Inside CEO Jane Fraser’s 5-year grind to restore Citi’s credibility
In today’s CEO Daily: Fortune publishes its 2026 Most Powerful Women list. The big leadership story: CEOs are starting to rethink their predictions of an AI jobs apocalypse. The markets: Mixed globally after the S&P 500 hits another high. Plus: All the news and watercooler chat from Fortune. Good morning. When Jane Fraser became CEO of Citigroup five years ago, she took over an institution struggling with dysfunction, from cumbersome IT systems to a complacent culture that had produced embarrassing and costly mistakes. Some held her up as an example of the “glass cliff,” where women break through the glass ceiling to get top roles under circumstances that make it almost impossible to succeed. But Fraser did succeed, turning a sprawling bank behemoth into a more streamlined and high-performing company. As a result, Fraser is No. 1 on the 2026 Fortune Most Powerful Women list that was published this morning. It’s been a tough journey and, as Fraser tells my colleague Claire Zillman in this accompanying feature, there’s more to do in terms of shedding jobs and underperforming parts of the portfolio. But with a stock price that’s up by more than two-thirds over the past year, investors clearly believe that she can do it. The women on this year’s list, now in its 29th year, oversee a combined 11.8 million employees and $7.3 trillion in annual revenue. They also hold 180 board seats and work across 20 countries and territories. In addition to measuring leaders by the size and health of their businesses, we evaluated their influence, innovation, career trajectories, and efforts to make business better. As Fortune’s Most Powerful Women Editor Emma Hinchliffe notes in her opening essay, this year’s ranking highlights the rise of women in realms from AI to Big Oil. Hinchliffe suggests keeping an eye on the women CFOs at leading AI companies, from Sarah Friar at OpenAI to Amy Hood at Microsoft: “They are making spending decisions that will determine the future of their compani