Earlier this month, December, Citigroup appointed two heavyweights from the Obama and Bush administrations, each as a vice chairman.  On 12/9, Peter Orszag, President Obama’s first budget director, joined Citigroup investment banking unit as a Vice Chairman.  A week earlier, Carlos Gutierrez, former commerce secretary for President George W. Bush, was named to a similar post.  Both men will become members of Citigroup's senior strategic advisory group, a counsel of political and financial hands that its bankers can bring into the most complex situations.

Peter Orszag, 41, also is a protégé of Robert Rubin who, 10 years earlier left the Clinton administration to become a senior advisor and board member at Citigroup - with $10 million in compensation and no management responsibility.  Citigroup did not disclose Mr. Orszag’s compensation, though he's sure to earn way more than he did as a member of the Obama cabinet.

Mr. Orzag's appointment came days after the Treasury Department’s $10.5 billion stock offering helped further extricate the bailed out bank from Washington.  His actual duties are murky at best but here are the expectations:

• He's expected to draw on his deep knowledge of public sector financial issues and his experience overseeing the federal budget to counsel Cit'’s clients on various policy actions. 
• He's expected to be something of a corporate rainmaker. 
• One client he cannot advise is the U.S. Government - federal ethics rules prohibits Mr. Orszag from having any contact with federal government officials.

To continue reading about Mr.Orzag and others who, over the years, left politics to join the likes of:  Lehman Brothers, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, click onto:   [NYTimes, 12/9, "Ex-White House .."]