Wells Fargo & Co. said Monday that Charlotte, North Carolina-based executive Mary Mack will become its new head of consumer lending, adding to her duties as head of community banking.
The appointment, effective immediately, puts Mack in charge of the nation’s largest mortgage lending operation, in addition to her role leading a retail banking operation still recovering from a massive sales scandal.
In the consumer lending role, Mack succeeds Franklin Codel, a Des Moines, Iowa-based executive who was terminated in November for “acting in a manner that was contrary to the company’s policies and expectations of its senior leaders.”
The Wall Street Journal reported that Codel was fired after he made disparaging remarks about regulators to a previously terminated senior mortgage official.
Mack already has one of the biggest jobs in the bank, reforming a retail banking operation that has been under fire since September 2016. That’s when Wells agreed to pay $185 million in fines to settle claims that its employees might have opened 2 million unauthorized customer accounts to meet aggressive sales goals. She took the role in July 2016, replacing the retiring Carrie Tolstedt.
Her combined team now employs about 115,000.
“By combining community banking and consumer lending, we are creating a more holistic approach to delivering retail banking services to our customers, which will only enhance how we help our customers succeed financially,” Wells Fargo Chief Executive Officer Tim Sloan said in a statement. “Mary’s proven leadership skills, resiliency and the principled way she has driven change throughout her career have earned her the respect of her customers, colleagues and teams and the opportunity to lead this combined organization.”
The 33-year bank veteran who began her career at Charlotte’s First Union will continue reporting to Sloan. The consumer lending executives answering directly to her include Michael DeVito, interim leader of Wells Fargo Home Lending; Laura Schupbach, head of Wells Fargo Dealer Services; and John Rasmussen, head of personal lending.
Wells Fargo’s mortgage and auto lending operations have both been under scrutiny lately for a series of missteps. In July, Wells said as many as 570,000 customers may have been charged premiums for auto insurance they did not need, and in October it disclosed improperly charging some customers fees for mortgage rate lock extensions.
Earlier this month, President Donald Trump added to the pressure on the bank when he tweeted “fines and penalties against Wells Fargo Bank for their bad acts against their customers and others will not be dropped” after media reports suggested the administration could scale back penalties.
