Citadel has poached a top executive from Morgan Stanley in one of Wall Street's fiercest hiring battleground

Citadel has poached a top quant executive from Morgan Stanley.Glen Popick, formerly the global head of fixed-income strats at the investment bank, has left for the hedge-fund giant, according to people familiar with the matter. Quants are among the most coveted professionals on Wall Street. Competition is fierce not just among banks and asset managers, but from Silicon Valley startups as well.Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.Hedge-fund giant Citadel has poached a top executive from Morgan Stanley in one of the fiercest talent battlegrounds on Wall Street. Glen Popick, the head of fixed-income strats and a nearly two-decade veteran at Morgan Stanley, has left the investment bank for a role as the head of FICC technology at the more than $30 billion hedge fund, according to people familiar with the matter.At Morgan Stanley, Popick led a large team of quants that develop algorithms and models to help price derivatives, manage risk, and execute trading strategies. Han Lee, an ex-RBS quant exec who joined the bank in 2015, has been promoted to replace Popick, the people said. Popick will report to chief technology officer Umesh Subramanian, an ex-Goldman Sachs partner who joined Citadel last year. Representatives at Citadel and Morgan Stanley declined to comment. Quants and data scientists are among the most coveted personnel on Wall Street, as hedge funds focused on systematic strategies have grown substantially in recent years — even when performance has faltered.And hedge funds aren't just fighting with rival asset managers, they're at times getting outbid by buzzy Silicon Valley start-ups. Bradley Saacks contributed to this story. Read more:The explosive growth of quant investing is paving the way for 'super managers' in the hedge-fund industryWall Streeters fled to Silicon Valley to chase riches, influence, and a better life. Now they're bouncing back to banking.Balyasny loses a quant portfolio manager as the manager gets its footing after a disappointing 2018