Story 191

I am a retired EVP at Wells Fargo. In my role, I provided regular updates to Carrie Tolstedt because my team managed a product the community bank sold. It was widely understood that she was up to something nefarious, but no one acted because of the power she held, and because John Stumpf either enabled her, looked the other way, or both. They were partners in crime whether he liked it or not. This is established in the public record.

What I’m less certain has been made public is how cruel her tactics were. She would have managers remove the chairs of branch managers she deemed “underperforming” so that when she made a market visit she could shine them on by not shaking their hand and humilate them publicly. In reality, these brave souls were simply refusing to participate in her fraud. She also manipulated reporting structures so that her head of Risk was funneling the names of whistleblowers back to her who would be promptly fired.

I spent 25 years at Wells Fargo. It was a great place to work, and in my view—and in the view of many others—Carrie’s actions singlehandedly destroyed what had been one of the best cultures on Wall Street.

I am friends with one of the women behind this site. The situation at Citi sounds even worse than what happened at Wells Fargo, yet Citi executives seem protected in ways the WF wasn’t – who knows why except now they’re emboldened because Trump doesn’t care about regulation. Its public statements complaining about being targeted by a few “disgruntled” women is telling. Are they mad that women are talking to each other the way men have for decades? An actual institution calls it ‘colluding’ when dozens of high-profile women have been impacted by the same weaponized system? As she would say, “it’s almost funny at this point.”

I am all for me, my friend and her friends and their friends and their friends after that to send an army of women and allies to this site to say enough. The stories here matter – the patterns are not in isolation. Bless the brave souls who don’t tolerate this because she would tell you, if she could, that she gets a dozen messages per day saying every woman who has ever worked on Wall Street recognizes what’s happening.

And, in case, you’re interested in the fines and humiliation that WF executives incurred, just search Google.