New faces to drive Citi on both sides of Tasman

Citi Australia and NZ head of markets Cristina Chang said the Australian and NZ markets business was experiencing ’material growth’.

Citi has hired former head of institutional sales at Perennial Partners, Dan Birch, who joins the firm as head of markets sales New Zealand, tasked with driving client engagement over the ditch.

Birch was at Perennial for about 5½ years before finishing up last September, with previous roles at OCTX and Russell Investments.

Dan Birch is joining Citi as head of markets sales, New Zealand.

Citi also announced Ankit Khandelwal had joined the G10 rates trading team from Bank of America Merrill Lynch, where he held several trading and risk roles. Melanie Vandervord is also joining Citi in the Access Strategies team covering Australia and NZ.

“Melanie brings over 20 years’ experience in corporate access from her time at Goldman Sachs and most recently as corporate access specialist at MST Financial,’’ Citi said.

Internally, Peter Hext, who has been with Citi for more than 13 years, most recently as head of commercial asset-backed securitisation in New York, in June moved into a new role as head of asset-backed securitisation and financing for Australia and NZ.

Citi said it had also added two new appointments to its corporate FX sales team and a new sales trader in the equities electronic execution team.

Citi Australia and NZ head of markets Cristina Chang said the Australian and NZ markets business was experiencing “material growth”.

“We are investing in our capabilities to ensure we have the skills and experience needed to meet our clients’ complex needs in a dynamic market environment,” Ms Chang said.

Meanwhile, new Bendigo and Adelaide Bank boss Richard Fennell has moved quickly to put his mark on the business, appointing Sarah Bateson as chief marketing officer heading up a new brand, marketing and communications division.