Voices of Experience: Shelley Hendrickson, Senior Vice President and Division Manager, Wells Fargo California Business Banking

by Heather Cassell (San Francisco)

Thirty years ago, peering into her uncertain future as a Spanish major at Colorado State University, Shelly Hendrickson, senior vice president and division manager for Wells Fargo California Business Banking, made a strategic move that put her in the driver’s seat of her own career and changed the course of her life. Upon someone’s suggestion that the Spanish knowledge could work well in business, she enrolled in a business course. Hendrickson says she “fell in love” and ended up double majoring in Spanish and finance.

Today, Hendrickson manages accounts of small businesses with revenues ranging between $2 and $20 million annually for Wells Fargo. Hendrickson describes working with small business’ as “sophisticated” with transactions that are “mentally challenging, fun, and rewarding” because there is a point where she can see where the businesses can grow and how she can help facilitate that growth. Women-owned businesses are the “fastest growing segment” of small businesses, Hendrickson says, of the client-base that she enjoys working with most.

Much has changed in the financial industry since Hendrickson graduated from college and started her career in 1978. When she first entered the workforce a cultural shift was happening. Affirmative Action was the law requiring banks, like all other companies, to “promote and groom minorities,” Hendrickson says.

While she acknowledges that being a woman may be one reason she got her foot in the door at the beginning of her banking career at Texas Commerce Bank (now one of the companies enfolded in JP Morgan Chase & Co.), Hendrickson prefers to believe it was mostly due to the “cultural change at the time [and] not a matter of affirmative action.”

Affirmative action or not, after she was hired she knew it was her responsibility to manage her career.

“People should take ownership [and] take personal accountability for their own careers,” says Hendrickson, who believes that hard work, demonstration of competence, and articulation of “where you want to go and what your desires are” helped her quickly advance into prominent positions. “Employers are more than willing to help, but you have to take responsibility for that.”

Hendrickson’s assertiveness in her career led her to prominent positions in private banking at City National Bank in San Diego; in business banking with First Interstate Bank; and as a product manager with Home Savings of America, to name a few before landing at Wells Fargo.

Wells Fargo has a history of diversity nearly since its beginning in 1852. Today, Wells Fargo is listed among the top 50 companies in all industries for diversity, according to Diversity Inc., which also lists the bank among the top 10 companies for executive women, Latinos, and recruitment and retention of its employees. Essence magazine ranks Wells Fargo in its top 25 “great places to work” for African American women and Latina Style magazine lists the financial institution among its top 50 U.S. companies for Latinas to work for.

Women make up 61 percent of the $609 billion financial institution’s workforce of 160,500 full-time employees, says Laura Hitchens, human resource manager for the San Francisco bay region of Wells Fargo. Women approximately compose 41 percent of the bank’s senior managers, she says. Hitchens says the bank reflects its customer-base, which has been “a part of our culture since the early establishments of the organization” and that “women have always played a key role” in the bank.

Hendrickson agreed that Wells Fargo is a good place for women to work, but on a broader perspective she believes the financial industry overall “has adapted well to embracing diversity.” And, at the end of the day, women need to take charge of their own careers.

“You need to drive your own career,” says Hendrickson, who points out that networking and delegating tasks is a challenge women need to learn how to manage in order to help free up time. “People are there to help along the way,” but, she says, women should not just sit at their desks and wait for someone to take notice and “groom you.”

She believes women can take responsibility for their careers is by “developing mentor relationships” and learning how to “perfect the art of networking” by making goals to accomplish these tasks. Finally, she advises, “never stay in a job that you can’t stand.”