Dive Brief:
- Barri Rafferty, Wells Fargo's head of communications and brand management, will leave the bank May 1 after almost two years on the job, according to Reuters and The Wall Street Journal.
- Rafferty joined Wells Fargo in July 2020, according to her LinkedIn profile. She was among a group of leaders CEO Charlie Scharf hired to deal with the fallout of the 2016 fake-accounts scandal and clean up the bank’s less-than-sterling reputation.
- Wells Fargo has not yet announced a replacement for Rafferty’s role.
Dive Insight:
Prior to joining the bank, Rafferty served as CEO of public relations giant Ketchum.
At Wells, Rafferty managed a team of more than 500 employees. She reorganized her group to be structured more like a PR firm, The Wall Street Journal reported.
"Barri brought an innovative approach to our communications," Bill Daley, Wells Fargo’s vice chairman of public affairs, wrote in a memo seen by Reuters. "We've seen our reputation metrics improve resulting in enhanced favorability, trust and ... media sentiment."
Daley added the bank has "an exceptional group of senior leaders within Communications & Brand Management, who will continue to lead through the transition."
The bank has taken a somewhat decentralized approach to marketing. Wells Fargo said last year it would sunset the chief marketing officer role and assign a marketing lead to each of its divisions rather than employing a team to oversee marketing across the company.
