LONDON – The British lender Barclays said on Monday that it had hired a former banker at Citigroup to head its wealth management business.
Akshaya Bhargava will join the bank on Oct. 13 as chief executive of wealth and investment management. He founded and is the chief executive of InfraHedge, a provider of information technology services to institutional investors in hedge funds.
He replaces Peter Horrell, who stepped down from the role in June and is expected to leave the bank at the end of the year. Mr. Bhargava joins the bank as a series of managers and executives have departed as the bank goes through a reorganization.
Earlier this year, Barclays announced that it planned to cut 19,000 jobs as part of the overhaul, with the bulk of the cuts coming this year. The bank also plans to focus its business on what it considers four core areas going forward: retail and corporate banking, primarily in Britain; credit cards, banking in Africa and investment banking.
The wealth management business will be part of the retail and corporate banking arm going forward.
“This is an exciting time to be joining Barclays and I feel privileged to be taking charge of the next chapter in the growth and evolution of the business,” Mr. Bhargava said in a news release.
Mr. Bhargava worked 22 years at Citigroup, leading teams in India, London and the Czech Republic. In 2010, he founded InfraHedge, which was acquired by State Street last year.
After leaving Citigroup, he served as the chief executive of Infosys’s business process outsourcing offering in India and as chief executive of the hedge fund administrator Butterfield Fulcrum.