Citi MDs' motivational memo: "Ambitious but human"

As we noted earlier this month, Citi's EMEA energy and power team is one of its finest, but it also seems to have suffered more than several departures at both junior and senior levels.

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The team's leaders, Philip Ten Bosch and Pablo Escondrillo, addressed this in a motivational memo to their ranks last week. 

We counted at least 15 people at all levels who have left the team in the past two years, but in their memo - seen by eFinancialCareers -  Ten Bosch and Escondrillo said this is a "false storyline." Departures are perfectly normal. "Colleagues will come and colleagues will go, and that is OK, and it has always been thus," they reflected philosophically.

Far from suffering an undue exodus of staff, the two MDs said that Citi's energy and power team aspires to be a "great place to work," where people are "ambitious but human." 

The team is a "place to make friends," they added, noting that people who've left remain "good friends," and that  "we may not be perfect, but we can try."

Citi declined to comment on the memo. Speaking off the record, members of the team described it as "curious." 

Some at Citi complained of poor bonuses last year, particularly following a new forced-ranking appraisal system. This appears to have applied to the energy and power team as much as other areas. 

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