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Despite years of diversity initiatives, senior management teams remain overwhelmingly male. Now a growing number of women are coming around to the idea that real change starts in the boardroom.
September 22 -
Wells Fargo has seven women on its 16-member board, a 44% ratio that is twice that of the average top 25 bank. It got there, in large part, by looking beyond C-suites for qualified directors.
September 22
Yvette Hollingsworth Clark
Chief Compliance Officer, Wells Fargo
As the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau takes an especially data-driven approach to regulating banks, Yvette Hollingsworth Clark has had to recruit new kinds of talent to help Wells Fargo comply.
"This is the first time in my career that I've had to hire PhDs in quantitative analysis for compliance," says Clark. "I'm finding that we need more engineer types and quants than we've ever needed before."
Since joining Wells in 2012, Clark has increased overall staffing levels in compliance by more than 300%.
One of the factors driving the need for more data-analysis whizzes, she says, is that many customers now bank exclusively through online channels. "It raises the risk profile a little bit because you have to be concerned about cybersecurity and data breaches, and you need to make sure you have a compliance program that can detect where there are potential vulnerabilities," she says.
Clark has some experience on the regulatory side of the industry. After graduate school, she spent almost 10 years at the Federal Reserve, before leaving in 2004 to follow one of her bosses to Citigroup. She served as head of anti-money laundering there, until a 2008 move to Barclays to oversee compliance and risk management.
Clark chairs Wells Fargo's regulatory compliance risk management committee and is a member of the enterprise risk management committee. Outside of work, she is also on the board of INROADS, a nonprofit focused on mentoring young people.
