Wells Fargo has a long history of outreach to the LGBT community, but recently the company has developed an Accredited Domestic Partner Advisor program to specifically help LGBT people with their unique financial situations. Watch the video and view the presentation slides below.

Kyle Young is a certified financial planner and vice president, investment officer, for Wells Fargo (No. 33 in the 2012 DiversityInc Top 50).

View all the DiversityInc Innovation Fest! presentations.

Click here to download a PDF of this presentation. You can also expand the slideshow.

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Diversity management at Wells Fargo (No. 33 in the 2012 DiversityInc Top 50) generates community wealth, from which diversity leader Jimmie Paschall gets satisfaction in helping underserved communities.

The big question everyone has been asking Jimmie Paschall for the past few months is “Why?” Why did she leave Marriott International (No. 21), where she headed the global diversity efforts, to become Wells Fargo’s chief diversity officer?

The answer, she says, boils down to one word: “impact.” “I’ve had the privilege of going from one great company to another, but the scope of Wells Fargo’s impact is dramatic,” she says. By way of explanation, she notes that Wells Fargo has 270,000 team members; as of the end of 2011, the bank ranked fourth in assets and first in market value of its stock among its U.S. peers.

“The other thing that was especially attractive to me is the focus on long-term growth and economic development for communities,” she says. “If you look at what financial institutions can do and the lives being touched by Wells Fargo, there are lots of places where diversity and inclusion can play a role. The impact feels infinite.”

For more on diversity management and leadership at Wells Fargo, read Talent Development Takes Wells Fargo Leader From Teller to $100M in Revenue. Wells Fargo is one of 2012 DiversityInc Top 10 Companies for LGBT Employees and is being recognized as the 2012 DiversityInc Top Company for Community Development at our Oct. 11-2 event in New York City. Visit DiversityInc.com/events for information and to register.

Building on Background

Her years at Marriott, where culturally competent customer service is the major emphasis in doing business at all levels, are helping her in her new role. “Mr. [Bill] Marriott would say, ‘Take care of your associates and the customers will come back again and again,’” she says. “At Wells Fargo, team members are the frontline contact with customers. Both are relationship-oriented businesses where people make the difference.”

To increase Wells Fargo’s market share, she says, “we have to have customers take advantage of products and services across business lines. There is going to be a lot of focus on how to make it easier to do business with us.” Similarly, Executive Vice President and Northern New Jersey Regional President for Wells Fargo Lucia DiNapoli Gibbons discussed Wells Fargo’s strategy to gain market share through diversity in the video below.

Her previous work on Marriott’s diversity initiatives, as well as her involvement with the Marriott Foundation for People with Disabilities and its “Bridges …. From School to Work” program, gave her a deeper understanding of ways to reach people from underserved communities.

Paschall has a long history of community involvement. In between two stints at Marriott, she was executive vice president of external affairs at Volunteers of America and also is a member of the Executive Leadership Council, which works to build inclusive leadership by focusing on the development of Black corporate leaders in corporate America.

She cites her “ability to work with ease up and down and across an organization. People find me easy to work with and a quick study on how to integrate diversity and inclusion into existing strategies,” she says.

What’s Next in Diversity Management at Wells Fargo

Paschall, who is reporting to Jon Campbell, executive vice president and head of the social-responsibility group for Wells Fargo, says her top priorities will be coordinating the team-member networks and various diversity councils now in place at Wells Fargo to have the most significant business impact. Watch our diversity web seminar on diversity councils.

“There are many hearts and minds within this company working within this sphere of influence,” she says. “The greatest opportunity is to align across a common set of objectives that will support the business goals. There is tremendous activity here. If we can harness that energy within a strategy, we will have a new level of performance.”

