The Most Important Business Lessons From The CEO of Wells Fargo – Dick Kovacevich

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If you haven’t heard about Dick Kovacevich, he is an American businessman who served as the chairman and CEO of Wells Fargo from 1998 to 2007. He previously served as president and chief operating officer at Norwest Corporation, prior to their merger with Wells Fargo in 1998. In addition, he has held numerous corporate positions including Chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, member of the executive committee for Visa Inc., and director on the board at Aetna Inc., Chevron Corporation, 3M Company, and Oracle Corporation.

Dick is most known as the chief executive officer of Wells Fargo – one of the biggest providers of financial services not only in the US but almost everywhere around the world. Kovacevich graduated from Standford’s Graduate School of Business before more than 40 years and now he is back there, sharing the lessons he has learned during this time.



Many things can be learned from a very successful person, especially when he is Dick Kovacevich. This is a brief story about his life from his graduation to these days. You can trace his professional development and see how he reached the top in a great multinational company. Here he shares some of the management principles and tactics, he used to help his company pass through the great financial crisis, which started in 2007 and is still raging in the financial world.

According to Wells Fargo’s chairman, success is not always about brains. Motivation and leadership are the most important things in financial management. He has always been a team player and this was transposed to his company. Building well and working and highly motivated teams were some of the key factors for his success as a manager.

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Watch the movie and see many more interesting facts about Kovacevich and his life, ideals, and philosophy.