Wells Fargo board of directors has elected three new members, the latest step in a reshuffling that grew out of the company’s fraudulent sales scandal.
The new directors will be: Celeste Clark, a former executive at the food manufacturer Kellogg Co.; Theodore Craver Jr., former CEO of the electric utility Edison International; and Maria Morris, a former executive at the insurer MetLife Inc.
They will join Wells Fargo’s board on Jan. 1, the San Francisco bank said Wednesday in a press release.
The new appointments follow an announcement in August that Vice Chair Elizabeth Duke would become chair at the start of next year. Wells Fargo also said at the time that Chair Stephen Sanger and longtime directors Cynthia Milligan and Susan Swenson would retire from the board at the end of 2017, and that up to three new independent directors would be appointed.
“The board’s composition has changed significantly as it remains focused on being responsive to shareholders, enhancing oversight and creating value for shareholders,” Duke said in Wednesday’s press release.
Wells Fargo has been facing pressure to shake up a board that failed to head off a reputation-scarring scandal. In September 2016, the $1.9 trillion-asset bank agreed to pay $190 million to settle charges that employees created more than 2 million seemingly unauthorized customer accounts.
Its troubles have only grown since then, as the bank has acknowledged charging improper fees to certain mortgage borrowers and charging car loan customers for insurance coverage they didn't need. The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency
At Wells Fargo’s annual meeting last April,
After Jan. 1, six of the board’s 15 nonexecutive members will have joined since the scandal broke a little over a year ago.
