Citadel Nabs Goldman Tech Chief in Latest Poach From Wall Street

Goldman Sachs Chief Technology Officer, Atte Lahtiranta, is making the increasingly common transition from Wall Street to Citadel, the hedge fund led by Ken Griffin according to Bloomberg. Citadel has appointed Lahtiranta to lead its core engineering team, where he will oversee the technology that supports the firm's trading and risk management functions a role that Griffin has emphasized as crucial for top investment firms. At the Milken Institute Global Conference in May, Griffin highlighted how positions like CTO and CIO have gained prominence due to the focus on artificial intelligence, noting that these executives now command the attention of CEOs.

In a competitive market for top talent, firms like Citadel and its competitors have been offering increasingly lucrative compensation packages to attract high-level executives from major banks. Citadel, in particular, has become a favoured destination for Goldman alumni, with several key roles filled by former Goldman executives, including Pablo Salame, who previously led trading at Goldman and now holds a senior position at the hedge fund. Umesh Subramanian, Citadel's current CTO and a former Goldman executive himself, emphasized the importance of the firm’s engineering prowess and talent acquisition, stating, "We look forward to welcoming Atte."

Lahtiranta's hiring at Goldman was part of a broader wave of lateral partner hires initiated during David Solomon's early tenure as CEO. Solomon identified technology as crucial to gaining a competitive edge in rapidly evolving markets, with Lahtiranta and Marco Argenti, now Goldman's CIO, being key appointments in that strategy.