(American Banker) - Wells Fargo CEO Charlie Scharf has added another heavyweight from his JPMorgan Chase days to his leadership team.
Doug Braunstein, a veteran investment banker and former top JPMorgan executive, is joining the $1.9 trillion-asset Wells Fargo on Wednesday as vice chairman. The hire comes as Wells Fargo continues its effort to turn around its once lackluster investment banking operations, a priority for Scharf as he looks to make the bank a bigger dealmaker.
"Doug is a world-class banker," Scharf said in a news release, saying his "expertise and business relationships reflect our continued commitment to strengthen" Wells Fargo's corporate and investment banking division.
Braunstein will report to Scharf.
The two were top lieutenants of Jamie Dimon at JPMorgan, where Braunstein held key investment banking roles before becoming chief financial officer and vice chairman. Scharf ran JPMorgan's retail bank before becoming CEO of Visa and later CEO of the Bank of New York Mellon.
Scharf has added several former JPMorgan executives since becoming Wells Fargo's CEO in late 2019, including Chief Operating Officer Scott Powell and wealth management head Barry Sommers. Though his key focus has been fixing the megabank's standing with regulators, Scharf has increasingly focused on playing offense in areas such as credit cards and investment banking.
The San Francisco bank says it has made more than 50 senior hires in its corporate and investment bank, which is focused on landing headline-grabbing deals as well as smaller middle-market ones.
Wells Fargo's investment bank still lags heavyweights such as JPMorgan, Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs, but has been steadily climbing the rankings. So far this year, Wells Fargo ranks sixth in U.S. merger and acquisition deals by volume, according to a scorecard from Dealogic and The Wall Street Journal.
"We're starting to see some green shoots — a bunch of deals that we wouldn't have been part of in the past, some activity levels increasing quite a bit," Michael Santomassimo, Wells Fargo's CFO, said at a UBS investor conference Monday.
Wells Fargo CEO Charlie Scharf has added another heavyweight from his JPMorgan Chase days to his leadership team.
Doug Braunstein, a veteran investment banker and former top JPMorgan executive, is joining the $1.9 trillion-asset Wells Fargo on Wednesday as vice chairman. The hire comes as Wells Fargo continues its effort to turn around its once lackluster investment banking operations, a priority for Scharf as he looks to make the bank a bigger dealmaker.
"Doug is a world-class banker," Scharf said in a news release, saying his "expertise and business relationships reflect our continued commitment to strengthen" Wells Fargo's corporate and investment banking division.
Braunstein will report to Scharf.
The two were top lieutenants of Jamie Dimon at JPMorgan, where Braunstein held key investment banking roles before becoming chief financial officer and vice chairman. Scharf ran JPMorgan's retail bank before becoming CEO of Visa and later CEO of the Bank of New York Mellon.
Scharf has added several former JPMorgan executives since becoming Wells Fargo's CEO in late 2019, including Chief Operating Officer Scott Powell and wealth management head Barry Sommers. Though his key focus has been fixing the megabank's standing with regulators, Scharf has increasingly focused on playing offense in areas such as credit cards and investment banking.
The San Francisco bank says it has made more than 50 senior hires in its corporate and investment bank, which is focused on landing headline-grabbing deals as well as smaller middle-market ones.
Wells Fargo's investment bank still lags heavyweights such as JPMorgan, Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs, but has been steadily climbing the rankings. So far this year, Wells Fargo ranks sixth in U.S. merger and acquisition deals by volume, according to a scorecard from Dealogic and The Wall Street Journal.
"We're starting to see some green shoots — a bunch of deals that we wouldn't have been part of in the past, some activity levels increasing quite a bit," Michael Santomassimo, Wells Fargo's CFO, said at a UBS investor conference Monday.
By Polo Rocha
