It is a freezing day in Manhattan, and the view from Citi’s global headquarters on Greenwich Street is dominated by scudding clouds and the cold, dank depths of the Hudson.
Euromoney is here to catch up with Naz Vahid, the Iran-born private banker who has transformed the Law Firm Group since taking charge 15 years ago.
Intensely intelligent and with a heightened sense of empathy, she has transformed Wealth at Work (WaW) into a successful business delivering cutting-edge wealth services to thousands of high-earning lawyers, asset managers, consultants and hedge funders.
The wealth division’s history is long but not complex. A little over a half-century ago, the US lender figured out that lawyers don’t fit the standard private-wealth mould and decided to create a set of tailored products to meet their needs.
As it flourished and matured, the group gained a name, becoming the law firm group (LFG).
When Jim O’Donnell was appointed CEO of Citi Global Wealth in early 2021, marking the first stage in a series of internal shake-ups, he immediately made a beeline for Vahid’s office, to ask what underpinned LFG’s success, and to explore ways to make the unique service – for no other private bank has a remotely comparable offering – an even bigger and better money spinner.
