Director, global head of custody legal | Citi
Nick Haworth
Director, global head of custody legal | Citi
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Before joining Citi, Nick Haworth worked in private practice with Hogan Lovells in London, working on a wide variety of commercial contract, supply and distribution arrangements and structured transactions. In 2006, he moved to Ireland to the in-house legal team of Allied Irish Banks as their first dedicated in-house procurement and commercial contracts lawyer. There, he built a team of commercial contract lawyers over a ten-year period and led the legal advice on a series of key strategic procurement transactions, including several back-office outsourcings, technology and strategic initiatives critical to AIB’s digital transformation.
He moved to Citi in January 2017 as part of a significant expansion of Citi’s Irish legal department and has undertaken several roles connected with Citi’s Securities Services business, most recently as the EMEA head of custody and funds legal, leading a team of eleven lawyers and legal professionals across Dublin and Belfast. Key to the challenge was integrating the custody and fund legal teams, bringing the benefit of different legal advisory backgrounds and disciplines together to deliver a cohesive legal offering, with a strong focus on delivering prompt, high quality, and commercially pragmatic legal advice to stakeholders.
Nick has also led the legal stream on a number of significant client transactions involving the outsourcing to Citi of fund administration, middle office and custody services. His experience in structuring and negotiating complex transactions has been instrumental in developing efficient deal processes, and this, coupled with a collaborative and team orientated approach has resulted in the successful completion of significant strategic transactions in partnership with clients.
Nick has also spearheaded a number of initiatives to help improve the team’s efficiency and improve client experience, including the piloting of technology and automation on high volume documents to reduce administrative burden on the team; the provision of MIS-style reporting on significant legal matters for senior management; and the development of enhanced key contract templates with a focus on mitigation of key risks as well as optimising negotiations with clients.
In January 2024, Nick took on an expanded role as the global head of custody legal, which involves leading a global team of lawyers providing strategic legal advice and support for Citi’s custody business spanning over 100 markets, including 63 proprietary Citi branch locations, which holds over assets for clients with a value of over $24 trillion.
Director, associate general counsel, EMEA head of custody and fund services legal | Citi