Wells Fargo insiders say they’re facing a PR firestorm after Oscar Suris departs

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• Oscar Suris, Wells Fargo’s head of corporate communications, left the bank in July and won’t be replaced. 
• Suris’s duties will be subsumed into those of Jim Rowe, head of stakeholder relations, who doesn’t have any corporate communications experience.
• The decision not to replace Suris comes after Wells is battling to repair its reputation in the wake of several scandals in its consumer bank, mortgage business, auto finance unit, and wealth management operation. 

On a weekly call attended by hundreds of Wells Fargo corporate communications staff, an employee on Tuesday asked how the bank should respond to inquires about its tarnished reputation, according to a person familiar with the call.

Senior executives didn’t have a ready answer. 

The challenge for the bank: Wells Fargo no longer has a head of public relations even as the bank grapples with a multitude of scandals and bad headlines. 

Wells’ former head of communications, Oscar Suris, left the bank in July and his duties will be taken over by Jim Rowe, head of stakeholder relations, according to people with knowledge of the matter. Almost 400 of the firm’s internal and external communications staff, including Suris’s direct reports, now report to Rowe.

Rowe is an affable executive well liked by senior management, but he lacks any experience handling media relations or setting strategy, according to sources and his LinkedIn profile. He worked for credit card lender Providian Financial, rising as high as chief financial officer, before eventually landing at Wells Fargo in March 2005. He rose to be head of investor relations before his naming as head of stakeholder relations in July 2017, which means he oversees investor relations, government relations and public policy.  

Some Wells executives on the Tuesday call said they questioned if the bank had the proper senior leadership within the communications team in place to weather the deluge of bad press.

“Having someone on hand who can position the company in a positive light is now more important than ever,” said Brad Adgate, an independent media consultant based in Cambridge, Massachusetts. “There is so much scrutiny being placed on corporate America and its activities, not having a seasoned pro, someone who can manage the message like an expert, is risky. It may work out for them, but it’s pretty risky.”

It also puts Wells Fargo in a unique position relative to its peers. Big banks like JPMorgan, Goldman Sachs and Bank of America all have seasoned executives who actively manage each firm’s communications strategy. Corporate communications professionals are charged with setting forward strategy and shaping the company message in dealings with the media, and for formulating responses to legal or reputational issues as they arise. 

In a statement provided to Business Insider, a Wells spokesman said a key goal of its stakeholder relations unit is “to develop a stakeholder model that facilitates engagement in a proactive, consistent and flexible way and leverages the strong capabilities we have within Wells Fargo. Key among these capabilities are those that reside within our best-in-class communications team and function.” 

Wells’ reputational issues began with the fake account scandal in 2016, when the firm said employees had opened millions of customer accounts without their consent in order to meet sales targets. The revelation forced the resignation of CEO John Stumpf. Tim Sloan, his replacement, has been battling to put behind the scandal and a series of subsequent issues. 

Wells Fargo has tried to rebrand itself, running television advertisements and billboards, including one positioned at the mouth of the Lincoln Tunnel going from Manhattan to New Jersey, with the slogan: “Established 1852. Re-established 2018, with a commitment to you.” 

And yet the mistakes keep coming. The bank spurred new outrage this month when it said in a securities filing that it had discovered an error that prevented more than 600 homeowners from getting a mortgage modification between 2010 and 2015. For 400 of those homeowners, the mistake meant that the bank took their home away.  

A recent report from M Science, a web-based analytics platform that relies on algorithms, showed negative sentiment toward Wells Fargo had risen to a six-year high.