Vikram S. Pandit

spouse = Swati and investor who was the chief executive officer of Citigroup from December 2007 and is the current chairman and chief executive officer of The Orogen Group.

Pandit has been honoured with the Padma Bhushan, the third highest Indian civilian award, for his contributions to the trade and industry in 2008 by the Government of India.

Early life and education Vikram Pandit was born in Dhantoli locality of Nagpur, Maharashtra, India, to an affluent Marathi family. His father, Shankar B. Pandit, was an executive director at Sarabhai Chemicals in Baroda. and then completed his schooling at the Dadar Parsee Youths Assembly High School in Dadar, Mumbai. The family also briefly moved to Mombasa, Kenya, in 1969. for his undergraduate program and, in 1976, earned his B.S. degree in electrical engineering in only three years. He then completed his M.S. in electrical engineering in 1977. Pandit subsequently turned to economics and finance and earned an MBA and PhD in finance from Columbia Business School in 1986, after publishing a thesis involving a complex financial puzzle, titled "Asset prices in a heterogeneous consumer economy." While Pandit and the company maintain that he resigned, Bloomberg News cited anonymous board sources indicating that Pandit was forced out by the board after eroding investor confidence and damaging company relations with regulators over an extended period. The New York Times later identified Chairman Michael E. O'Neill as the driving force behind a months-long secret effort to oust Pandit, which culminated in a surprise ultimatum to Pandit stating that he must resign immediately, resign at the end of the year, or be fired. His resignation followed multiple payouts to investors during ongoing fraud allegations.

Compensation While CEO of Citigroup in 2007, Pandit earned an annualized compensation of $3,164,320, which included a base salary of $250,000, stocks granted of $2,914,320, and options granted of $0.

Post-Citigroup It was reported in May 2013 that Pandit and Hari Aiyar, another Indian executive, were acquiring a 3 percent equity stake in JM Financial and launching a $100 million fund to invest in distressed assets. It was reported in May 2016 that Pandit and Atairos Group created a new operating company, The Orogen Group, to invest in financial services companies with backing from Comcast Corporation.

Board memberships and honors Pandit is a member of the boards of Columbia University, Columbia Business School, the Indian School of Business, American India Foundation and Trinity School. He is also a member of Kappa Beta Phi. He received the 2008 Great Immigrants Award from the Carnegie Corporation of New York.

Personal life Pandit, a naturalized citizen of the United States, lives in an apartment on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. He and his wife, Swati, have two children.