Citi quietly promoted two lifers to guard its crown jewels

Citi's services business, a payments monolith hailed as the bank's "crown jewel" by CEO Jane Fraser, is going through some changes. Nick Nadgauda, chief information officer of the team, departed for MetLife back in December. His replacements have been rewarded for their long tenures at the bank.

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Citi has appointed two interim heads of technology for services: Amit Rijhsinghani and Mahantesh Mukartihal. The former is Citi's global head of payments technology, based in New Jersey. The latter is global head of securities services technology, based in London. The securities services division is also set to be split in two when its current head Okan Pekin departs in March.

Mukartihal is a 24-year lifer at Citi. Although the bulk of his career has been spent in London, he also spent five years in New York as a payments product manager, and six years in Singapore as its regional technology head. 

Rijhsinghani has spent 14 years at Citi,  making MD in 2018. He's not a pure lifer however, spending 11 years across a number of banks before joining, including UBS, Merrill Lynch, Lehman Brothers and RBC before joining Citi.

Citi's promotion of tenured insiders contrasts to its strategy of making external hires in other areas of the bank. Citi recently lauded the fact that 40% of business heads are external hires, and that it has been investing heavily in front office and investment banking staff. Some longserving Citi staff have been leaving as a result.

Treatment hasn't been so positive for technologists further down the ladder, however. Bonuses were thought to have been paltry for the middle and back-office staff, and engineers have reported raises of 1% despite working months of 12-hour days. 

Citi declined to comment.

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