Citi has a lot of new co-heads for a bank that doesn't like them

When Jane Fraser was awarded a $25m bonus at Citi last week, the bank said its largesse was partly to reward her success at simplifying Citi's organisational structure. This presumably referred to 'Project Bora Bora,' which was Fraser's initiative and took place between late 2023 and mid-2024.

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Under Project Bora Bora, Citi cut 7,000 jobs and reduced its managerial layers from 13 to eight. It also eliminated co-heads of various businesses. For example, Nacho Gutiérrez-Orranti, who was the co-head of investment banking with Tyler Dickson, was shunted into a new job as a "cluster" head; and Kevin Cox, who'd been head of North American investment banking with John Chirico, was made chairman of the global industrial group. Dickson and Chirico were briefly sole heads of their business areas. Since then, a few things have changed.

It's not just that Dickson left Citi and is now at Blackstone. Nor is it that Chirico was quietly moved into corporate banking, it's that the co-head structure, which Fraser seemed to suggest is unnecessarily bureaucratic, has crept back into the fabric of the bank.

The latest example of this is Edward Joudray, whom Citi has just hired as co-head of European sellside M&A alongside the incumbent Matias Brechner. But, there are others. 

This month, for example, Citi promoted Roberto Costa and Federico Monguzzi as co-heads of Italian banking. In August, it hired Rob Cascarino from JPMorgan as co-head of debt capital markets (DCM) for the UK and EMEA alongside Uday Malhotra, who was there already. In February, it parachuted Indian corporate banker Ashton Khullar into a role as co-head of EMEA sponsors banking alongside Anthony Diamandakis. When Diamandakis promptly left for JPMorgan, Citi quickly hired Sid Punshi from JPMorgan to be Khullar's co-head instead. 

Nor is it jut banking. In markets, sources say Citi promoted Jason Massey to be co-head of futures clearing sales alongside Jess Whittington, who'd been doing that job on her own for eight years. 

What's behind the co-head eruption? Citi declined to comment. In some cases, it might be that appointing a co-head is a cheap way of persuading an incumbent to walk away. In others, it might be that making someone a co-head is a way of hiring them without paying a big sign-on - Joudray, for example, was a mere MD when he left Bank of America in 2024, and has therefore been promoted into his new job. He's reporting to Barry Weir and Robin Rousseau, who've been Citi's co-heads of European M&A since the bad days of 2023. 

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