Citi announced several new investor sales appointments across various markets yesterday. They include both newly created positions and replacement hires, and also four senior roles. All of them started their new jobs during the summer.
Simon Smithangura has been made director, head of Asean rates sales for G10 and local markets, and is tasked with growing the distribution of flow and structured rates products within the region in collaboration with the bank's investor sales teams onshore. He also takes primary responsibility for Asean central bank coverage. Smithangura is based in Singapore and reports jointly to David Ratliff, Asia-Pacific head of investor sales, and Julia Raiskin, head of G10 rates sales for Asia-Pacific. He joined from Barclays Capital where he had a similar role servicing a range of institutional clients.
A second key hire is Jeff Zhang who is also a director and heads securitised sales-trading for Asia ex-Japan. Based in Hong Kong, he is responsible for marketing mortgage and asset-backed securities in the region, which is a change from his previous job at J.P. Morgan where he ran China fixed-income sales. Zhang reports to Ratliff and to Vadim Khazatshy, head of US securitised agency trading.
Stephenni Xie has joined Zhang in Hong Kong from Nomura where she was a top revenue earner. In her new job she is focusing on selling G10 fixed-income products to Chinese investors. She reports to Charles Lam, head of G10 rates sales for China/Hong Kong, and to Ji Yang, head of China investor sales.
Xie’s former Nomura colleague, Dehua Shen, has moved to Citi’s Beijing office where he will concentrate on building a non-bank financial institutions operation in northern China. He spent five years at Lehman Brothers developing risk-solutions for Chinese companies and financial institutions, and earlier worked at Industrial and Commercial Bank of China. At Citi, Shen has a single reporting line to Yang.
In addition to these four senior appointments, Mark Gray has been hired as a sales trader based in Singapore, and Chris Neoh has been hired for the same role in Citi’s newly licensed brokerage business in Malaysia. In Hong Kong, David Nicholson has been brought onboard to sell to hedge funds and Mavis Yao replaces Victor Wong who has moved to Citi’s equity capital markets desk as an institutional salesperson.
“We are pleased to have attracted these key talents and expand our bench strength with
these new hires,” said Ratliff.
Zhang, Nicholson and Yao have filled vacant positions, while the rest have been recruited for new roles. Although no further hires are imminent, additional internal promotions are likely, added a spokesperson.
