Wells Fargo has elevated a longtime investment banker to a new role overseeing environmentally and socially responsible investments for its corporate clients.
As managing director and head of ESG solutions, Geneviève Piché will lead the San Francisco company’s efforts to ramp up environmental, social and governance products in its corporate and investment bank. Her work will span debt capital markets, equity capital markets, public finance, lending, M&A advisory, cash management products and liquidity. She will be based in Charlotte, N.C., and will report to Ken Kitkowski, head of corporate finance.
“At the core of it, I think incorporating ESG considerations into business strategies is value-creating for investors and companies,” Piché told American Banker. “You have companies that are embracing the idea that business decisions have an impact and should have an impact on a range of stakeholders. Then you have the investor side with trillions of dollars of capital being deployed by the asset management community, and they’re seeing that ESG is a really important tool to assess nonfinancial risks and have a positive impact.”
Wells Fargo, which has $1.9 trillion of assets, said it created the job to meet a growing demand by corporate clients for ESG-friendly financial products.
“The world of ESG and sustainability is very much in focus across all of our corporate and institutional relationships,” Rob Engel, Wells Fargo’s head of banking, said in an interview. “You’re seeing it across all our industries, sectors and product groups. It’s very much now part of M&A, debt and equity capital markets, lending. … We’re seeing that continue to escalate.”
Piché has been with Wells Fargo for 20 years and most recently led asset management for corporate and investment banking. She previously led credit origination efforts for the bank's financial institution clients in Eastern Europe, Africa, India and the Middle East.