For now, she’s “excited to be sitting around Jon Campbell’s table to create long-term economic growth and vitality for every community where we have business.” She notes that when she interviewed for the job with Chairman, President and CEO John Stumpf, “I said that we really have the opportunity here to be a leader, to change something in this country.” Read DiversityInc CEO Luke Visconti’s exclusive Q&A with John Stumpf and watch the video below.

Personal Satisfaction

For Paschall, who grew up in Macon, Ga., the vibrancy of the Washington, D.C., area has always been important. Wells Fargo is allowing her to continue to live in the D.C. region, traveling often to the bank’s headquarters in San Francisco and its key hubs.

Before having children, Paschall often volunteered in public schools to mentor needy children. “With our own kids, there isn’t enough time, but I find more of the mentoring relationships and supportive partnerships are happening through work and [nonprofit] organizations.”

She still talks to “my Marriott folks” all the time, she says, as she acclimates herself to the world of Wells Fargo. “It is an amazing environment. My husband says: ‘You just come home smiling every day.’”

For more on diversity management at Wells Fargo, read Increasing Diversity in Talent Development and Retention Best Practices: When Paychecks Aren’t Enough.

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Starting in Diversity Management

What made her take the  position in diversity management? The realization that her influence in this job on the firm’s sustainable business results would be greater than in virtually any other position. She calls it a “unique opportunity to have the whole organization committed to something I am so passionate about.”

She took over as Americas inclusiveness officer in October last year, succeeding Billie Williamson, who has retired. Williamson recently spoke at a DiversityInc event on the importance of CEO commitment in diversity management, as seen in the video below. Both women have been client-serving partners in the firm, No. 6 on The 2012 DiversityInc Top 50 Companies for Diversity list.

Twaronite has worked for Ernst & Young for 22 years—the first 10 as a line executive, servicing clients in the media and financial-services industries. In the last decade, she’s had major roles in HR, tying in the recruitment, retention and development of talent to her knowledge of how the firm connects with its clients to make money.

Watch: Diversity Web Seminar: Recruitment/Hiring Gaps

“My experience in a client-serving role was very valuable in HR,” she says, noting that she evaluated and helped talent that could drive revenue by understanding clients better.

She made partner while in the HR role. “In our environment, that is a very big deal,” she says. Before taking over the diversity-management role, she was the HR lead for the Northeast and the U.S./Canada field practices.

Read Why Do P&L Guys Head Diversity at Deloitte, Lilly?

The Early Influences

She knew she wanted to become a businesswoman from an early age, inspired by her dual-career family that moved as her father took on positions as national sales manager for IBM, Xerox and SHARP Electronics. She lived in Connecticut, Florida and New Jersey before heading off to Miami University in Ohio for her undergraduate degree.

Her mother, a teacher who also owned an art gallery and framing business, was also a role model for her. “I knew that I wanted to be a professional woman and go into business,” she says. “When I was at college, I had to declare a major, so I talked to my father. Miami of Ohio was rated high for accounting, so Dad’s recommendation was to learn accounting because it would give me so many business options. It was very sound advice.”

She started her career with Ernst & Young as a tax professional. Twaronite attended Fordham University at night, obtaining a master’s degree in taxation and becoming a CPA in New York state. After moving into HR, she received strategic human-resources certifications from Cornell University and the Harvard Business School.

She recognized the intersection of diversity management and business early on. While working in the firm’s client-service side, she cofounded the New York and Tri-State Professional Women’s Networks in 1998 and has co-chaired them since that time. Twaronite also helped establish other employee groups, including groups for people with disabilities, veterans, working parents, LGBT people and Black, Latino and Asian professionals.

The Power of Diversity Management

In her new role in diversity management, she is a member of the firm’s Americas Operations Group and serves on E&Y’s Americas People Executive Council. She already has specific ideas on how to take Ernst & Young, a recognized diversity leader, to the next level through diversity management.

“I want to broaden the definition of inclusion,” she says. “It’s not just gender and ethnicity; it’s differences in culture, style, technical knowledge, age, home countries, etc. All of our teams need to value these differences for what they bring to the table. If individuals can be themselves at work, they can provide the best possible cross-cultural and global services to our clients, which will lead to more business.”

