Wells Fargo President William Zuendt announced plans this week to retire this summer as second-in-command at California's second-largest bank which owns a number of former First Interstate branches in Utah.
Wells Fargo does not plan to replace Zuendt, who is 50 and has spent almost half his life at the bank. Instead, CEO Paul Hazen, 55, immediately named four vice chairmen to a new Office of the Chairman to help him set direction for the bank.Three members of the new office head different customer groups at the bank. They are Terry Dial, 47, consumer and small business banking; Clyde Ostler, 50, individual and institutional in-ves-tors; and Charlie Johnson, 55, wholesale banking including commercial, corporate and real estate customers. The fourth member is Chief Financial Officer Rod Jacobs, 56.
Zuendt said that he has long planned to take early retirement and now that the merger of Wells Fargo and First Interstate Bancorp is complete, this is the perfect time.
But one investment banker, who asked to remain anonymous, suggests that Zuendt "could have been sacrificed because the integration of the two banks hasn't gone as well as many people would have liked."
Hazen has apologized to customers for some poor service. But he had nothing but praise yesterday for Zuendt, who plans to leave Wells Fargo's board in July and leave the bank by October.
Zuendt and his wife plan to bike south from Canada along the East Coast. Then he plans to visit all U.S. national parks and after that, perhaps start thinking about ways to apply new technology in the services industry.
A math major at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Zuendt joined Wells Fargo in 1973, the same year he received an MBA from Stanford. Initially, he was responsible for the bank's computer systems and operations. Since the early 1980s he guided Wells' retail banking strategy and two years ago was named president and chief operating officer.
Zuendt's departure "will certainly be a loss," said Raphael Soifer, an analyst with Brown Brothers Harriman in New York. "He is one of the most insightful strategic thinkers in the financial services industry. He pioneered whaT I call `use of appropriate technology' that is efficient and cost-effective rather than gold plating."