Citigroup CEO Names New Executive Team

The newly appointed chief executive of Citigroup Inc named two veterans of the bank to lead its institutional and consumer businesses as he announced his new management team on Monday.

Investment-banker Jamie Forese will be responsible for the company's institutional business and will be co-president of the company with Manuel Medina-Mora, who will continue to oversee global consumer banking and Citi's franchise in Mexico, CEO Mike Corbat said.

Naming a new management team and lines of command has been a priority for Corbat since he took over the job on Oct. 16 and took on responsibility of at least 12 executives who had been working directly for former CEO Vikram Pandit or for John Havens, the chief operating officer of the company who quit when Pandit left.

"Jamie and Manuel have both spent their entire careers at Citi and its predecessor companies," Corbat said in the announcement.

The new team includes Brian Leach, the company's chief risk officer who with Pandit had been a founder of the Old Lane hedge fund that Citigroup bought in the mid-2000s. Leach will now hold the title of Head of Franchise Risk and Strategy and be responsible for audit, compliance, corporate policy and strategy, in addition to risk management.

Brad Hu, who has been head of risk for the Asia-Pacific region, will become chief risk officer and report to Leach.

Jim Cowles will become head of one of the company's four major business regions, Europe, the Middle East and Asia. Cowles has been chief operating officer for EMEA. He was previously been global head of equities.

The new organizational chart names a total of 12 executives and a chief of staff who will report to Corbat.

Don Callahan, who had also worked with Pandit at Morgan Stanley and who had become Citigroup's chief administrative officer in December 2007, will continue to manage company-wide operations and technology functions.

However, Forese and Medina-Mora will now oversee operations and technology support of their individual business lines. The company said the change is intended to "better align the functions with the priorities of each business and improve efficiency."

Citigroup is under pressure to reduce its costs and last month announced that it would eliminate 11,000 jobs, about four percent of its workforce.