Citi appoints former eBay chief data officer as Asia-Pac data head

Singapore

CITI on Tuesday said it has appointed former eBay chief data officer Zoher Karu as the head of Asia-Pacific data and analytics.

Under this new role, Mr Karu who is based in Singapore, will report directly to the bank's Asia-Pacific head of consumer banking, Anand Selva. In particular, Mr Karu will "be responsible for driving the use of data to deliver customer value and business growth" in 17 markets worldwide, Citi said.

BT understands that Mr Karu's appointment marks the bank's first Big Data role within its consumer banking unit in Singapore.

Mr Karu joined eBay in 2013 as a member of the firm's executive team, originally as its first vice-president of customer optimisation and data. Prior to eBay, he was vice-president of marketing analytics and insight at retailer Sears Holdings.

Commenting on Mr Karu's appointment, Mr Selva said: "Zoher's appointment to this role is a key part of our digital transformation and overall strategy. To be Asia's best digital bank, we need to offer remarkable client experiences that set us apart and that are locally relevant to our target customers."

Over the years, Citi has made several other technology hires. In June this year, the US bank appointed ex-Paytm chief executive Shinjini Kumar to head its retail operations in India. Paytm is an Indian e-commerce firm and digital wallet provider backed by Alibaba. Prior to that, Citi also hired employees from PayPal and Amazon in November 2015 to form Citi Fintech, a division of Citigroup focused on improving mobile banking experiences.

Asked whether Citi's new hire represents a wider trend of the bank's strategy to recruit talents from tech giants, Mr Selva said in an e-mail response to BT: "To be forward compatible we need the best talent not just from banking, but across companies that have been disruptors themselves. We have had strong success in the region with innovation, as our client base increasingly prefers banking via digital channels... Zoher's experience will help us to significantly leverage big data and next gen analytics to power our digital vision for Asia."