Wells Fargo executive Mary Mack, lauded for actions during massive scandal, is retiring
Wells Fargo’s Mary Mack, a top executive in Charlotte, will retire this summer after nearly 40 years in the banking industry and navigating a massive scandal at the bank.
Mack led the transformation of Wells Fargo’s retail bank branch network as CEO of its consumer and small business banking for the past seven years.
Mack also served as president and head of Wells Fargo Advisors, and other leadership roles in consumer banking, brokerage, commercial banking and corporate and investment banking, according to a bank news release Thursday.
“Mary has spent her entire career at Wells Fargo, which spans nearly four decades,” CEO Charlie Scharf said Thursday in a statement. “I can think of few Wells Fargo colleagues who have done as much for our company — and who have been as visible in the communities that we serve — over such a long period of time.”
Mary Mack’s leadership at Wells Fargo
In 2016, Mack became one of Wells Fargo’s first top executives in Charlotte leading community banking after Carrie Tolstedt stepped own — right before the San Francisco-based bank was fined $185 million over fake accounts.
Wells Fargo employees created millions of fake accounts for customers without their knowledge in order to meet aggressive sales goals. Mack was tasked with winning back angry customers, reinventing the sales culture for 94,000 employees and restoring a tarnished brand.
“Mary is not intimidated by a challenge,” retired Wells Fargo executive John Tate, who hired her into a position at Charlotte-based First Union in the 1980s, told The Charlotte Observer in 2016. “She will meet it head on.”
Under Mack, the community banking division underwent an overhaul including eliminating product sales goals for bankers who sell traditional products like checking accounts and credit cards. The bank also launched a nationwide ad campaign that said the bank was founded in 1852 and “re-established” in 2018, referring to changes that were made to move forward.
Mack was lauded in the financial community for her actions in the aftermath of the scandal, which included “listening tours” with Wells employees across the U.S. in the scandal’s wake.
Career and community
A native of Augusta, Ga., Mack graduated from Davidson College. Her first job in banking was as a commercial lender in 1984 at Charlotte-based First Union. She eventually managed commercial banking for the East Coast and health care banking group in the capital markets side of the business.
In 2001, when First Union bought Winston-Salem-based Wachovia, she was a regional president in the community bank. By 2006, Mack ran the brokerage business inside bank branches. In 2008, Wells Fargo acquired Wachovia.
In Fort Mill, S.C., the Mary Warner Mack Dog Park at the Anne Springs Close Greenway is named in honor of Mack’s eldest of three daughters who died at age 23 in 2014. Mack and husband Barry were credited as major drivers of the project.
Mack also has been involved in the community, including Habitat for Humanity International, Charlotte Executive Leadership Council and United Way Worldwide’s Board of Trustees, according to Wells Fargo website.
Fortune magazine named her one of the “50 Most Powerful Women in Business” for six consecutive years, starting in 2016, and she made American Banker magazine’s top 10 list of “Most Powerful Women in Banking” in 2021 and last year.
New roles after Mack’s departure
Saul Van Beurden, head of technology at Wells Fargo, will succeed Mack, effective May 15. Tracy Kerrins, head of consumer technology, will fill Van Beurden’s seat.
Van Beurden also held senior leadership roles at ING Group, running operations and technology for international retail and direct banks.
Kerrins has worked in the technology and finance industries for over 20 years.
More about Wells Fargo in Charlotte
Wells Fargo is headquartered in San Francisco but has its largest employment hub in Charlotte, with about 27,000 workers.
In late January, the bank announced it was moving all of its workers out of two uptown towers to consolidate into one space. The bank also is spending over $500 million in the next five years to upgrade its northeast Charlotte campus.
Since the 2016 scandal, regulators identified additional problems with how the bank handled mortgages, auto loans and consumer deposit accounts. That culminated in a $3.7 billion charge in fines and restitution from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau last year.
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