Global Citizenship Report 2017

capital, when an idea is validated, employees pitch to senior executives to receive support for their startup, including funding at various stages, guidance from a team of in-house coaches and access to the expertise of Citi’s businesses and network of global innovation labs. This approach allows us to “fail fast” in order to accelerate learning and bring more certainty to where we should — or should not — invest resources. As of 2017, more than 200 employees were working on nearly 100 internal startup ideas, with more than 1,500 employees involved in D10X since the internal growth model was introduced by Citi Ventures in 2015. In early 2017, we announced our first D10X startup — CitiConnect ® for Blockchain — in partnership with NASDAQ and Chain, a Citi Ventures portfolio company. By partnering with others to test and validate the idea, we were able to bring a solution to market that provides a bridge between blockchain platforms and Citi’s global financial network. This integration provides a seamless end-to-end transactional process for private company securities, facilitates access to cross-border global payments on NASDAQ’s Linq platform, and increases efficiency and ease of reconciliation with real- time visibility to transactions on the blockchain ledger. We announced a second successful D10X pilot in November 2017. This solution — Proxymity SM — has the potential to transform the proxy voting process through a digital plat- form, eliminating intermediaries and directly connecting and authenticating issuers with investors while making the voting process more efficient, accurate and transparent. The platform aims to give investors the maximum amount of time to research and cast their votes and enables issuers to receive votes in real time. It also offers confirmation to the investor that the vote was received and counted at the meeting, providing certainty that their fundamental share- holder right has been upheld. 1 CitiConnect for Blockchain and Proxymity are just two examples of the disruptive, high-potential innovations and ideas emerging right now from our D10X work. TECH TALENT: CLOSING THE GENDER GAP, EMPOWERING THE LGBTQ COMMUNITY During 2017, Citi partnered with the nonprofit StartOut to launch its Global LGBTQ Entrepreneur Network. The Network empowers the LGBTQ community by connecting entrepreneurs and their business partners with investors and mentors. Citi employees who participate receive access to StartOut’s private global directory, online forums, mentorship program and investor portal. Citi is also working to help close the gender gap in tech. In the Talent and Diversity section of this report, we highlight some of our efforts to encourage women in their pursuit of professional development and technology-related jobs within our company as well as develop future talent for the industry as a whole. The Citi Foundation also promotes activities that encour- age women to enter tech fields. For instance, it supports a Cornell Tech initiative that focuses on recruiting and retaining young women and connecting them with profes- sional opportunities. The Citi Foundation also supports Laboratoria, an organization in Peru that identifies young women with high potential to participate in a program that rapidly teaches and prepares them for careers in the tech industry and then connects them with potential employers. Opening up opportunities for women in the tech field is one way Citi addresses SDG 5 , which aims to achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls . Citi’s work in this regard contributes directly to target 5A which includes helping helping to give women equal rights to economic resources . These activities also support SDG 8 : Promote sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment and decent work for all, specifically target 8.5 , which includes the promo- tion of full and productive employment and decent work for all women and men . SDG SPOTLIGHT: GOAL 8 Decent Work and Economic Growth SDG SPOTLIGHT: GOAL 5 Gender Equality 1 “Turning How We Innovate Inside Out,” Citi (website), accessed January 2018, https://blog.citigroup.com/2017/11/turning-how-we-innovate-inside-out/. Citi 2017 Global Citizenship Report 25 CONTENTS    INTRODUCTION    HOW WE DO BUSINESS     SOLUTIONS FOR IMPACT    APPENDICES Conduct and Culture    Digital Innovation     Talent and Diversity    Human Rights    Environmental and Social Risk Management    Operations and Supply Chain