Ernst & Young will be recognized for its excellence in diversity management at the 2012 DiversityInc Special Award for Global Cultural Competence at our Oct. 11-12 event. Visit DiversityInc.com/events for more information and to register.

Giving Back

Twaronite believes strongly in helping her community through diversity management. As a long-time New York City resident, she’s proud of her involvement as a member of the board of directors of the United Way of New York City and co-chair of the Corporate Advisory Council for The White House Project to advance women’s leadership.

She also mentors younger people, including women, coming up in the organization. “Mentors provided me with constructive feedback, even if it was feedback that I didn’t really want to hear,” she says. “I asked for it on a regular basis. I tell people that if you open yourself up for feedback, you’re going to get it. Have a stiff upper lip and a thick skin.”

Read: Rutgers Future Scholars Enhances Talent Pipelines With Corporate-Student Outreach

What’s the best lesson she learned?

“Senior women taught me how important it is to build networks and really expand yourself outside of your comfort zone,” Twaronite says. “I encourage as many people to do that as young as they can. Relationships are powerful and you can use them as currency in your career.”

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John Stumpf, CEO, Wells Fargo

John Stumpf, chairman, president and CEO of Wells Fargo, No. 33 on The 2012 DiversityInc Top 50 Companies for Diversity list, has faced his share of challenges. The company’s successful merger with Wachovia combined two large diversity leaders and is a model for other large corporate mergers. But the economic crisis of the past three years, and Wells’ involvement with the subprime crisis, has required an even deeper reliance on diversity to engage employees and reach customers.

Stumpf met one-on-one with DiversityInc CEO Luke Visconti in the bank’s San Francisco headquarters to explore these issues and his personal reasons for valuing diversity. Here is an edited version of their conversation:

The Subprime-Lending Crisis & Financial Literacy

Visconti: We’re all aware of the subprime crisis, and Wells Fargo was recently fined $85 million for practices related to subprime lending. Given that the subprime crisis disproportionately affected Black, Latino and/or female households, why was Wells Fargo fined? And what is the bank doing to rebuild credit and wealth for Wells Fargo customers caught in the mortgage crisis? How is Wells Fargo working to improve financial literacy in the Black and Latino communities?

Stumpf: It’s a fair question. There’s a lot of interest today in housing generally and more specifically in what happened. How could real estate, which has been at the core of the American dream for so many years, all of a sudden become an asset class that people are wondering if it’s still a good thing to do? Are there responsible lenders out there in this space? Who are they? What changes need to take place?

We’ve been in this business a long time. We are the nation’s largest home lender to persons of color. We do more than anyone else with low- and moderate-income customers. Our portfolio, after all of this difficult time, has performed better than any of the large underwriters. In fact, it might come as a surprise to you that 93 percent of our borrowers are current on their mortgages, 5 percent are past due and about 2 percent are in some area of foreclosure. Those numbers are better than the industry’s by 50 percent and better than some of our large bank competitors’ by maybe 100 percent.

We have about 10,000 people in the mortgage company. We had others in our banking business who made loans. We did everything right. We have 280,000 members, and our culture, our vision and our values are to serve customers and to help them succeed financially.

In the case of the $85-million settlement, we’re the ones who raised our hands. We told the Federal Reserve, “We found something with a few of our bankers who did not do it right.” We self-identified. We got rid of those people.

Visconti: They fired those people, right?

Stumpf: Yes, and we agreed to a settlement. This was not systemic. It was not pervasive. It was episodic, but we feel badly about that and we’re going to make it right.

We are doing lots of outreach things to help consumers stay in their homes. Since January of 2009, we have helped more than 700,000 families stay in their homes through modifications. We have given about $4 billion of principal to help families stay in their homes, and that’s more than any other company by some big distance. We’ve held 31 different home-preservation workshops.

