His experience there, as well as a subsequent stint as CEO
of custodian bank BNY Mellon, taught him how all-
encompassing the chief ’s role was. “There’s no job that’s
comparable,” Scharf says. “The whole organization looks to
you for the wins and the losses, for setting the tone and the
culture ... Some love it, and some don’t love it.” Scharf falls
into the first category.
Around the time he was leaving Visa, another San
Francisco–based company was reckoning with a scandal
of tectonic proportions.
The details of Wells Fargo’s fake-accounts fraud debacle
are well documented: Driven by a hyperaggressive sales
culture, employees opened accounts for and sold financial
products to millions of customers—without their approval.
The problems were endemic across the company, with
similar sharklike misconduct surfacing in Wells’ mortgage,
auto lending, and wealth management businesses.
The fallout proved devastating. From 2016 through
2018, federal regulators hit Wells with five consent orders
laying bare the institution’s mismanagement—along with
sanctions that included the constraining asset cap. Regula-tors also held Wells’ leadership accountable: Former CEO
John Stumpf, who stepped down after the scandal emerged
in 2016, was eventually handed a $17.5 million fine and a
lifetime ban from the banking industry. His successor, Tim
Sloan, resigned under political pressure in March 2019.
In a report last year, the House Financial Services Com-
mittee slammed Wells Fargo’s board and management for
continually failing to address the company’s shortcomings,
even years after the misdeeds came to light.
Wells Fargo had been one of the few American banks to
emerge from the 2008 financial crisis with its reputation
intact. As rivals stumbled, Wells grew stronger, as evi-
denced by its $15 billion mid-crisis acquisition of Wachovia.
Now, it finds itself the bête noire of the banking sector. “We
were growing while everyone else was focused on running
themselves better,” says Jon Weiss, a 15-year Wells veteran
who now leads the corporate and investment banking divi-
sion. “We were to some degree victims of our own success,
and maybe we could have used a bit more introspection.”
By spring 2019, Wells’ board was searching for a CEO
who could lead the company in a long, hard look in the mir-NEIGHBORHOOD
FIXTURE: Wells
Fargo has about
5,000 branches
nationwide.Even amid lockdowns, Wells Fargo had “1 MILLION
CUSTOMERS A DAY COMING INTO OUR BR ANCHES,”
says consumer banking head Mary Mack.TING SHEN—BLOOMBERG/GETTY IMAGES