Carrie Tolstedt
Carrie Tolstedt
Carrie Tolstedt is responsible for retail, small business and business banking at Wells Fargo. She leads approximately 105,000 team members who serve 22 million retail banking households and over 2.5 million small business and business banking households. [1]
The organization provides financial services to customers through approximately 6,200 retail banking stores and over 12,000 ATMs in 39 states and the District of Columbia, the contact centers of Wells Fargo Customer ConnectionSM, and wellsfargo.com.
Community Banking serves mass market, mass affluent and affluent, small business and business banking customers.
Background
Growing up in Nebraska, she claims to have learned from the way her father did business. He was a baker and would wake up early each day to handle his business.
Wells Fargo Controversy
Throughout the month of September, 2016, amidst an investigation conducted by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau who fined a total of $180 Million to Wells Fargo after its employees opened up more than 2 million deposit and credit card accounts without consumer consent - a group of senators led by Massachussetts Democrat Elizabeth Warren sent a letter to Mr. Stumpf asking whether the bank will use its “clawback authority” to recover compensation it has paid to senior executives, especially to Ms. Tolstedt.
The senators noted that Ms. Tolstedt received more than $20 million in annual bonuses from 2010 to 2015, “justified by the company in certain instances because of the ‘strong cross-sell ratios’ in her division.”
They added:
“That is a direct reference to the extraordinary number of accounts created by her division, many of which were never authorized by customers.”
The bank neither admitted nor denied the allegations in the $185 million settlement.
The bank declined to comment on Ms. Tolstedt’s behalf, and Ms. Tolstedt didn’t respond to requests for comment.
In the announcement of her retirement this summer, Mr. Stumpf called her “a standard-bearer of our culture, a champion for our customers, and a role model for responsible, principled and inclusive leadership.”
Personal
Her commute to Wells Fargo headquarters on Montgomery Street from East Bay Area consisted of a daily, early morning ride on the BART.
She would continue to work late nights and during the weekends on company's projects.
According to many of her colleagues, she wouldn't flaunt her wealth and would sometimes wear a rubber band to put her hair up in a ponytail.