After months of anticipation, Wells Fargo & Co. [1], a diversified, community-based financial services company based in Des Moines, Iowa, has announced that Jeff Smith, who currently represents servicing and customer excellence risk in the Consumer Lending Real Estate Compliance and Operational Risk (RECOR) group, will take the helm as head of Home Lending Servicing. This appointment comes after the current head, Perry Hilzendeger, was named to run the bank’s Home Lending Retail Originations [2] in March.
“Our servicing team plays a critical role in helping our customers through their homeownership journey, and Jeff is uniquely qualified to build on the momentum and solid foundation that is already in place,” said Michael DeVito, head of Wells Fargo Home Lending. “He has a proven track record of leading high-performing teams, hands-on experience managing large customer-support organizations, and strong relationships across Wells Fargo and our industry. These strengths, combined with his deep operations and risk management experience, will help us continue to evolve our business with the customer at the center of every interaction.”
Smith has more than 30 years of experience in financial services in businesses including credit cards, personal loans, home equity and home mortgages. Before his RECOR role, he oversaw collections and customer contact for Wells Fargo Home Lending. He has spent nearly 10 years in Wells Fargo’s home mortgage and home equity servicing units. Smith started his career in 1987 with predecessors of JP Morgan Chase, where he began as a collections associate and rose to vice president and operations manager before moving to Wells Fargo in 1997.