Citi Revises Commercial Lending, Cards Lineups

Citigroup Inc. was busy this week reworking its org chart.

The company said Wednesday that it had appointed two regional presidents for its U.S. commercial banking group. Robert W. Koar was promoted to president of the Eastern region, and Shawn McGowen was hired as president of the Western region. Citi is aligning its U.S. business and corporate banks into three regions — Eastern, Central and Western.

Koar and McGowen are responsible for the Citibank unit's strategy for commercial banking markets in their respective areas. The Eastern region includes Boston, Philadelphia, New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Florida, Washington, D.C., Maryland and Virginia while the Western division covers California and Nevada.

Koar had been the manager of commercial banking for the Atlantic division, which is now part of the Eastern region, for the past two years. Prior to joining Citibank in 2006, he spent more than 25 years at Wachovia Corp. and one of its predecessors, First Fidelity Bancorp., managing its commercial banking business in New Jersey.

McGowen served as a division sales manager for the mid-Atlantic treasury management sales team and the East Coast inside sales team at Wells Fargo & Co. During his career, he has held several senior commercial banking positions, including commercial banking director for Northern California and Nevada, at Wachovia.

The commercial banking group aims primarily at midsize businesses, especially ones that operate abroad or seek to do so.

Meanwhile, Citi Retail Partner Cards shifted and hire some managers.

The unit announced on Tuesday that it had appointed Craig Vallorano to executive vice president of business development and strategy; it also hired Rick Cunningham to work for him. Leslie McNamara moved to executive vice president in partnership management, and Elisabeth McCombe was hired to take McNamara's former role of chief marketing officer.

Several of the executive have taken similar career paths. Vallorano once worked for GE, McCombe worked at HSBC, and Cunningham spent time at both companies.

In his newly created role, Vallorano, who joined Citi in 2000, will be responsible for new business, product development, competitive analysis, research and strategic planning. He spent 15 years at GE in a number of management roles.

McCombe worked in strategic marketing services for HSBC. Cunningham most recently worked in GE corporate lending in its retail finance division.

McNamara joined Citi nine years ago.