The Most Powerful Women to Watch, No.6, Tracy Kerrins, Wells Fargo

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For Tracy Kerrins, the convergence of two enormous responsibilities at Wells Fargo is not a balancing act. It's a single mission.

As Wells Fargo's chief information officer for consumer technology and head of generative AI, Kerrins manages a $4 billion budget and a global team of roughly 7,000 employees. Her mandate is to modernize the bank's core consumer platforms while embedding AI capabilities across the enterprise for 215,000 employees and nearly 70 million customers.

"I don't separate the roles," Kerrins said. "Everything I do with generative AI informs what I do with consumer technology, and vice versa. It's all about finding better, faster, and more innovative ways to serve our employees and customers."

That philosophy helps shape both strategy and execution for Kerrins at Wells. She was previously the head of technology at Well, but in July 2024, Bridget Engle was named Senior EVP, Head of Technology.

On the AI front, Kerrins is overseeing the rollout of enterprise-wide generative and agentic AI tools, which started with a 2,000-employee pilot launched in early summer 2025. From branch employees to operations staff, each of those roles is being trained to apply AI in ways that are relevant to their work. For example, employees can use Gen AI to quickly retrieve policies and procedures to assist customers or analyze multiple data sources to generate insights.

The technology's potential is clear. So is the operational complexity.

"It's less about the tech itself and more about operationalizing at scale," Kerrins said. "When you introduce new capabilities to thousands of employees, you have to think about adoption, training and support, and then ensure it's something they want to use, not something we push on them."

Her consumer technology responsibilities are equally sweeping. Kerrins and her team support products and services across auto, credit card, home lending, branch, ATM, and small business. Recent product rollouts include the bank's early pay day capabilities, and Fargo, a virtual assistant. She described the work as "reshaping customer experiences to meet expectations shaped by experiences outside of banking."

That awareness comes partly from outside the bank's walls. A mother of three teenagers, Kerrins plays close attention to how they collaborate, consume information, and interact with technology. "It's a great lens into where customer expectations are headed," she said.

Her interest in AI is as much personal as it is professional. An engineer by trade, Kerrins has long sought out tools to make her own life easier. And it goes a step further. Two of her children are high school seniors who run track and are being recruited by college coaches. Kerrins has used Gen AI tools to help prepare her and her children for college recruiting meetings. "I've always been an early adopter," she said. "This is just another way to use technology to solve problems and unlock possibilities."

Outside of Wells, Kerrins continues to be an active presence in the industry and her community. She serves on the boards of the Banking Industry Architecture Network (BIAN), Discovery Place, the National Center for Women in Technology, and Habitat for Humanity of the Charlotte region.

Kerrins is particularly fond of her involvement with Discovery Place, the interactive science museum in Charlotte. When she was asked to join the board, she said she was honored because the museum is such an iconic part of Charlotte and an integral part of her children's upbringing.