credit:
https://www.bizjournals.com/charlotte/news/2018/03/23/wells-fargo-to-part-with-four-risk-management.html
Wells Fargo Kevin Oden, head of operational risk and compliance; Keb Byers, head of enterprise risk; and Vic Albrecht, head of the community-banking risk group.
WSJ also reports an internal memo outlines structural changes in roles and responsibilities that will take place within risk management.
"Strengthening and transforming how we manage risk is a top priority for Wells Fargo. While more work is underway, we’re making meaningful progress that is allowing us to better serve our customers and enable our team members to more effectively manage risk across the company," Wells Fargo said in a statement Friday.
Richards, Oden and Byers are based out of California. Albrecht, however, is based out of Charlotte. He previously worked for Wachovia for two decades before transitioning into the role of Wells Fargo chief compliance officer for wealth brokerage and retirement. Albrecht became a group risk officer in September 2014.
The retirements are the latest in a slew of executive changes in response to Wells Fargo's infamous accounts scandal, in which millions of accounts were created without customers' knowledge to boost sales quotas. The fake accounts were uncovered in September 2016. Since then, the San Francisco-based bank has sought to restructure its leadership in an attempt to reform company culture.
Earlier this year, the Federal Reserve leveraged a consent order against Wells Fargo, capping the bank's total assets at about $1.95 trillion (the amount as of Dec. 31, 2017) until certain risk-management requirements are met and deemed satisfactory. Some analysts viewed the Fed's imposed consequences as unusually harsh, as it has never imposed such strict growth restrictions on a major bank.
Wells Fargo CEO Tim Sloan promised full compliance. "We take the consent order very seriously, and we will work diligently to fix the issues identified, and as a result we will be a better, stronger and more customer-focused company than ever before," he told investors in February.
The bank's retail line of business has been under scrutiny since 2016, but most recently, the New York City-based law firm Shearman & Sterling and the U.S. Department of Justice launched separate investigations into wealth management, which includes Wells Fargo Advisors, the bank's brokerage division. Federal investigators were reportedly conducting interviews with Arizona employees last week.
A couple of weeks prior to that, four Wells Fargo board members also agreed to step down.