Citadel promotes Salame to co-CIO as Yeh plans to retire

BOSTON (Reuters) – Citadel is promoting Pablo Salame, one of Wall Street’s most prominent traders, to become the $43 billon hedge fund’s co-chief investment officer next year as James Yeh retires.

Salame, who joined Citadel in 2019, will share the position with firm founder Ken Griffin and will retain his role as head of global credit, Citadel said in a statement.

He joined from Goldman Sachs where he started as an emerging markets trader and rose to co-head of global markets and vice chair of the firm.

Yeh, who is currently president and has been co-chief investment officer with Griffin since 2019, joined in 1993. He retired from Citadel in 2013 and returned in 2017.

Yeh, who earned a Ph.D. in physics, helped build Citadel’s statistical arbitrage business and pushed the firm’s expansion into new strategies, the firm said on its website.

“James has been responsible for much of Citadel’s success. His commitment to recruiting and mentoring so many members of our extraordinary team is undoubtedly his greatest legacy,” Griffin said in the statement.

(Reporting by Svea Herbst-Bayliss; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)