Charlie Scharf

Early life and education Scharf was born in 1965 in New York City, His father was a stockbroker, and as a teenager Charles worked in back-office jobs at Manhattan brokerage firms. in social and behavioral sciences from Johns Hopkins University in 1987.

Career In 1987, a family connection assisted Scharf with an introduction to Jamie Dimon, where Dimon was CFO and Sandy Weill was CEO. and eventually Citigroup, Bank One, and JPMorgan Chase.

From 1999 to 2000, he was the CFO of the global corporate and investment bank division at Citigroup, Inc. he was chief executive of JPMorgan Chase's retail financial services business from 2004 to 2011.

Scharf took over as Visa Inc.'s CEO in November 2012, succeeding Joseph Saunders. He was also appointed as a board member after increasing the size of the board from 10 to 11 members. Under Scharf's tenure, Visa placed at number 238 on the Fortune 500, with $11.7 billion in revenue.

Scharf was CEO of Bank of New York Mellon (BNY) from July 2017 to September 2019, and the chairman of its board from January 2018 to September 2019.

Scharf became president and CEO of Wells Fargo on October 21, 2019. The Washington Post said his "broad experience makes Scharf a safe political choice, who is already well known by both regulators and lawmakers."

In November 2019, Scharf appointed BNY Mellon vice chairman and former U.S. Secretary of Commerce and White House Chief of Staff Bill Daley to be head of public affairs for Wells Fargo. By September 2020, Scharf had committed to major cost cuts, and had appointed additional new executives including a new chief financial officer, chief operating officer, leader of the credit cards division, and chief compliance officer; many of the new appointees had worked with him at JPMorgan Chase.

In 2023, Scharf's total compensation from Wells Fargo was $26 million. It rose to $31.2 million in 2024, a 7.6 percent increase from the year before.

In June 2025, the Federal Reserve lifted the punitive asset cap that had been imposed on Wells Fargo in February 2018. Reuters noted that this clean-up included installing new leadership, cutting more than 55,000 jobs, exiting unprofitable businesses, reworking the bank's risk management and controls, and reworking the company's performance-review process.

In October 2025, Scharf was appointed chairman of Wells Fargo's board of directors.

Additional posts In February 2014, President Barack Obama announced his intent to nominate individuals to key administration posts, including Scharf, who was appointed as a member of the President’s Advisory Council on Financial Capability for Young Americans.

Scharf is on the board of directors of Microsoft.

He is a member of The Business Council, and vice chair of the Bank Policy Institute.

He is an emeritus trustee of Johns Hopkins University.

Personal life Scharf and his wife Amy have two daughters. On June 18, 2020, he had sent out a company-wide memo saying: “While it might sound like an excuse, the unfortunate reality is that there is a very limited pool of black talent to recruit from.” His Zoom-meeting comment reportedly angered some unidentified black employees of the company.

The Reuters report noted that within his first year as CEO Scharf had already added two black executives to Wells Fargo's operating committee and had pledged to double the number of black leaders at the bank over five years.