How corporate culture can make or break your brand

In April 2018, Wells Fargo continued to make headlines when federal regulators announced one of the largest fines levied against a financial institution: $1 billion for forcing customers into auto insurance and imposing unfair fees on mortgage borrowers. This, on top of the $185-million fine following Wells Fargo’s admission in 2016 that its employees had fraudulently opened millions of sham customer accounts, its $142-million class action settlement related to the same activity, and millions in remediation, consultants, lawyers, and more.

Now, we see Wells Fargo releasing commercials aiming to repair its reputation and “earn back your trust,” pronouncing that it was, “Established 1852. Re-established 2018 with a recommitment to you.”

Much can be said about what occurred, but the key teaching moment relates to why this happened—and how this can be avoided. In this analysis, we will focus on the following factors (which will sound familiar to fraud examiners) and how a strong corporate culture can counteract their negative manifestation:

 

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