Visconti: I understand you’ve actually been notifying some of your customers that you’ve proactively lowered what they owe on their houses in order to help them stay in them.

Stumpf: In fact, that was the whole deal. We said: “Dear Customer: We know you’re struggling on this. How about if we reduce the principal or reduce the interest rate or extend the term? Would that help you stay in your home?” Those customers will be customers for life.

The primary reason we get up in the morning and go to work is not to make money. The primary reason is to serve customers; the result is you make money. We want to make sure we never get the stagecoach in front of that horse.

Visconti: Overall, how does the bank feel about its role in financial literacy?

Stumpf: It’s a really important piece. Just think about when you and I went to school. How many times were we ever taught about financial services? We weren’t. Nobody ever taught us how to open a checking account. We want to help demystify a business that is very personal to people. Money is about buying homes and educating children and preparing for retirement or starting a small business.

In many cases, our bankers listen to dreams. Yet there’s not much literacy around that. We partnered with the NAACP. We partnered with 100 Black Men and other organizations to help with literacy because the industry has not done as good a job as it might have, or should have, or could have. Our industry has work to do to reconnect and build trust with the American public in the small-business arena and the consumer arena. A great way to do that is to partner with this literacy issue.

On the Merger With Wachovia

Visconti: Wells Fargo is a DiversityInc Top 50 company, and it acquired Wachovia, which was another DiversityInc Top 50 company. The companies had very different diversity strengths. How have you merged the best of both institutions? How do you personally see diversity impact your bottom line and your future growth?

Stumpf: When you think about inclusiveness and diversity, any business has to connect with its customers. A third of the country is ethnically diverse. Luckily for us, a third of our team is ethnically diverse. We’re the largest employer in the United States from a banking perspective. One in 500 Americans works for Wells Fargo. It’s hard to believe. We have 280,000 people; 275,000 are here in the United States. No other bank is even close to that. We’re an American company, and America is changing, so we need to change with America.

It’s so important to us that we do well with Wachovia that I personally am now the head of our diversity council. I don’t want to delegate to anyone else. If our people don’t represent or reflect our communities, how can we provide products and services and solve issues? How can we develop value propositions that make sense for our customers?

There are five basic pillars to how we think about diversity. First of all, we want a diverse representation of all levels of our company. One of the good things about us is that 35 percent or so of our workforce represents our communities. One of the not-so-good parts is it’s not at every level of the company. As you get higher in the company, the representation narrows. That’s a big focus for us.

Secondly, we want an inclusive environment. We want people, when they come to work here, to have the freedom to express themselves and to share what I call plural pronouns: us, we and ours. Freely. It should be a place where they can thrive and learn and develop and build relationships.

The third area is to have special programs where we really mentor and train and develop our diverse talent. Because we have underrepresentation, we have to do more work to help those folks become available so that when positions do open, they are not only in the talent pool, they are top talent in the talent pool.

The fourth area that we look at is connecting our diversity initiatives to business results. It is impossible for us to be successful in the future if we don’t connect with our diverse communities. About 95 percent of all Latinos in America live in our geography. They represent a disproportionately higher number of our new customers than anyone else. The same thing for African Americans. I can go on and on. The LGBT community. These are all critical.

The fifth thing is to measure and hold people accountable. We actually put compensation at risk. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with setting goals. I’ve heard the line, “Oh, that’s a quota!” No, it’s not. I have goals for profitability. We have goals for sales. Why would you be scared of a goal?

Visconti: For me, what you just said was a grand-slam home run. So thank you, because I hear this argument from attorneys all the time. And I think it’s literally obstructionism.

Stumpf: It makes no sense. If you think it’s important, you had better manage it and you had better measure it. You had better hold people accountable.

Visconti: Would you talk a little bit about how Wells Fargo and Wachovia were able to come together? It is a tough thing for corporations to do. From my personal experience, your company has been very successful at it. What were some of the things, from a management perspective, that you used?

