Veteran investment banker John Boord is returning to Citi’s LatAm unit where he will co-head regional investment banking starting January, Manuel Medina-Mora, chairman and CEO Citigroup Latin America and Mexico tells LatinFinance. The Venezuelan national will run LatAm investment banking ex-Brazil and be based in Mexico. Boord, a former head of Mexican and regional investment banking at the firm, replaces Carlos Vara who left Citi in early December. Boord is currently in Citi’s New York-based US consumer and retail investment banking group. He wanted to return to the region, Medina Mora adds. The investment banking business that Vara helped run covers advisory, M&A and equity. Ricardo Lacerda, Vara’s former co-head based in Sao Paulo, will continue to lead Citi’s Brazil investment banking efforts. Separately, former LatAm DCM co-head John Hartzell left the firm in a pre-Thanksgiving round of redundancies. Hartzell departed the DCM group in early 2007 to head LatAm trading and was latterly involved in finding derivatives solutions for corporate clients.