- Lucy Baldwin has joined Citigroup as the firm’s new global head of independent research.
- The news, which was first reported by Financial News on Tuesday morning, comes following Insider’s report on Monday night that Baldwin had departed from Credit Suisse.
- Baldwin has long been a rising star in finance. She was named a managing director at Goldman Sachs at 28 years old. She left the bank in 2015.
- After departing from Goldman in 2015, Baldwin landed at Bank of America to serve as head of European equity sales before jumping to Credit Suisse in June 2019 where she was the global head of equity sales.
- Read the full memo announcing Baldwin’s appointment.
- Visit Business Insider’s homepage for more stories.
Citigroup has poached a senior executive in equity sales away from Credit Suisse to lead its equity research, gaining a veteran of multiple big banks who has turned heads in recent years as a rising star in finance.
Lucy Baldwin will join Citigroup starting in April as the firm’s global head of independent research, serving as the head of the bank’s markets and securities services research and equity advisory. Baldwin will report to Fater Belbachir and Andrew Pitt, the firm’s global head of its equities business and global head of research, respectively.
When she joins Citi, Baldwin will also join Citi’s Equities Executive Committee, according to a memo sent Tuesday by Belbachir and Pitt.
The news, which was first reported Tuesday morning by Financial News, comes following Insider’s initial report that Baldwin had departed from Credit Suisse, where she served at the Swiss bank’s global head of equity sales.
Baldwin spent less than two years at Credit Suisse before departing to join Citi, and is a veteran of multiple top financial institutions.
Prior to landing at Credit Suisse, Baldwin was head of European equity sales at Bank of America from October 2015 to May 2019. Her first foray into the world of big banks came at Goldman Sachs, where she distinguished herself as one of the firm’s youngest managing directors at age 28. After rising the ranks to co-head of European equity research at Goldman, she departed for Bank of America in 2015.
In 2014, she was named to Forbes’ 30 Under 30 list for finance professionals.
“Lucy’s hire creates a single, global head for Citi’s independent Research business,” Belbachir and Pitt wrote in the memo announcing Baldwin’s appointment. “The formal combination of independent Research with the strategic management of our Equity Advisory franchise … will create unique synergies and opportunities.”
Read more:The high-flying executive who just left Bank of America is set to join Credit Suisse in London
Citi’s equities division has faced an uphill battle to climb the league tables
Citi’s equities division has been in flux in recent years as it has battled to climb the industry league tables. Longtime cohead Murray Roos left the firm for the London Stock Exchange at the start of 2020, several months after the division was reorganized to combine its equities, prime brokerage, and securities services groups under one roof.
In May, Citi hired Fater Belbachir away from Barclays to lead global stock trading. With Okan Pekin in charge of securities services, Belbachir’s hire effectively split leadership of its trading and securities services groups less than a year after the combining them.
Belbachir shook up his global leadership team in December, according to a report from Bloomberg.
Citi’s research team, meanwhile, had ascended the Institutional Investor ranks in recent years after equities leaders made a counterintuitive bet to invest heavily in the business just as regulatory reform in Europe was upending the business model.
But it cut research staff in 2019 amid broader layoffs that included a 10% reduction in the equities division, and its ranking slipped this year to 7th from third in 2019, according to Institutional Investor.
“If I can keep the team as stable as possible, that’s going to be one of the best things for us,” Andrew Pitt, global head of research, told II. “Some of our best years were when our staff turnover was lower than the competitors’.”
Baldwin will look to inject new life into the unit following the layoffs of 2019 and subsequent fall in the rankings.
Meanwhile, Citigroup is readying itself for a larger leadership transition next month, as Jane Fraser prepares to take over as CEO of the global bank from outgoing chief executive Mike Corbat.
Read more:The real reasons behind Citigroup CEO Mike Corbat’s retirement
Here’s the full memo that Citigroup executives sent on Tuesday, announcing Lucy Baldwin’s appointment
To: Citi Markets and Securities Services, Citi Research
From: Fater Belbachir and Andrew Pitt
Re: Head of MSS Research & Equity Advisory
We are very pleased to announce that Lucy Baldwin will be joining Citi in April as the Head of MSS Research & Equity Advisory. Lucy’s hire creates a single, global head for Citi’s independent Research business and also allows us to unite oversight for independent Research alongside our Equity Advisory client strategy in partnership with our three regional Heads of Equity Sales. The formal combination of independent Research with the strategic management of our Equity Advisory franchise, alongside our separate initiative announced last July to leverage our research and content platform across the whole of the ICG, will create unique synergies and opportunities. Lucy will report to both of us and join the Equities Executive Committee.
Lucy has comprehensive experience in both Research and Sales roles, as well as a deep knowledge of client needs for Advisory services. Lucy joins Citi from Credit Suisse where she was Global Head of Equity Sales having previously been EMEA Head of Equity Sales at Bank of America. Lucy spent the first 11 years of her career in Research, initially at Cazenove and then for nine years at Goldman Sachs where she was an analyst in the Consumer sector and where she subsequently became co-Director of Equity Research in EMEA. At Goldman, Lucy implemented various strategic initiatives within Research such as the creation of Global Competitive Positioning frame-works. At Credit Suisse, Lucy has more recently been an important driver of the firm’s ESG strategy.
Until Lucy joins us, our independent Research business will continue to be managed under its three regional heads.
Please join us in due course in welcoming Lucy to Citi.
Fater & Andrew
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