Someone without Mitt Romney hair was actually appointed head of the largest American bank today. Nice goin’, Vikram:

Citigroup, the country’s largest bank… appointed Vikram S. Pandit as its chief executive today… While Mr. Pandit has an impressive résumé, he is known more as an analytical technocrat than a charismatic leader… [Born in Nagpur,] Pandit has never run a public company… [Robert] Rubin lobbied on behalf of Mr. Pandit, arguing that his analytical skill and deep knowledge of emerging markets made him the best candidate…

He eventually collected a doctorate in finance at Columbia and then took a job teaching at Indiana University in Bloomington. “We assigned him problems we couldn’t solve…” [Citigroup] stock has fallen about 38% this year. [Link -- thanks, Dad]

Here’s the ol’ merit badge collection:

[Vikram] Pandit was a founding member and chairman of the members committee of Old Lane, LP, a multi-strategy hedge fund and private equity fund manager that was acquired by Citi in 2007… President and Chief Operating Officer of Morgan Stanley’s institutional securities and investment banking business… serves on the boards of Columbia University, Columbia Business School, the Indian School of Business… former board member of NASDAQ… earned a PhD in Finance from Columbia University in 1986… an MS degree in 1977 and a BS degree in electrical engineering in 1976 from Columbia. [Link]