership responsibilities.

Summer Internship

This high-intensity, 10 to 12 week program helps students learn the inner workings of operations within the financial services industry. SAs are paired with successful business leaders who provide direction, coaching and mentoring to help SAs build business knowledge and leadership skills through completion of a critical business project.

A Summer Associate Conference provides exposure to senior leaders and the opportunity to learn about the current business environment and future challenges. Opportunities exist for talented Summer Associates to receive invitations to join the Management Associate Program upon completion of their Graduate Degrees.

Who we are looking for

Successful candidates are exceptional graduate students with expertise in General Business Management, Operations Management, Production Management, Operations Research, or Industrial Engineering, which would typically be acquired through a minimum of 3-5 years relevant business experience.

Key attributes of a qualified candidate include:

• Strong leadership and interpersonal skills
• Excellent communication and relationship building abilities
• Strong analytical and critical thinking skills
• Learning agility and adaptability to changing business directions
• Desire and ability to manage and lead others
• Ability to manage multiple priorities in a dynamic and complex environment
• Geographic mobility and the desire to gain experience in multiple businesses across multiple sites

With our primary focus of building future leaders, our most successful candidates are those who enjoy coaching, developing and leading others to success!

Recruitment Process

In order to be considered for this program, you must apply online. Please also apply through your university's Career Services Office. Only applications submitted through both systems will be considered.

Where

Where we are located…

Our organizational footprint across North America affords us a unique opportunity to provide work assignments in as many as nine of our core operations sites.

In order to provide the most robust development experience for Management Associates, host sites have been identified based on the following:  

• Site or geographic region provides exposure to multiple NA O&T businesses, with a bias toward larger sites and geographic regions to provide a broader, more robust development experience
• NA O&T Senior Leaders are resident within site or geographic region
• Site willingness and leadership strength to actively sponsor Management Associates

The following sites/regions with an O&T presence have been identified as NA O&T Program core host sites:

• Cincinnati, OH Metro (Blue Ash, Florence)
• New York Metro (LIC, NYC and NJ)
• Dallas, TX Metro (Coppell, Dallas, Irving)
• San Antonio, TX
• Jacksonville, FL
• The Lakes, NV
• Kansas City, MO
• Tucson, AZ
• Maryland Metro (Baltimore, Frederick, Hagerstown)