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Dive Brief:
- Wells Fargo has tapped Saul Van Beurden, the bank’s San Francisco-based head of technology, to succeed retiring CEO of Consumer and Small Business Banking Mary Mack, the company announced Thursday. The change will take effect on May 15.
- Tracy Kerrins, currently head of consumer technology at Wells Fargo, has been selected to succeed Van Beurden as the bank’s head of technology. Kerrins and Van Beurden will serve on the company’s operating committee and report to CEO Charlie Scharf.
- Wells Fargo started 10 years ago digital transformation journey with Van Beurden at the helm in 2021. Kerrins is leading his division through a series of technology platform modernization initiatives across Consumer and Small Business Banking and Consumer Lending, Scharf said in the announcement.
Dive Insights:
The leadership change reflects Wells Fargo’s focus on consumer technology and small business banking divisions. CSBB serves 21 million retail bank households and three million small businesses.
“Our customers expect us to provide them with highly digitized and seamless banking experiences across all channels,” Scharf said in the announcement. “Saul understands this very well and has consistently proven his ability to transform new ideas into new products and services at Wells Fargo.”
Van Beurden, a former CIO, joined Wells Fargo in 2019 as the company’s first head of technology. Prior to that, he served as CIO of consumer and community banking at JPMorgan Chase and held senior IT leadership roles at Dutch banking and financial services firm ING Group.
Kerrins led operations and technology for a private credit manager and spent 15 years in senior technology roles at Bank of America before joining Van Beurden at Wells Fargo in 2019.
Mack is leaving Wells Fargo after nearly four decades with the company.
“Mary and her leadership team have transformed the organization, and I look forward to continuing the work while bringing technology and data expertise to accelerate the transformation journey,” said Scharf.
Scharf has spent the last three years digging the company out from under a series of scandals involving fake consumer accounts and compliance failures that preceded his tenure as CEO.
At CSBB, the focus is on recovery, with optimization delayed, Scharf said in a Q1 2023 earnings call on Friday for the three-month period ended March 31.
“For several years after Mary got her job in the consumer banking operation, our focus was on dealing with the cleanup,” Scharf said during the earnings call. “Then, we turned our attention to being more efficient.”
The digital migration is part of an efficiency drive that includes looking at the branch and staff footprint, Scharf said.
“We’re behind on that, but there’s been a lot of progress made in the last two years,” he said.