Dick Kovacevich

Dick Kovacevich served as Chairman and CEO of Wells Fargo from 1998 to 2007, having previously served as CEO of Norwest Corporation before its merger with Wells Fargo. He architected Wells Fargo's "store model" of banking — treating branches as retail stores where employees were tasked with selling multiple financial products ("eight is great" cross-selling culture). This strategy produced outstanding financial metrics and made Wells Fargo one of the most admired U.S. banks, with Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway building a major stake. Under Kovacevich's watch, Wells Fargo navigated the 2008 financial crisis better than competitors by acquiring Wachovia, and its simple community banking model was praised. However, the cross-selling culture Kovacevich built contained the seeds of the 2016 fake accounts scandal, in which employees created millions of unauthorized accounts to meet aggressive cross-selling quotas. Kovacevich himself has disputed any link between his strategy and the scandal.