A number of other managers who came up under Sotoodeh around Los Angeles and Orange County are now regional presidents overseeing parts of California and Texas. David DiCristofaro runs greater Los Angeles. Ben Alvarado runs the region that Sotoodeh once handed to Young. Reza Razzaghipour manages an area stretching from Ventura and Santa Barbara inland to Tulare County, while his spouse, Marla Clemow, presides over metropolitan Los Angeles. They declined to comment or didn’t respond to messages.
One of their peers, Darryl Montgomery, leads Houston. He was the most senior manager below Tolstedt named in a lawsuit by ex-Wells Fargo employees claiming they were unfairly pressed to meet sales quotas, according to a Bloomberg review of more than 40 court cases. While that 2014 complaint against Wells Fargo is continuing in Los Angeles Superior Court, claims against Montgomery were extinguished in July. He didn’t respond to phone messages.
Overhauling Incentives
Wells Fargo has said it scaled back, and ultimately eliminated, sales goals that regulators faulted for encouraging abusive cross-selling. A new performance plan for retail bankers will be introduced next year. It’ll be based on customer service, growth and risk management.
The company created a human resources team to help rehire employees who left for performance reasons, Sloan told staff in his speech. And it will hire consultants to review sales practices and address “cultural weaknesses that need to be strengthened or fixed,” he said.
“I think it all begins with understanding where things broke down, and where we failed -- as a culture, a company and as leaders,” he said.
Six years ago, former Wachovia banker Joe Coyne helped run some of Schulte’s programs on the East Coast to drive up numbers, such as one called “Jump Into 2010.” To many managers back then, his was a voice of encouragement, singling out those who beat targets and spurring them to do more.
“The performance you both planned for and delivered is nothing short of incredible,” he wrote in a staff update on the 2010 campaign. “You have raised the bar higher than many thought possible.” He referred questions about that work to the bank’s spokesmen.
Last year, Wells Fargo promoted him to a key post within its risk office. Coyne now oversees sales practices across the company’s divisions, looking for any conduct that might cause problems.
This article was provided by Bloomberg News.