Andy Sieg is building out the wealth management ranks at Citi with a new recruit from its rival firm Morgan Stanley.
Sieg, the head of Citi's wealth division since September 2023, announced in a memo on Tuesday that he has turned to Dawn Nordberg to oversee a new endeavor called Integrated Client Engagement. That position will have Nordberg working to help the firm's banking and wealth units refer clients to each other. She's also helping Citi decide which locations should add client-facing advisors and will work to increase investors' holdings at the firm, according to Sieg's memo.
"Creating the Integrated Client Engagement function is the next step in bringing all of Citi to our clients and deepening our relationships," Sieg said in the memo. "I'm even more confident that this team can become the No. 1 wealth manager in the world."
Nordberg comes to Citi after 25 years at Morgan Stanley, where she most recently served as group head of strategic client management for Morgan Stanley Private Wealth Management, according to Sieg's memo. She'll start at Citi in September following what's known in the industry as a "garden leave," or a contractually mandated period of nonemployment.
A Morgan Stanley spokesperson declined to comment on Nordberg's job change. A Citi spokesperson said Sieg was unavailable for comment.
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Nordberg's appointment comes as Citi continues to overhaul its executive ranks. Sieg started at Citi last fall after departing that spring from its rival firm Merrill, where he had similarly worked to build ties between the wealth management business and its Bank of America parent. With Sieg onboard, Citi CEO Jane Fraser began moving forward with plans that call for the firm to operate on five main lines of business: trading, banking, services, wealth management and U.S. consumer offerings.
In February, Fraser announced that Vis Rhagavan, formerly head of global investment banking at JPMorgan, was taking over as Citi's head of banking. Sieg himself has turned to Don Plaus, the former head of Merrill private wealth, to run the firm's private bank in North America.
Phil Waxelbaum, an industry recruiter and the founder of Masada Consulting, said it's clear that Sieg has been given free rein to build Citi's wealth division more or less as he sees fit. Waxelbaum noted that he has often questioned firms that look almost entirely inward for executive candidates, but he thinks there are almost equal risks to recruiting so much externally.
"With this many people with diverse backgrounds and diverse experiences, it's going to take a while for them to learn to play together as a team," Waxelbaum said. "This is not an add-water process. This is not cake batter."
As for Nordberg's appointment, Waxelbaum said that the job of facilitating referrals between a firm's banking and wealth management channels is notoriously difficult. Financial advisors, he said, have very little incentive to share clients with bank representatives, even ones who are ostensibly part of the same time. The same can be said for bankers.
"Nobody perceives a personal benefit," he said. "And financial advisors and private bankers don't like people that they don't control messing with their client relationships."
Other recent appointments at Citi include Joe Bonanno, who was named head of data, analytics and innovation for wealth. This new team's responsibilities will include unifying all of the division's analysis and other data-related operations. Bonanno, who joined Citi in 2022 from Morgan Stanley and is currently head of data, digital and innovation for Citi Securities Services, will start in his new position on July 15.
Sieg was recruited by Fraser to revive Citi's flagging wealth business. The results, so far, have been mixed.
The firm's wealth management business reported a 6% year-over-year decrease in its net income of $150 million for the first quarter. At the same time, it saw its net new assets rise by $22 billion over the previous year.
Waxelbaum said it's far too early to tell if the changes will have the desired effect.
"They are effectively bringing in a whole new culture in their advisory channel, which may or may not have strife with the Citi culture in general," he said. "So the jury is still out on that."
