After Wells Fargo executive John Sotoodeh handed off more than a hundred branches in Southern California to a colleague in 2009, problems surfaced quickly.  His successor, Kim Young, addressing rumors that some employees were opening bogus accounts, called an introductory meeting with staff and warned she wouldn’t tolerate misconduct. Within a few days, managers recall, sales crumbled across her new turf.

Sotoodeh, who started as a teller in 1990, is now one of 3 regional chiefs running the firm’s nationwide consumer-banking empire. Young spent the final years of her 4-decade career at Wells Fargo weeding out bad employees; she retired in 2014.

In interviews, more than a dozen past and current Wells Fargo employees - many of them senior managers - chronicled how a generation of executives thrived in its ambitious sales culture, winning accolades and promotions, while being held aloft as examples to colleagues. All the while, people under them were opening legions of unwanted accounts for customers.

As Wells Fargo grew, some stars fanned out from Southern California, described by colleagues and in congressional testimony as a focal point of the rampant misconduct, spreading a culture that lionized boosting sales.

FIRINGS PENDING.     Company executives already have identified some current managers to be fired, according to a person with knowledge of an internal investigation. The terminations reportedly are being delayed so employees can aid inquiries. The person declined to specify who may be poised to lose their jobs.

No one interviewed said they heard senior executives instruct underlings to open bogus accounts, though more than a half-dozen bankers said low-level managers privately coached them to do so. More often, employees said, managers taught underlings to use misleading sales pitches – e.g., telling customers a checking account came with a credit card - or they balked when subordinates raised concerns. At the least, former managers say, many executives failed to stamp out misconduct for years despite ample signs it was flourishing below them as their own careers advanced.

“No one was ever penalized for doing the wrong thing until there was critical mass,” said Michael Bruns, a banker at Wells Fargo branches in Silicon Valley from 2009 to 2012. “Instead, they were promoted. They became our bosses and the people who are running the company today.” Bruns said he was fired 2 months after complaining to the bank’s ethics hotline about his colleagues’ sales practices.

BROAD REVIEW.     Wells Fargo said it takes allegations such as Bruns’s seriously and will examine them thoroughly – especially with “an end-to-end review” of the hotline process.  The company will take accountability actions, as appropriate, once it has the facts necessary to act.

With 3 U.S. regional chiefs overseeing more than 50 regional presidents, and below them about 120 area presidents, each with their own cluster of branches, this is sure to be a monumental task.