Richard Kovacevich
| Dick Kovacevich | |
|---|---|
| Born |
Richard M. Kovacevich 1943 (age 73–74) |
| Nationality | American |
| Education | Stanford Business School |
| Occupation | Business executive and investor |
Richard Marco Kovacevich (born October 30, 1943) is an American business executive and the former CEO of Wells Fargo & Company.
A native of Tacoma, Washington, he grew up in Enumclaw, Washington, a lumber town about 30 miles southeast of Seattle, where his father worked in the sawmill. His parents are Joseph and Dorothy Kovacevich. At Stanford University he received BS and MS degrees in industrial engineering, followed by an MBA degree from Stanford Business School in 1967.
Early in his corporate career he was a planning and division general manager with General Mills before joining Citicorp. At Citicorp he was made head of regional retail banking. Kovacevich was told by his team that Citibank had 30% market share but was losing 108 million dollars a year. Probing deeper, Kovacevich realized that they meant that Citibank had 30% checking account market share (in other words, 30 percent of all people who lived in the Citibank regions had a checking account with Citibank). In reality, Citibank only had 6% market share of deposits (the vast majority of money being in Savings and Loans, Credit Unions, and other institutions). Kovacevich expanded Citibank aggressively into other areas such as mortgages.
He then joined Norwest Bank as chief operating officer and head of the retail banking group in March 1986. At Norwest, Kovacevich confronted a similar situation. Norwest was mostly centered in Minnesota and Iowa at the time, with a relatively small population in both states. Kovacevich realized the only way he could keep growing the company would be to expand beyond banking services, into investment and insurance services as well. Kovacevich theorized that eventually it would be impossible for any bank to continuously grow if it did not do this.
Kovacevich instituted the new strategies while serving as president of Norwest from 1989, chief executive officer from 1993, and chairman from 1995. The higher revenues, relative to stable fixed costs which this method produced allowed Norwest to purchase many other banks, culminating with the 1998 purchase of Wells Fargo. Although Norwest was the nominal survivor, the merged company retained the better-known Wells Fargo name. After the merger, he was given the positions of president and CEO of Wells Fargo. In 2001 Kovacevich was elected chairman as well.
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