Ex-Branch Manager Accuses Wells Fargo of 'Extreme and Outrageous' Conduct

A former branch manager and senior vice president who rose in the ranks over a dozen years at Wells Fargo now accuses the bank of harassment, retaliation and wrongful termination, alleging a new boss favored a “boys club” and “made clear that if you were not openly MAGA Right Wing QAnon, you would not be accepted in their club.”

The supervisor “also fostered an atmosphere of casualness, inappropriate behavior, and lack of work ethic. He would take the male employees during the day to Hydration Rooms, Vitamin IVs, and Cryotherapy,” Maureen O’Donnell, now an executive at J.P. Morgan Wealth Management, alleges in a lawsuit filed last week in California Superior Court in Los Angeles.

O’Donnell additionally accuses Wells Fargo of failure to prevent harassment, discrimination and retaliation, failure to pay wages due at termination and intentional infliction of emotional distress.

The conduct by Wells Fargo, the supervisor and 10 unidentified defendants was “extreme and outrageous and beyond the bounds of all decency and … outside the course and scope of the normal employment relationship,” she alleges.

“Defendants acted with the intent to denigrate, degrade, discriminate, harass and retaliate against plaintiff,” the complaint states.

A Wells Fargo spokesperson told ThinkAdvisor by email on Friday, “We are reviewing the complaint and have no further comment at this time.”

O’Donnell started working for Wells Fargo in July 2010 as a regional banking director in Los Angeles and Orange County, created many “enormously successful” programs and received praise from the company, according to the complaint.

In 2013 she was selected for a branch manager leadership program and was made an associate manager in the Valley market; she “continued to be extremely successful and well-liked by local and national leadership as well as the more than 200 financial advisors and support staff with whom she worked,” and earned the leadership program’s maximum allowable bonus that year, it says.

The next year, she was named branch manager at Downtown Liberty Plaza in New York, and in 2015 was promoted to branch manager at a Park Avenue location, “one of the most prestigious and highest revenue-generating Wells Fargo Advisors Wealth Management office(s),” according to the complaint.

O’Donnell later was named a Wells Fargo Advisors “premier manager” and, ready to return to California in 2017, was chosen as branch manager for the Irvine office’s private client group, it says. Two months later, the executive who tapped her for that role moved to a new position and defendant David Kistner replaced him as the private client group’s market leader for L.A. and Orange County, the suit says.

After becoming O’Donnell’s boss, Kistner immediately started treating her differently than he previously had in social work settings the few times they’d met, she alleges.

“Kistner clearly preferred the ‘boys club’ of male managers. Indeed, he had never had a female manager report to him before (O’Donnell). And (she) was the only female manager (out of six total managers) within the market,” the complaint alleges.

“Despite plaintiff's proven success, Kistner treated plaintiff differently than her male peers. He regarded her as an assistant and his market admin. He dismissed her ideas and opinions but immediately accepted the same ideas and opinions from the men,” it contends.

Kistner and male employees, meanwhile, “regularly went out drinking in Corona Del Mar and Newport Beach, and used (Wells Fargo’s) private suite at Sofi Stadium to entertain not their clients — for whom it was exclusively reserved — but themselves, their spouses, their girlfriends and friends,” the complaint alleges.

O’Donnell also alleges Kistner withheld wealth management financial advisor recruiting leads from her and instead gave them to her male peers.

She alleges her supervisor’s gender bias forced her to repeatedly prove herself, and that “he diminished (her) with condescending comments during meetings and calls.”

O’Donnell contends she built her own recruiting pipelines over years but that Kistner interfered with them, rerouting those relationships and related compensation to male peers and refusing to abide by her recruiting compensation plan.

Among other allegations, O’Donnell says she called Kistner at one point to discuss his refusal to pay her any commissions on several recruits and he answered the phone while driving with his wife, yelling at O’Donnell, “Why would you be entitled to any commission,” she alleges.

The supervisor also interfered with O’Donnell’s management of her own team, withholding key information from her but sharing it with men who reported to her, the lawsuit alleges.

In an effort to change the dynamic, O’Donnell contends she introduced Kistner to other female managers, including a young, attractive woman, after which O’Donnell overheard her boss and another male employee talking about the woman in an “unmistakably misogynistic tone” as they ogled her.

The complaint alleges that Kistner and the rest of the good old boys club “made clear if they were going to have a woman around, they wanted a specific type based on sexist notions.”

Wells Fargo, through Kistner, "made clear that women were expected to flirt and be ogled and engage in sexually charged atmosphere if they wanted to succeed," the complaint alleges.

O'Donnell "did not engage in such manner and as a result, Kistner continued harassing her by withholding leads ... and her wages — all designed to send a message to Plaintiff that if she did not acquiesce to the sexual nature of the workplace, Kistner would end her career," it says.

In September 2022, as O’Donnell was moments from hosting Wells Fargo’s first post-COVID sales meeting with financial advisors and staff, she ran into Kistner and told him that her sister was dying of cancer and in hospice, to which he responded, “‘Why is it taking so long?’” she alleges in the lawsuit.

O’Donnell, who had feared reporting her boss’s behavior to HR, finally did so in November 2022, the complaint contends. Two days later Wells Fargo informed her that her position was being eliminated, according to the suit.

The dismissal “was abrupt and without warning,” and O’Donnell was immediately locked out of her email and files, the complaint contends. Kistner then informed O’Donnell’s team that she had voluntarily left for a better opportunity, “leaving them feeling abandoned and shocked,” it alleges.

O’Donnell contends her position wasn’t eliminated as she was told, “but was repackaged in early 2023 as a different position and offered to a younger, male, less experienced individual.”

Wells Fargo offered O’Donnell severance pay but told her she had to sign a release agreeing not to sue, according to the complaint, which contends the amount didn’t cover the earned wages owed to her.

O’Donnell, registered as a broker and investment advisor with J.P. Morgan Wealth Management since last year, has no disclosures on her Financial Industry Regulatory Authority BrokerCheck record.

Kistner didn’t respond to an email from ThinkAdvisor seeking comment last week.

Image: Bloomberg