Wells Fargo appointed six new corporate risk leaders as part of its enhanced risk model. In addition, Mike Roemer, the current chief compliance officer of Wells Fargo, decided to leave the company following a transition period.

“Our new model will strengthen our centralized, independent risk management program, provide greater consistency in how we manage risk across our businesses, and better position us for the future,” Mandy Norton, chief risk officer for Wells Fargo, said.

The model consists of five line-of-business CROs, along with other teams aligned by risk type, each reporting to Norton. The new leaders, who will all report to Norton, are:

• Paula Dominick, who will join Wells Fargo as chief compliance officer in October. Dominick was most recently chief compliance officer of Credit Suisse and previously held leadership roles at Bank of America, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley. In this role, Dominick will be responsible for oversight of all regulatory compliance risks for Wells Fargo.
• Brian King, who will join Wells Fargo as CRO for consumer and small business banking in October. King was most recently CRO and head of finance for the consumer business at Goldman Sachs and previously held risk leadership roles at JPMorgan Chase.
• Ellen Koebler, who will join Wells Fargo as CRO for commercial banking in September. Koebler was previously deputy CRO at Truist, CRO for SunTrust Banks, and held leadership roles at E*Trade, JPMorgan Chase, First Union and Shell Oil & Shell Chemical Companies.
• Prasanna Someshwar, who will join Wells Fargo as CRO for wealth and investment management in October. Someshwar previously held various risk leadership roles at JPMorgan Chase, including CRO and chief credit officer for wealth management/private bank.
• Jeff Colson, who was named CRO for finance and will join the risk team in September following a transition period from his current role. Colson was most recently head of capital management at Wells Fargo. His successor will be named shortly. Colson joined Wells Fargo in 2015 and previously held executive financial and risk management positions at Bank of America.
• Patrick Dillon, who was named enterprise testing and validation leader, effective immediately. Dillon joined Wells Fargo’s risk organization in 2018 and was previously in compliance leadership roles at PNC Financial Services and Bank of America Merchant Services. In this role, Dillon will lead the team responsible for the development and design of methodologies and standards for review activities across the company and provide strategic leadership of enterprise-wide testing programs.

The new CROs will each provide independent, holistic risk leadership and oversight for their respective business lines and functional areas, creating streamlined interaction with independent risk management and a view of risks across each of the businesses. The CROs will work in partnership with leaders who will continue to oversee market, credit, operational, compliance, strategic and model risk across the entire company.

“These new leaders bring impressive experience, diverse insights and strong leadership skills to their roles,” Norton said. “They will each play an important part on the risk leadership team under our newly enhanced organizational structure as we strengthen our independent risk management function and better position how we manage risk for the future.”

The new leaders were named following the May 2020 announcement of the enhanced corporate risk model, which noted that Kevin Reen would join Wells Fargo as CRO of consumer lending and that Bill Juliano would join Wells Fargo as chief operational risk officer. A search for the new CRO for corporate and investment banking remains underway.