Jon Lofthouse will tell you he’s only ever had two real jobs.

For nearly three decades he worked at Citi, where he launched his banking career at Salomon Brothers before it was folded into the firm in 1998. Before that, he spent a year building software used to refuel nuclear power stations.

“I’ve had an interest in technology for a long time,” he said. “My parents bought me a computer when I was about seven—a ZX Spectrum.” It was one of the most popular home computers in the U.K.throughout the 1980s, sort of the British equivalent of the Commodore 64 in the U.S.

At Citi, the former CIO has had an outsized impact on the technology powering America’s third-largest bank, with $2.67 trillion in total assets. [Editor’s note: After his selection as one of the Most Innovative People in Finance, Lofthouse left Citi.] His mission was to simplify the bank’s core technology systems. In 2025 alone, he helped retire or replace 384 different applications to streamline everything from risk analytics to payments infrastructure and client services.