Citi Private Bank is intensifying its focus on the ultra high net worth segment, with more senior hires in California and Texas.

Citi Private Bank has announced a number of ultra high net worth hires within its Dallas, TX, and Northern California offices.

Paul Cooke, Jake Trousdale and Sara Doutt join the Dallas office. Cooke is a director and ultra high net worth private banker, reporting to Mark Connally, southwest region executive. Cooke has spent his career working with corporate executives, successful families and their privately-held businesses. Most recently, he was a vice president with JP Morgan Private Bank in Dallas. Prior to this, Cooke was a first vice president at RBC Wealth Management in Dallas.

Trousdale has also joined as director and UHNW private banker, reporting to Connally. Most recently, he was a vice president at JP Morgan Private Bank in Dallas. In over ten years at JP Morgan, Trousdale covered UHNW families and their offices, companies and charitable entities, providing institutional level investment and capital planning advice.

Doutt has joined as a vice president and associate. Most recently, Doutt worked as an analyst at JP Morgan Private Bank in Dallas.

In Northern California, meanwhile, the firm has recruited William Epperson Giles and Steve Beverage to its UHNW team. Both Giles and Beverage will be based in San Francisco, CA, and report to Lisa Roberts, Northern California region executive.

Giles joins the firm as a managing director, bringing over 30 years of experience in the financial services industry advising wealthy individuals and their families. He joins Citi from Abbot Downing (formerly Wells Fargo Family Wealth) in San Francisco, where he worked for more than two decades, most recently as senior vice president, family wealth advisor and director.  Prior to joining Wells Fargo in 1987, Giles held roles at the Bank of San Francisco and Union Bank in Palo Alto.

Beverage joins as a director. He was most recently a vice president at Abbot Downing in San Francisco, where he managed a portfolio of UHNW client relationships. Previously, Beverage worked for five years at Wells Fargo Investments as an associate financial consultant.

The moves come as the firm also last month hired Ryan McCleary as director and ultra high net worth private banker in Houston, TX, and added Blair Ege - latterly of BNY Mellon - as director and UHNW private banker in Washington, DC (view here).

Global drive

Meanwhile, this publication has also learnt that Citi Private Bank has reinforced its footprint in Asia, naming So-Yon Sohn as regional investments head for Asia-Pacific, effective from September 23, 2013.

In this role, Sohn will report to Eduardo and Bassam and will be based in Hong Kong. She will be also be responsible for all investments business, including capital markets, managed investments, product management and strategy. Sohn will lead a team of investment counselors, product specialists and strategists.

Family Wealth Report recently sat down with Peter Charrington, chief executive of the North America region at Citi Private Bank, and Mark Mason, global CEO, at the the firm's New York office. Interviews on Citi's strategic push in the UHNW segment will be published in due course.