Gary Crittenden Leaves Citi, Joining Huntsman Gay

Gary Crittenden, who today stepped down as chairman of Citi Holdings, will be joining Huntsman Gay Global Capital as a managing director.

Crittenden had served as Citigroup’s chief financial officer until this past March, when the firm pushed many of its riskiest assets into Citi Holdings. He was succeeded as CFO by Ed Kelly, who now will become Citigroup’s vice chairman while John Gerspach takes over as CFO.

Prior to joining Citigroup, Crittenden spent seven years as CFO and head of network services for American Express. He also has served as CFO for both Monsanto and Sears, Roebuck & Company.

Huntsman Gay is a new private equity firm based in Utah, featuring folks like John Huntsman (founder of chemical co. Huntsman Corp), Bob Gay (ex Bain Capital), Rich Lawson (ex Sorenson Capital) and Steve Young (ex Sorenson and ex NFL quarterback). It has secured more than $1 billion in capital commitments for its debut fund, but has not yet held a final close.

“Gary has been personal friends with Bob Gary for a number of years, and the rest of us have crossed paths with him periodically in philanthropic endeavors,” Young says. “We didn’t promise LPs that we’d add another [senior pro], but left the window open. If we’d known a year ago that it would be Gary, we would have been thrilled.”

Lawson adds: “One of our goals is to deliver Fortune 500, bulge-bracket type relationships to the middle-market, and Gary can really help us with that.”

Neither Young nor Lawson would comment on if Crittenden had always viewed his Citi positions as interim. Crittenden himself was unavailble for comment (he’s apparently in the process of moving from New York to Salt Lake City), but did release the following statement:

“I have been interested in private equity for many years and after a long career working with large public companies, the time is right to pursue this interest. Huntsman Gay presented me with the ideal opportunity to apply my experience with Fortune 500 companies to the middle market, where there are many compelling businesses we can help make significant improvements and become market leaders.”