Wells Fargo is putting its chief operating officer in charge of risk, a sign the bank still treats risk management as an extension of running the business rather than a separate check on it.
Chief Risk Officer Derek Flowers will retire in mid-January 2027 after nearly three decades at the bank, and Scott Powell, currently COO, will step into the CRO role when Flowers departs. Powell has run risk and control transformation, operations, compliance, security and regulatory relations as COO since December 2019. Before that he led Consumer Banking at JPMorgan Chase and served as CEO of Santander Holdings USA, where he led that firm’s regulatory turnaround. A COO successor has not been named.
Why It Matters
Wells Fargo has spent years under a Federal Reserve asset cap tied to its sales-practices scandal, and its risk chair carries outsized weight with examiners. CEO Charlie Scharf credited Flowers with “strengthening our risk and control framework and fostering the strong risk culture that positions Wells Fargo for continued growth,” a line that reads as reassurance to regulators as much as tribute to a retiring executive. Handing that framework to Powell, rather than an outside risk specialist, signals the board wants continuity in how controls operate day to day, not a reset.
The Insight
Powell’s path to CRO runs through operations and consumer banking, not a traditional credit or risk-discipline track, fitting a pattern of Wells Fargo choosing executives with turnaround pedigree over pure risk officers. For competitors watching the bank’s slow exit from its asset cap, the succession is a data point: even as oversight eases, the most senior risk decisions stay inside the operating team that managed the recovery, not a fresh risk hierarchy built once pressure lifts.
Adyen’s recent CFO hire followed similar logic, a tension also visible in how regulators evaluate risk leadership at troubled banks.
Source: Wells Fargo Newsroom
