Wells Fargo’s head of regulatory relations is stepping down

Sarah Dahlgren, Wells Fargo’s head of regulatory relations, is leaving the company.

Dahlgren, a former high-level official at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, joined the scandal-plagued bank in early 2018, around the time that the Federal Reserve Board imposed a costly asset cap on Wells Fargo that remains in effect.

In the three years since her arrival at the San Francisco company, former CEO Tim Sloan has stepped down, and his successor, Charlie Scharf, has hired several high-ranking executives whose duties include regulatory matters.

Bloomberg

Dahlgren referred a reporter to a company spokesman, who said that she is departing of her own accord. “Earlier this month, Sarah Dahlgren shared her decision to leave Wells Fargo to pursue new professional challenges,” the spokesman said in an email.

Dahlgren is being succeeded on an interim basis by Steve Manzari, who served most recently as head of regulatory engagement for Wells Fargo’s consumer businesses, according to the bank spokesman. The $1.9 trillion-asset company is conducting a search for a permanent successor, the spokesman added.

Dahlgren is a former head of supervision at the New York Fed who spent two years at the consulting firm McKinsey before joining Wells Fargo. Initially, she reported to Chief Risk Officer Michael Loughlin, a holdover from former CEO John Stumpf’s tenure who soon left the company and eventually agreed to pay $1.25 million in connection with the bank’s fake-accounts scandal.

Scharf arrived in late 2019 and the onetime Jamie Dimon protege began hiring a series of former JPMorgan Chase executives for key roles. Those additions included Chief Operating Officer Scott Powell, who was tasked with overseeing regulatory execution, and Michael Lipsitz, who serves as the bank’s chief regulatory and policy affairs executive. Dahlgren had reported most recently to Lipsitz.

Also leaving Wells Fargo is Michael Lacorazza, a top marketing official. He had been serving in a companywide leadership role following the departure of Chief Marketing Officer Jamie Moldafsky last year.

Wells Fargo no longer has a companywide chief marketing officer, though individual business lines have their own chief marketing officers.

“Earlier this year, Wells Fargo announced that line-of-business CEOs will have overall accountability for delivering marketing-driven business results,” the bank spokesman said.