When Ajay Banga became Mastercard’s chief executive in 2010, he gained membership in a CEO club with a particularly toxic reputation.
The United States was still reeling from the financial crisis, and financial CEOs were public enemy No. 1 in the eyes of millions of Americans who had lost their jobs, their homes, or both when the housing bubble collapsed. There were widespread calls for bankers to be jailed for their role in destroying the economy—especially after the U.S. government spent billions of dollars bailing out financial institutions that made reckless bets on risky mortgages. (Banga’s previous employer, Citigroup, needed a cool $45 billion to survive.) Lawmakers of both parties had excoriated many of these men, including Citi’s CEO, in public hearings. The following year, protesters angry about the lack of real-world consequences for financial CEOs would occupy Wall Street.
