9 Apr 2008: Barclays Wealth Appoints International Head of Commercial Operations

Barclays Wealth announces the appointment of Michael Demirel as a Managing Director and Head of Commercial Operations to its international private banking team. Mr. Demirel joins the firm from Citigroup where he was most recently Head of the Private Bank and General Manager, Citibank (Switzerland) – the firm’s wealth management business out of Geneva.

In his new role, Mr. Demirel will be responsible for driving the ongoing expansion of Barclays Wealth’s international private banking business through the development and delivery of commercial strategy and dovetailing this with the wider Barclays Wealth business plan. With overall responsibility for sales, business development and client relationship management, Mr Demirel will manage the product, client and expansion strategies across the international private banking business. Mr. Demirel will work closely with Barclays Wealth’s Investment and Product Office and Barclays Capital to develop the product palette and ensure a seamless service for international private banking clients

Mr. Demirel will join the business later in the year and will be based in London. He will report to Barclays Wealth’s Head of International Private Banking, Gerard Aquilina. Mr Aquilina comments, “I am delighted to welcome Michael to Barclays Wealth. This is a very important hire. The international private banking business has expanded significantly over the past eighteen months, and we seek to build on this expansion in both existing and new markets. Michael’s experience in the international wealth management space makes him ideally placed to drive the business’s commercial activity as we continue our strategy of delivering state of the art solutions and investment techniques to our clients.”

At Citigroup, Mr. Demirel had responsibility for the private banking business in Switzerland, encompassing a team that covered Europe, Latin America, US/Canada, Asia-Pacific, Emerging Markets and Middle East regions. He had previously been the bank’s European Director of Strategy. He spent four successful years at UBS AG where he worked initially in UBS’s Investment Bank in London and more recently in a New Business Development role in the business’s Wealth Management division in New York. Prior to UBS, Mr. Demirel had worked at Goldman Sachs. Mr. Demirel has an MA in Quantitative Economics (specializing in Financial Research and Analysis) and a BA Economics from Queens College, New York.

For further information contact:

Nicola Hankey/Caroline Wells
PR, Barclays Wealth
020 7114 7435 / 020 7114 9813