Carrie L. Tolstedt is an ousted American

bank A bank is a financial institution that accepts deposits from the public and creates a demand deposit while simultaneously making loans. Lending activities can be directly performed by the bank or indirectly through capital markets. Because ...

ing executive and former head of the community banking division at

Wells Fargo Wells Fargo & Company is an American multinational financial services company with corporate headquarters in San Francisco, California; operational headquarters in Manhattan; and managerial offices throughout the United States and intern ...

, from which she retired in 2016 before the company's account fraud scandal came to light. In 2017, Wells Fargo retroactively fired Tolstedt for cause.

Early life

Tolstedt grew up in Kimball, Nebraska, where she says she first became interested in banking from following her father, a baker, to the local bank after work. She graduated from the

University of Nebraska–Lincoln The University of Nebraska–Lincoln (Nebraska, NU, or UNL) is a public land-grant research university in Lincoln, Nebraska. Chartered in 1869 by the Nebraska Legislature as part of the Morrill Act of 1862, the school was known as the Univers ...

Career

Toldstedt worked at Wells Fargo for 27 years. She was formerly on '' Fortune''s Most Powerful Women list, and in 2015, she was ranked #27 on this list and as the most powerful female banker in the United States. Under Tolstedt's supervision, her unit's employees opened over 2 million mostly unauthorized accounts for their customers. Her retirement was initially announced in July 2016 and scheduled for the end of the year, but she later chose to retire in September instead, after the account scandal became known to the public. In April 2017, Wells Fargo's board of directors released a report on the account fraud scandal accusing Tolstedt of downplaying problems at Wells Fargo's banks. The same report recommended that the bank take back $47.3 million in stock options Tolstedt had received, in addition to $19 million they had already taken back from her. The report mentioned Tolstedt's name 142 times, whereas former Wells Fargo CEO

John Stumpf John Gerard Stumpf (born September 15, 1953) is an American business executive and retail banker. He was the chairman and chief executive officer of Wells Fargo, one of the Big Four banks of the United States. He was named CEO in June 2007, elect ...

was named only 81 times. Additionally, the report primarily blamed Tolstedt for the company's misconduct in the scandal, while Stumpf was mainly blamed for not firing Tolstedt sooner. The report stated that Stumpf was hesitant to criticize Tolstedt, and that he once called her "the best banker in America". Tolstedt's law firm, Williams & Connolly, responded to the report by saying that they "strongly disagree" with its findings. In response to the report, Wells Fargo retroactively fired Tolstedt for cause and revoked $47.3 million that they had previously paid her. This brought the total amount of money she had given up to $67 million, or about 54% of her $125 million pay package she initially received when she retired. As of early January, 2020, multiple former Wells Fargo executives are facing possible criminal charges and could be indicted in early 2020. On January 23, 2020, OCC regulators announced an additional $25-million fine against Tolstedt for her role during the fraud, an amount they state could rise higher. While others involved in the scandal have given up clearing their charges, Tolstedt continues to fight against her own. On November 11, 2020 the SEC charged her with civil charges that she mislead investors about key performance metrics relating to the commercial bank unit she was responsible for at the bank.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Tolstedt, Carrie Living people People from Kimball, Nebraska University of Nebraska–Lincoln alumni Wells Fargo employees American women bankers American bankers Year of birth missing (living people) Businesspeople from Kansas 20th-century American businesswomen 20th-century American businesspeople 21st-century American businesswomen 21st-century American businesspeople