WFC Wells Fargo and Company

By Ben Eisen 

Elizabeth Duke has resigned as chairman of Wells Fargo & Co.'s board of directors, days before she was set to testify at a congressional hearing on the continuing fallout from the bank's 2016 fake-account scandal.

James Quigley also resigned from the board. Charles Noski, who joined the board in June 2019, will serve as chairman. Mr. Noski is a retired vice chairman and former chief financial officer of Bank of America Corp.

Ms. Duke was set to testify before the House Financial Services Committee on Wednesday. Democrats and Republicans on the committee last week each released lengthy reports criticizing the bank's efforts to clean up after the sales scandal. Maxine Waters, the California Democrat who chairs the committee, called on Ms. Duke to step down.

"Out of continued loyalty to Wells Fargo and ongoing commitment to serve our customers and employees, we recommended to our colleagues on the Board that we step down from our leadership roles and they have accepted our resignation from the Board," Ms. Duke and Mr. Quigley said in a statement. "We believe that our decision will facilitate the bank's and the new CEO's ability to turn the page and avoid distraction that could impede the bank's future progress."

Ms. Duke joined Wells Fargo's board in 2015, and became vice chairman in October 2016, shortly after the bank disclosed that branch employees had opened perhaps millions of fake accounts without customer consent. She replaced Stephen Sanger as chairman at the start of 2018, becoming the first woman to lead the board of one of the nation's largest banks.

Ms. Duke led the effort to find a new chief executive last year after Timothy Sloan resigned. Charles Scharf, who took over as chief executive officer in October, is scheduled to testify before the Financial Services Committee on Tuesday.

A Federal Reserve governor during the financial crisis, Ms. Duke also had served as an executive or CEO at a number of community banks in Virginia.

Colin Kellaher contributed to this article.

Write to Ben Eisen at ben.eisen@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

March 09, 2020 08:25 ET (12:25 GMT)

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