Zink to become Citi's new boss in Singapore

Citi is about to get a new country head for Singapore, the US bank said yesterday. Michael Zink, a 22-year Citi veteran, will take up the position on May 1, filling the gap left by Jonathan Larsen's promotion to Asia-Pacific head for consumer banking and global cards in October 2009.

In addition to country head, Zink's job as country officer will give him responsibility for Citi's institutional clients group, consumer banking and global cards, and global wealth management businesses in Singapore.

Zink will report to Shirish Apte, chief executive officer for Citi Asia-Pacific, who emphasised in a press release yesterday that Singapore "is a regional hub for [the bank's] operations and technology and treasury business".

Zink is currently president of the Guangdong Development Bank (GDB), a role he was appointed to in December 2006 when a Citi-led consortium bought an 85% stake in the Chinese lender. GDB is one of China's largest private sector banks with 15,000 employees, a national network of 526 branches across 43 cities and 10 million corporate, SME and consumer customers.

At GDB, Zink has worked closely with Citi's consortium partners, local regulators and the GDB management team to modernise the bank's business model, operations, risk management framework and technology platforms. He will retain his job at GDB until a successor is announced later this year.

Citi praised Zink for his "key role in bringing [GDB] back to profitability" and for implementing "new processes, systems and infrastructure for greater efficiencies". GDB ended 2009 with revenues of $2 billion, a net income of $500 million and total assets of nearly $100 billion.

Zink joined Citi in 1988. He was a senior executive vice-president of Citibank Korea from 2004 to 2006, and has held senior corporate banking and executive management roles for Citigroup in Africa, Russia and Australia. He was also country officer in Indonesia from 2000 to 2004.

Apte noted that Zink "has strong international experience with Citi, covering all the major markets such as Russia, Indonesia, Korea and more recently China".