Stephen Bird, the newly-instated chief executive of Citi’s Asian business, has announced a top management rejig and promotion of his closest lieutenants.

Stephen Bird, the newly-instated sole chief executive of Citi’s Asia-Pacific business, has announced a top management rejig and promotion of his closest lieutenants, according to an internal memo seen by WealthBriefingAsia.

Rodrigo Zorrilla has been appointed chief operating officer at the US lender, Anthony Nappi becomes chief administrative officer and Michael Zink will lead the Asean business, to help Bird "manage the APAC franchise."

Stephen Bird started the sole role on 1 January this year after sharing the title for two years with Shirish Apte, who late last year was appointed as co-chairman of Asia Pacific. Bird previously headed North Asia, while Apte looked after South Asia, but as co-CEOs there was an overlap of responsibility. The new hierarchy is aimed at centralising management duties under the new single CEO structure.

“Our structure needs to support this overarching goal and enable us to operate effectively and efficiently across our 17 markets and five lines of business. To enable me to manage the Asia-Pacific franchise across the region, I am appointing a chief operating officer and a chief administrative officer,” wrote Bird in the memo.

The changes will cut down the amount of time Bird spends on admin, management meetings and internal communications, allowing him to devote more time running Citi’s largest region. 

New COO Zorrilla was the former markets head. He will partner with all of Citi’s product groups to make sure clients are covered by as many Citi products as the bank can offer, according to reports. He is tasked with increasing the cross-sell between business lines.

New CAO Nappi was previously the global transaction services head, which encompasses Citi’s cash and trade business, and is an increasingly important unit within the bank. It generated $1.2 billion in profit in Asia during 2011, making it Citi’s most lucrative business globally.

Former Singapore CEO Zink’s newly created role of Asean cluster head will “create better spans of control and the right level of support for each chief country officer,” according to Bird’s memo.

All the Asean country heads will report to Zink, including Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Vietnam, Thailand, Guam, and sub-regions Brunei, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.

The product group hierarchy remains untouched, apart from Nadir Mahmud, who previously was the FX and local markets chief for Asia. He will run global markets, taking over from Zorrilla.

Citi confirmed the contents of the memo.