Citi, one of the world’s most global financial institutions, partners with Axios HQ to transform enterprise communications with Smart Brevity for an audience of nearly 300,000.
In March 2022, Citi announced a “strategic refresh” during an Investor Day. Citi was on a transformation journey, and effective, consistent communications to keep colleagues informed and engaged were central to that effort.
Enter Citi Global News as one change agent among many. The mission? Provide a consistent, credible source within the firm to amplify business wins and company priorities.
👉 The challenge: Before Axios HQ, Citi's communications team was sending a firmwide digest of links to recently-published intranet stories created independently by teams from across the firm on a biweekly basis.
There was no centralized editorial mechanism behind the creation of the content, therefore there was limited consistency of approach, substance, and style.
The team assembled the content by pulling pre-published stories from Citi’s intranet into a proprietary email distribution tool — a “plug-and-play” approach in which the images and text fields were connected and populated automatically. Members of the team made editorial decisions based on the available content within the ecosystem at any given time.
To put it simply, technology dictated what was possible from an editorial and design perspective.
✨ The transformation: Citi comms experts used Axios HQ and the Smart Brevity model to evolve the flagship internal newsletter Citi Global News in order to:
Elevate the reading experience: Citi aimed to deliver communications that were clean, visual, and easy to engage with — setting a higher bar for what enterprise communications could look and sound like.
Scale collaboration across the team: With a high-volume publication and a complex, decentralized approval process, Citi needed a way for its team to collaborate in real time, manage a global editorial calendar, and keep production running smoothly.
Unify a global editorial voice: As the format evolved, the newsletter became an in-demand channel to share the latest stories and updates flowing in from public affairs teams covering five businesses throughout the world, ranging from Wealth to Markets.
🏆 The solution: Citi partnered with Axios HQ to transform how the firm communicates at scale — bringing Smart Brevity to its enterprise-wide publications and spreading its principles across the organization.
One cohesive experience for everyone: A core editorial team of six now curates content from a much broader group of contributors into a single, consistent, credible, and visually sophisticated publication. Whether it's landing in the inbox of a C-suite executive, an investment banker, a wealth advisor, a bank teller, or a call-center operator — it elevates what matters and adds value for every reader.
Smart Brevity as a production standard: The Citi Global News team has developed a voice and tone unique to Citi, drawing upon Smart Brevity principles and relying on the clarity and visual consistency of Axios HQ software.
Smart Brevity training that translates to tangible results: Through Axios HQ's Train-the-Trainer program, Citi scales adoption in-house. In addition to an extensive program of training sessions for communications colleagues, to date, bespoke Smart Brevity workshops have been delivered to audiences ranging from members of the internal audit team to dozens of senior investment bankers at a corporate offsite.
🛠️ How it works:
Citi Global News reflects the way the communications team operates — rigorously, collaboratively, and with a global audience in mind.
Content sourced from around the world: Public affairs officers pitch stories and updates on a rolling basis. The editorial team decides what to prioritize and edits with Smart Brevity style in mind to create a consistent narrative from top to bottom, ensuring every edition offers an accessible and informative reading experience that’s equally engaging on mobile and desktop.
Built and reviewed in one place: The team manages drafts, assignments, graphics, and comments entirely within Axios HQ. Real-time co-editing keeps a complex, multi-step process moving smoothly.
Something for everyone: From a glimpse behind the scenes at marquee conferences to cascaded executive messaging to consistent coverage of deals and media highlights — and the occasional cartoon for a moment of levity — each edition provides a range of content that’s carefully calibrated to engage, inform, and even delight. There’s always an option to “go deeper,” but there’s enough information to learn something new from every item without clicking through.
📊 Key business results:
Citi Global News and Smart Brevity have become the gold standard for internal communications at one of the world's most complex financial institutions — and the impact is being felt far beyond the communications team.
A reputation for excellence: Early on, a senior leader described the shift to Smart Brevity as going from "a local news blog to The New York Times of corporate journalism — almost overnight." That reputation has only grown since.
Reach that extends across the firm: Smart Brevity has taken hold well beyond the communications team, from investment bankers seeking to write with more clarity and simplicity in client-facing emails to the audit team rethinking how they write for regulators.
Need to know: Employees regularly cite the newsletter as essential to how they understand the company. The editorial team accomplishes this through a regular drumbeat of high-quality updates, quarterly earnings editions that provide an overview of key takeaways and media and analyst coverage, and special coverage of major industry events such as the annual World Economic Forum in Davos.
Extra credit: The team recently included a viral moment as “one fun thing” when an employee spotted a Citi office in a Netflix show and wrote in to pitch the screengrab. And that’s just one example of how Citi Global News covers the full range of life at the firm and develops an engaged readership.
💭 What they're saying:
"The Axios HQ software and the Smart Brevity model have become essential to how we share information across the firm through our flagship newsletter. Since we gained access to the software, we’ve been able to significantly enhance the sophistication of our approach. While the Smart Brevity model is not a mandate, it’s clear that other colleagues within the firm are following our lead — and that impact goes beyond newsletters.” – Citi Global News Editor in Chief Leslie Hart