Citibank has again reached into the consumer products industry for a senior retail banking executive.
The Citicorp subsidiary hired Stephen Liguori, 41, to head its New York consumer bank. He was president and chief executive officer of Mother's Cookies, a unit of Specialty Foods Corp.
Mr. Liguori is to join the banking company Friday. He is succeeding Willy Socquet, who is taking charge of the sizable Citibank outpost in Dusseldorf, Germany.
In a related reshuffling, Jean Paul Votron, the former counterpart of Mr. Socquet who ran the U.S. branch businesses outside the New York area, has resigned to join ABN Amro of the Netherlands.
Alvaro de Souza, executive vice president in charge of all U.S. consumer banking, including Mr. Liguori's area, will assume Mr. Votron's responsibilities until a successor is found.
If he or she comes from consumer packaged goods, it would fit a pattern of which Mr. Liguori is only the latest example.
Though the hiring of marketing talent from nonbanking fields is a Citibank tradition dating back at least 20 years, it has been reinforced since William I. Campbell, executive vice president, began to put his stamp on the global consumer business.
Mr. de Souza, a former head of private banking, became one of Mr. Campbell's top lieutenants in an April reorganization.
Before joining Citicorp in January 1996, Mr. Campbell had been chairman of Philip Morris USA. Mr. Campbell has been joined in chairman John Reed's inner circle by other influences from outside the industry, such as executive vice presidents Mary Alice Taylor in operations and Edward Horowitz in technology. They came from Federal Express Corp. and Viacom Inc., respectively.
Mr. Liguori had previously worked at Philip Morris Cos. and Pepsico Inc. Another former Pepsico executive, Kenneth Stevens, currently is chief executive officer of Banc One Corp.'s retail group, which, like Citibank's, is emphasizing brand management and other techniques transferable from consumer goods.
A Citibank spokeswoman said she did not know whether Mr. Campbell and Mr. Liguori had known each other at Philip Morris.
Mr. Socquet, a native of Belgium, joined Citicorp in 1983 and has held several retail banking posts in Europe. He came to New York in 1994 to run the New York metropolitan operations.
Mr. Socquet will report to Mr. Campbell, filling a job that was open at the time of the April announcements. Eric Daniels, who also reports to Mr. Campbell, is overseeing European retail operations outside Germany.
Mr. Votron will be taking a new post at ABN Amro in Amsterdam-executive vice president and head of international consumer banking-Oct. 1.
The $342 billion-asset bank aspires to build a global consumer banking network, and Mr. Votron will be in charge of the initiative, a bank spokesman said.
Mr. Votron will report to Maarten Reuchlin, senior executive vice president.
ABN Amro has 1,700 offices in 70 countries but retail branches only in Europe and the United States. It owns LaSalle National Bank in Chicago, Standard Federal Bank of Michigan, and European American Bank of Uniondale, N.Y.
The spokesman said ABN Amro's retail expansion will begin in Taiwan in October and encompass Asia and Latin America. Mr. Votron plans to use current ABN Amro offices, which have a corporate banking focus, as a foundation for retail growth.
Mr. Votron had been with Citicorp since 1991, first as a manager of its Belgian retail offices and later as the manager of retail marketing for the United States and Europe.
