Citigroup is promoting a 28-year veteran to run a key capital markets role as the firm's banking leadership takes shape

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Citigroup is promoting a 28-year veteran to run a key capital markets role as the firm's banking leadership takes shape

Michael Corbat

Larry French/AP

Citi CEO Mike Corbat.

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  • Citigroup promoted Richard Zogheb to global head of debt capital markets, according to a Thursday memo from investment banking co-heads Tyler Dickson and Manuel Falco.
  • Zogheb will oversee the underwriting of investment-grade debt and leveraged finance, as well as emerging market debt, the memo said.

Citigroup has promoted Richard Zogheb to run debt capital markets globally, turning over the keys to one of the world's biggest debt underwriters to a 28-year veteran.

Zogheb, most recently co-head of debt and equity underwriting in the Americas, will assume his new role in January, according to a Thursday memo from Tyler Dickson and Manuel Falco, co-heads of the unit that handles securities underwriting and merger advice. Zogheb will join the unit's operating committee as part of his promotion.

Zogheb is a Citigroup lifer, having joined predecessor Salomon Brothers out of business school in 1990. He'll work closely with Citigroup's other underwriting groups, including structured finance and securitization, as well as equity underwriting, in his new role, according to the memo.

"In his new role, Rich will be responsible for loan and bond underwriting" worldwide, the memo states. "He will coordinate credit approvals with independent risk and manage our loan underwriting and bridge loan books."

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The announcement came a day after Citigroup announced internally a slew of other promotions, including the elevation of Zogheb's co-head for Americas origination, John Chirico, to co-run Americas underwriting and advisory. Chirico will share the duties with Kevin Cox.

The bank also named Eduardo Cruz to head the division in Latin America and Jan Metzger to lead it in Asia Pacific. Chirico, Cox, Cruz and Metzger will also join the unit's operating committee. In November, the bank named Philip Drury to run the unit in Europe.

Read more: C-Suite exits and frustrated investors: Citigroup is undergoing its most significant changes in half a decade

The changes are part of a broader reshuffling underway in the firm's investment bank. In September, Citigroup named Dickson and Falco to run the newly constituted Banking, Capital Markets and Advisory unit. Dickson had run capital markets origination separately from the corporate and investment side of the business, which was led by Citi veteran Ray McGuire. The September news combined both functions into the same division, mirroring a structure in place across much of Wall Street. McGuire became a Citigroup vice chairman with the move.

The series of promotions, starting with the September announcement, were some of the first to be made in the most senior ranks of Citigroup's investment bank in years. In the years following the financial crisis, CEO Mike Corbat and lieutenant Jamie Forese, who runs the institutional clients group that houses investment banking, as well as sales and trading, seemed content with the leadership team they had in place.

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Now, they look to be elevating some longtime bankers into more senior roles. Also this fall, the bank said longtime CFO John Gerspach would step down, to be replaced by Mark Mason.

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