When Ajay Banga, Citigroup’s Asia-Pacific CEO, left his post to become president and COO of MasterCard in June, Citi CEO Vikram Pandit replaced him with a team of three as part of a broader management shake-up.
The new chairman of Citi’s Asian operations, Zhang Shengman, is a former senior official of China’s Finance ministry. His appointment marks the first time a Chinese national will head Citi’s operations in Asia-Pacific. He’ll work alongside co-CEOs for Asia-Pacific: Stephen Bird, the former CEO of North Asia and head of consumer banking and global cards for Citi in Asia; and Shirish Apte, who was CEO of Citi’s Central and Eastern European regions.
Zhang was a managing director at the World Bank from 1997 to 2006 before joining Citi as vice chairman of its global banking group. “The priorities have not changed,” Zhang, 52, tells II. “It’s a case of getting out to meet clients, understanding their needs and offering them solutions from our platform to help them grow.”
