Oppenheimer & Co. banking analyst Meredith Whitney is leaving the firm to start her own. The firm will bear her name. Whitney predicted a dividend cut at Citigroup Inc. three months before it happened.

Whitney began her career as a research analyst in 1993 at OpCo, covering oil and gas before switching to finance two years later.

Morgan Stanley hired William Wicker as a vice chairman of investment banking, natural resources group. Wicker spent seven years at Goldman, Sachs & Co., where he was a partner managing director in the natural resources group in New York. In 2005 and 2006, he was CEO of Goldman Sachs Gao Hua Securities Co. Ltd. and co-head of investment banking in Asia ex-Japan, based in Beijing.

Before Goldman, Wicker was a senior vice president at Texaco Inc. Before joining Texaco in 1997, he was a managing director at Credit Suisse Group and co-head of its global energy group. Wicker was also a consultant at McKinsey & Co.

Roberto Ramirez will not stand for re-election to Citigroup Inc.'s board. Ramirez has been considering this move for a couple of years. He remains non-executive chairman of Citi subsidiary Banco Nacional de Mexico.

Last month, chairman Win Bischoff said he would retire on Feb. 23, to be succeeded by senior non-executive director Richard Parsons. Parsons is the former chairman of Time Warner Inc., which he joined as president in 1995. Two weeks before that announcement, former Treasury Secretary Robert E. Rubin, who is director and senior counselor to Citigroup, said he would not stand for re-election as director at Citi's annual meeting and will retire at the end of his tenure.

Mark Harrison was named European head of prime finance at Citigroup Inc. He succeeds Nick Roe, who remains global head of prime finance. Harrison was chief operating officer of hedge fund Cheyne Capital Management. Before that, he helped set up a Carlyle Group hedge fund, Carlyle Blue Wave. Earlier, he was European head of securities lending at Morgan Stanley and international head, prime brokerage, at Deutsche Bank AG.

BNP Paribas SA, which swung to a loss in the fourth quarter, is shuffling two bankers on March 31. Jacques d'Estais, head of corporate and investment banking, will become head of asset management and services. Alain Papiasse, now head of AMS, will become head of CIB.

Independent mergers and acquisitions advisory firm Sagent Advisors Inc. hired Bill Kohr as a managing director and head of its new Chicago office. Kohr hails from Citigroup Inc., where he was global co-head of the automotive investment banking group. Before Citi, he was global head of the automotive group at Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette Inc. and Credit Suisse Group.

Frederic Seegal joined Peter J. Solomon Co. as a senior adviser. Seegal founded Seegal Benson Leucadia Partners in 2007. He also served as president of Wasserstein Perella. In addition, he worked with PJSC founder Peter Solomon at Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. and with PJSC president Kenneth Berliner at Salomon Brothers Inc. He focuses on major media and telecom clients.

Putnam Investments tapped David Glancy as a managing director and portfolio manager. He joins from Andover Capital, where he was a founding partner and portfolio manager. Glancy focuses on equities while also including high-yield and bank debt. Prior to joining Andover Capital, he was a 13-year veteran of Fidelity Investments.

RiverSource Investments launched RiverSource Recovery and Infrastructure Fund, led by senior portfolio manager Warren Spitz. The open-end mutual fund seeks long-term opportunities in publicly traded companies.

Olympia Asset Management Ltd. hired Paul Resnik as chief market analyst. He was president of Resnik Asset Management Co. He also worked at Citigroup Inc.'s Smith Barney, E.F. Hutton & Co., Paine Webber and Co. and Merrill Lynch & Co.

Lisa Layman joined Brown Rudnick LLP's Washington office as a director in the government law and strategies group. Previously, Layman was vice president for government affairs at the Generic Pharmaceutical Association. From 1997 to 2007, she was a member of the U.S. Senate legislative staff. She was a senior policy adviser to Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich.

Life sciences and healthcare compliance lawyer Keith Korenchuk joined Arnold & Porter LLP as a partner in Washington. Korenchuk has practiced at Covington & Burling LLP.

Sutherland Asbill & Brennan LLP elected six partners and seven counsel. Partners include litigators Keith Barnett and Richard Stilwell; corporate attorneys Marc Rawls and Ling Ling; Washington-based Stephen Kranz, state and local tax; and David Roby Jr., tax. The counsel are David Cayce, corporate; Valerie Sanders, litigation; Amanda Wilson, tax; Michele Borens in Washington, state and local tax; Susan Lafferty and James Guy, energy and environmental; and David Weslow, intellectual property.