Wells Fargo & Co. announced Thursday that Chief Compliance Officer Mike Roemer will depart two years after taking on the daunting task of transforming the troubled bank’s compliance and risk management efforts.

When Roemer, who had previously served as group head of compliance for Barclays, came on board as Wells Fargo’s chief compliance officer in January 2018, the bank was still picking up the pieces from several years of bad press, regulatory rebuke, and Congressional scrutiny for its fake account scandal and fraudulent sales practices. The scandal came to a head earlier this year when Wells Fargo agreed to pay $3 billion in civil and criminal penalties handed down by the Department of Justice and Securities and Exchange Commission.

In a one-on-one interview with Compliance Week following his appointment, Roemer explained that part of his job at the time was “to build a fit-for-purpose compliance function and, ultimately, a world-class compliance function” and “to impart a culture of compliance across the entire organization and make sure that processes, systems, training, and everything else, was in place to support it.”

Now, a new person will be assuming that task, following a transition period. Paula Dominick will join Wells Fargo as its new chief compliance officer in October. Dominick was most recently chief compliance officer of Credit Suisse USA and previously held leadership roles at Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, and Morgan Stanley.

In her role at Wells Fargo, Dominick will be responsible for oversight of all regulatory compliance risks. She will report to Chief Risk Officer (CRO) Mandy Norton.

More Wells Fargo announcements

In addition to hiring Dominick, Wells Fargo announced the appointment of five other new risk leaders “as part of its enhanced risk model to further strengthen the independent oversight of all risk-taking activities and a more comprehensive view of risk across the company,” the bank stated.

“Our new model will strengthen our centralized, independent risk management program, provide greater consistency in how we manage risk across our businesses, and better position us for the future,” said Norton in a press release. The model consists of five line-of-business CROs, along with other teams aligned by risk type.

The newly appointed leaders, who will each report to Norton, are:

  • Brian King, who will become CRO for Consumer & Small Business Banking in October. King was most recently CRO and head of finance for the Consumer Business at Goldman Sachs and previously held risk leadership roles at JPMorgan Chase.
  • Ellen Koebler, who will become CRO for Commercial Banking in September. Koebler was previously deputy CRO at Truist, CRO for SunTrust Banks, and held leadership roles at E*Trade, JPMorgan Chase, First Union, and Shell Oil & Shell Chemical Companies.
  • Prasanna Someshwar, who will become CRO for Wealth & Investment Management in October. Someshwar previously held various risk leadership roles at JPMorgan Chase, including CRO and chief credit officer for Wealth Management/Private Bank.
  • Jeff Colson, who will join the risk team as CRO for Finance in September following a transition period from his current role. Colson was most recently head of capital management at Wells Fargo, and his successor will be named shortly. Colson joined Wells Fargo in 2015.
  • Patrick Dillon, who has been named enterprise testing and validation leader, effective immediately. Dillon joined Wells Fargo’s risk organization in 2018 and was previously in compliance leadership roles at PNC Financial Services and Bank of America Merchant Services.

Wells Fargo said the new CROs “will each provide independent, holistic risk leadership and oversight for their respective business lines and functional areas, creating streamlined interaction with independent risk management and a comprehensive view of risks across each of the businesses. The CROs will work in strong partnership with leaders who will continue to oversee market, credit, operational, compliance, strategic, and model risk holistically across the entire company.”

“These new leaders bring impressive experience, diverse insights, and strong leadership skills to their roles,” Norton said. “They will each play an important part on the risk leadership team under our newly enhanced organizational structure as we strengthen our independent risk management function and better position how we manage risk for the future.”

Thursday’s announcement follows a press release in May detailing Wells Fargo’s new corporate risk model. Then, Kevin Reen was named CRO of Consumer Lending and Bill Juliano was named chief operational risk officer. A search for a new CRO for Corporate and Investment Banking remains in progress.