Citi has reshuffled the leadership of its trade business in three regions, and two of the three new heads come from corporate banking, not from trade itself.
Manish Bajaj will run trade for Japan, Asia North and Australia. He joined Citi as a management associate in 2005 and has spent more than 20 years at the bank, most recently as Head of Corporate Banking for the Philippines. He has also worked as a senior banker in Mumbai and as Asia Pacific Energy Industry Champion. He is a qualified Chartered Accountant.
Shalin Shroff takes Asia South. He has nearly two decades at Citi and led trade and working capital sales for the region across ASEAN and the Indian Subcontinent. His career has run through sales and product management, and he holds an MBA from the University of Delhi.
Amir Khan will lead the Middle East and Africa. Until now he was Chief Country Officer and Banking Head for Qatar, as well as Cluster Head for Corporate Banking across Qatar, Oman, Bahrain and Pakistan. He started at ABN AMRO in 2001, joined Citi in Pakistan in 2007, and holds an MBA from the Institute of Business Management, Karachi.
Adoniro Cestari, Global Head of Trade and Working Capital Solutions at Citi Services, called them “highly respected leaders who bring deep market knowledge, strong client relationships and broad Citi experience.” He added: “Our clients need partners who can help them navigate complexity.”
The regional services heads were equally direct. Kanika Thakur said “Manish has spent his career building trusted relationships with clients.” Mridula Iyer said “Shalin has been at the center of many of these conversations with clients over the years.” Rizwan Shaikh said “Amir brings extensive banking and client leadership experience, deep knowledge of the region.”
Citi’s own figures set the scale. Its trade business facilitated about $1 trillion in financing throughput in 2025, and it added more than 27,000 buyer-supplier relationships in supply chain finance, taking the network to about 440,000 worldwide. Citi research shows trade flows between North and East Asia and the Middle East and Africa have grown by more than 50% in recent years.
Digital Trade Outlook’s View: Coverage Meets Product
Bajaj and Khan both arrive from corporate banking, a pairing Citi said reflects a focus on combining product expertise with client coverage. That fits the direction in recent Citi stories on DTO, from a first instant cross-border dollar payment to supplier financing in Pakistan. Our reading is that the bank wants trade sold through the client relationship, in the corridors where it says volumes are growing fastest.
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