Citi to Pay Board Member Joss $350,000 for Consulting

Joss, a former Wells Fargo & Co. executive and Stanford University business-school dean who joined the board in July, will advise on projects “from time to time,” Vice Chairman Lewis Kaden wrote in an agreement dated April 5, according to a filing on May 7. The annual consulting fee is for “a minimum of approximately three weeks,” the filing said.

“This is kind of an interesting situation, where you’re not management, and you’re not independent, but you’re a director,” Joss said in an interview today. “I’m comfortable that I can handle that, but if it’s not working right, then we’ll undo it.”

Citigroup, 27 percent owned by the U.S. government, has overhauled its board to add directors with financial expertise and fewer ties to company management and purge those who served in the years leading up to the bank’s $45 billion bailout in 2008. Joss is the only director besides Chief Executive Officer Vikram Pandit who doesn’t meet the board’s independence criteria, according to a March 12 filing.

Citigroup spokesman Stephen Cohen declined to comment.