Former Lucent CFO to join Citigroup as top strategist

Citigroup Inc's revolving door has spun again, ushering in the second senior female executive and second former telecommunications manager to join the company since October.

Citi said Tuesday that it had hired Deborah C. Hopkins, a consultant and a former chief financial officer of Lucent Technologies, to head corporate strategy. Ms. Hopkins, 48, will also join the management committee.

Sanford I. Weill, Citi's chairman and chief executive, has been reshaping his 46-person management committee for some time, and many of the moves have been reactions to probes from regulators about conflicts of interests in the company's investment bank.

In September, Mr. Weill plucked a long-time confidant and his former general counsel, Charles O. Prince, to take over as the chairman and CEO of the global and corporate investment bank, replacing Michael Carpenter. More recently Mr. Weill hired Sallie L. Krawcheck, the chairman and CEO of the research firm Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. LLC, to be the chairman and CEO of Smith Barney, a new unit that was created to house Citi's retail brokerage and investment research divisions, creating a clearer distinction from the investment bank.

Though allegations of conflicts between Salomon Smith Barney's research analysts and the firm's telecommunications investment bankers have dogged the bank the most this year, Mr. Weill has seen fit to hire senior managers from the telecommunications industry, including Ms. Hopkins. In October he hired Michael T. Masin, the president of Verizon Communications, as his vice chairman and chief operating officer. Mr. Masin was a member of Citi's board, which he left to accept the new job.

Ms. Hopkins will start at Citi on Jan. 6 and report to Mr. Masin. She will succeed Hamid Biglari, who will join the global corporate and investment bank as the global head of mergers and acquisitions for the financial institutions group.

"Debby brings to Citigroup a broad range of skills in financial operations, strategic planning, operational management, (and) mergers and acquisitions, as well as a record of leadership from an extensive career at several global corporations," Mr. Weill said in a statement.

Ms. Hopkins was not made available for comment Tuesday, but Citi offered up a number of contacts from her previous career posts at Boeing Co., General Motors, and Lucent.

"I think Deborah would be really useful in that role" said Charles O. Holliday Jr., the chairman and chief executive officer of DuPont, in a telephone interview. He spoke of her experience with a wide range of companies, including Boeing, where she had been CFO; General Motors, where she had held numerous jobs; and Lucent.

Ms. Hopkins has been a member of DuPont's board since 2000. She is coming to Citi from Marakon Associates, an international consulting firm, where she has been a senior partner.

Mr. Weill's search for fresh blood is more characteristic of the old Citicorp than it is of his former firm, Travelers Group. Former Citi chief executive John S. Reed was famous for shuffling top managers and bringing in new executives from places as varied as Federal Express Corp. and Philip Morris Cos.

There has been constant turnover at Citi since before Mr. Reed's reign, said Richard X. Bove, an analyst at Hoefer & Arnett. When Mr. Weill took the helm, "I guess the Citicorp water infected him," because it was not his style to have constant change in management, Mr. Bove said.

The "unsettling" number of management changes shows "significant weakness" at Citi, he said.