Hamid Biglari used to study stars. Now he reports to them. Last month the astrophysicist-turned-McKinsey-management-consultant jumped to Citigroup as head of corporate strategy, answering directly to chairman Sandy Weill and former Treasury secretary , now top Citi executive , Bob Rubin. Biglari, who helped run McKinsey’s global investment banking practice, has traveled light years from Princeton University, where in the 1980s he studied thermonuclear fusion and star formation. What do studying the cosmos and analyzing the global banking business have in common? Both, says Biglari, are examples of “complicated nonlinear problems.” But even if Biglari manages to squeeze in some stargazing between the financial strategizing, his days of scientific breakthroughs are probably over. “I really don,t have time to think about physics,” he says. “I,m completely out of date.
