Citi hires JPMorgan's Adam Clark to lead wealth planning

Citi has hired Adam Clark as head of wealth planning, according to an internal memo seen by InvestmentNews. Clark joins from JPMorgan, where he has served as global head of trusts and estates since 2016. He will officially start in November after completing garden leave and will be based in New York.

Clark will lead Citi's global wealth planning team and report directly to Keith Glenfield, global head of investments at Citi Wealth. The memo described Clark as having nearly 30 years in banking and deep expertise across tax, estate, trust and wealth planning. Before JPMorgan, Clark was a strategic wealth advisor and president of Goldman Sachs Trust Company.

The hire is Citi's latest wealth-management addition. Last month, Citi brought on Matt Newnham to its asset manager relationship team and appointed Michael Yannell head of hedge funds for Investment Solutions. Citi's wealth revenue grew 13% year over year to $3.2 billion in the second quarter, its ninth consecutive quarter of wealth growth.

Citi is putting planning expertise at the center of its ultra-high-net-worth pitch. Trusts and estates work is sticky, referral-rich and essential for large family balance sheets. A hire of Clark's seniority gives that effort credibility inside the bank and in the market.

For JPMorgan, the departure removes a senior specialist in a function that wealthy clients rely on heavily. The move underscores that banks are still paying up for senior wealth talent, even as cost pressures persist elsewhere.

This is not a relationship-hiring play. Clark oversees technical planning infrastructure — trusts, estates, tax. His reporting line into the investments chief suggests Citi wants planning integrated with portfolio advice, not isolated in a legal department. That matters because the UHNW advisor model is shifting toward holistic, cross-specialty service.

Clark's path from Goldman Sachs Trust Company to JPMorgan's global trusts and estates role shows how small the top of this talent pool really is. Citi did not need to hire a managing director; it hired a global function head. The pattern suggests the next talent war in wealth is for specialists, not just producers.

Citi is likely to keep adding senior hires across wealth as it builds out UHNW coverage. Clark's November arrival will be an early test of how planning-led the bank's pitch can become.