Citgroup Hires Former Obama Budget Director

Peter Orszag, the former director of the Office of Management and Budget under President Obama, will become Citigroup’s vice chairman of global banking, the bank announced late Thursday.

Orszag will be a member of the senior strategic advisory group, which includes some of Citi's most senior and effective bankers focused exclusively on client relationships.

"Peter brings a tremendous amount of knowledge as well as key private sector and government experience to global banking. His expertise in economic policy will complement our Investment Banking franchise around the world," John Havens, chief executive of Citi's institutional clients group, said in a statement.

Ethics rules prohibit Orszag from contacting federal government officials in his new position.

Before his role at OMB -- a cabinet-level position where he oversaw the administration's budget policy, coordinated the implementation of major policy initiatives throughout the federal government and reviewed federal regulatory action -- Orszag was the director of the Congressional Budget Office.

Previously, Orszag was the Joseph A. Pechman senior fellow and deputy director of economic studies at Brookings Institution. He also served as director of the Hamilton Project, director of the Retirement Security Project, and co-director of the Tax Policy Center.

During the Clinton administration, he was a special assistant to the president for economic policy and before that a staff economist and then senior advisor and senior economist at the President's Council of Economic Advisers. He has also founded and subsequently sold an economics consulting firm.

Orszag graduated from Princeton University and obtained a PhD in economics from the London School of Economics, which he attended as a Marshall Scholar.

For reprint and licensing requests for this article, click here.
Career moves
MORE FROM FINANCIAL PLANNING