Citi hired a brand-new head of defense banking, from Macquarie

28 July 2026

2 minute read

With geopolitical instability in the Middle East, record global defense spending, and an investment banking boom, it’s a time of opportunity for the global defense industry. And to make the most of that opportunity, banks are hiring defense bankers.

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Jeremy Parker is joining Citi in September in New York as the firm’s head of aerospace and defense banking. He will lead the team with Sameer Garg, a former NASA propulsion engineer and RBC managing director.

Parker is joining Citi after a decade at Macquarie, where he was a senior managing director and head of aerospace, defense, and government services banking. He built the Macquarie team from scratch over the course of the last decade. It’s not clear why he chose the leave Macquarie. Neither Citi nor Parker responded to a request for comment.

As we noted earlier, it’s a good time to be in defense banking. Data from market intelligence provider Dealroom, compiled by the Financial Times last week, said that the world’s largest defense companies, such as Lockheed Martin and BAE Systems, had invested a record $4.1bn in defense-related venture capital so far this year.

Dealogic data published by the Financial Times also suggests that this year will be a record year for defense banking as a whole, too – total deal value has already reached $40bn, compared to $59bn for the whole of 2025.

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