Tuesday, November 20, 2007

The Only Choice for Citigroup's CEO


Citi needs a CEO with the following qualities:
- Strong financial experience across a wide range of products and services
- Strong moral and ethical principles to guide him/her through a difficult period in the company's history
- Ability to stand and fight to preserve the company.

Who does this sound like? In my mind, there's only one person for the job:


Batman. That's right. He's obsessed with the law, wildly successful in both financial and legal arenas AND he has his own car -- no need to give him 5 years of a car & driver service if he fails.

Of course, there will be naysayers. Let's take their points one-by-one:
1. He'll attract a bunch of lunatics that will drive Citi's share price down: Citi just announced it was invading Iraq* in a bid to IMPROVE its share price. I doubt the Joker & Two Face will change that. And the chance of Catwoman showing up at a shareholder's meeting all but guarantees Richard Branson will become an investor.

2. Batman is all wrong. This is a job for Superman! Ummmm, no. Did Superman, or even Clark Kent, ever show financial acumen? His solution will probably be crushing coal into diamonds, and that will DEFINITELY get the SEC to look into Citi's books.

3. He's fictional. Talk about negativity. This is a minor issue for today's go-getter multinational firm: Darth Vader's brother is working at a grocery store, GE hired Dogbert and Halliburton is waiting for Lex Luthor to return from sabbatical. The climate has never been better to overcome the reality-bias of HR departments (ok, so no HR dept. has never been accused of a bias FOR reality).

In short, buy Citi, vote Batman.

* They didn't, but it made you think, "Maybe I should check cnn.com..."

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