Linda Foggie

Linda Foggie was just back from the Far East, where she was overseeing Citigroup’s Asian expansion, making sure it had enough physical space to accomplish CEO Jane Fraser’s strategic goals.

“We have a number of different activities happening in China right now,” Foggie said. “We still feel that China is a very important part of the overall global economy.” 

Here in the U.S. and in Europe, working from home or remotely has become a trend for a significant minority of office workers. But over in the Far East, Foggie found, there’s been a stampede back to the office.

“I was in China, also in Korea and Hong Kong on the same trip, and the uptake in terms of return-to-office was pretty staggering, not just at Citi — some of our peers and competitors in that market,” she said. “They’re seeing an [office] utilization in the high 90s percent. People seem to be amenable to coming back.”

Foggie started in her position two years ago, coming over from commercial real estate advisory firm Turner & Townsend. Two years before that, she was a top corporate real estate executive for Citi rival Wells Fargo. Now she oversees a global empire of millions of square feet of Citi-used offices — she’s not allowed to even approximate how many come under her bailiwick — but she is in charge of making sure that whatever the bank wants to do, there’s a space for it.

“From my perspective, our real estate strategy absolutely shadows the strategy of the bank,” she said. “My role is to make sure we have Class A office space to house that talent. We consider our office space a part of our overall business strategy. It’s part of our recruitment and retention strategy.”

In New York, that means keeping up with the Joneses of Citi’s rival global banks. It has not escaped her notice that JPMorgan Chase is building a state-of-the-art tower on Park Avenue to be its headquarters, or that Wells Fargo has a compound in the new Hudson Yards buildings, and so on. Citi’s claim to fame is its headquarters campus at 388 and 390 Greenwich Street in Tribeca.

“We’re absolutely committed to the market there,” Foggie said. “We’ve invested heavily in that building, and we continue to invest in that. It’s really a hallmark for us. We have no plans right now to either increase or decrease our footprint.”