Stumpf: I believe I’ve worked for three Wells Fargos. The first one was called NorWest. It was in Minneapolis. People confused us with an airline. Thirteen years ago, I started working for the second Wells Fargo. Now I’m working for the third Wells Fargo. It’s the Wells Fargo plus Wachovia.

Ours is a rich history of lots of diverse and different organizations coming together. Around 250 different banking mergers make up our company. Remember, the first two letters of merger is “me.” “Me” is such an important part. So many people who do acquisitions think it’s about the management. They think it’s about size. They think it’s about [if] somehow we get bigger, then we’re going to get better.

At Wells, it really comes back to where I grew up in the Midwest, and it’s all about relationships. When we announced the merger with Wachovia, the first thing I did was get on an airplane and go to Charlotte and start meeting with people—teams of tellers, teams across the company. I went from community to community. I wanted to know how people felt. I told people that our cultures are similar.

By the end of the day, we have the same common view: We want to care about each other and our customers, our communities and our shareholders. We’re going to work together. We’re going to learn from each other, and each one of you ought to know how your role fits into the greater good.

That also held true for diversity. We learned some things from Wachovia and they learned some things from us. Most of the people—in fact, virtually all the people—who we started with are there.

That’s the key to these things: respect, understanding and appreciation of differences. I’ve had a chance to work and live in four different geographies in our franchise, from Minnesota to Colorado to Texas and now here in California. People are all the same. They want to be respected and they want to be involved. They want to be given responsibility. They want to be held accountable. They want to develop relationships.

The difference is so important. Don’t be scared of the differences. I don’t like people who say, “Well, I’m color blind.” Give me a break. I’m not color blind. I’m not gender blind. I appreciate those things. That devalues the differences we have. Our differences make us strong. Diversity implicitness is a journey from the heart to the mind. Once you understand it in your heart, you can see it and believe it and advocate, and then it makes sense intellectually.

Wells’ Diversity Future

Visconti: Where are your diversity efforts increasing? Where are you going?

Stumpf: It starts at the top. I report to our board of directors. We have 15 outside board members. Today, four of them are ethnically diverse. Now, I don’t have a quota. I look for the very best directors I can find who represent the diversity in business practice, in experience, in gender, in ethnicity and sexual orientation. I want our board to be a beacon to those 280,000 of us who follow the board’s direction to honor our vision and values. I start there. Then it’s easy for me to go back to our culture. In 1888, my grandfather, who’s now dead, was born, but it’s also the day Wells Fargo put out an instruction to the agents about inclusiveness and diversity—treating all people equally. Since that time, we’ve had vision and value statements. We’ve had lots of considerations. But with those four elements: inclusiveness, support, diversity and advocating this inclusive environment. We’re on a journey. We’re never done. But we are going to enjoy the trip as we go.

In some areas, we are further behind than we need to be, and we have to get a sense of urgency.

Visconti: How do you hold your direct reports accountable for accomplishing your diversity plan?

Stumpf: My direct reports are called the operating committee. The next level in the company is the management committee. There are about 85 of us in that group. We all have responsibilities to mentor a diverse team member. I’m asking the management committee in the company to make a personal commitment to get to know people in diverse communities so when they have openings in their group or they’re developing people, they have some point of reference. We have now about 20,000 people in team-member networks. We have 175 of those across the company. They’re helping us as we go through difficult times of understanding how we respond to the ethnic community.

Multicultural Marketing

Visconti: You have a strong history of multicultural marketing, especially to the LGBT community. How do you see this benefiting your company in the general marketplace in future plans?

Stumpf: Dang! The LGBT community is responsible for more than $700 billion of economic business every year. I mean, you think of diverse communities. They do about $2.5 trillion of buying and selling activity in the market place. We want to serve all of our customers. We want to be the primary provider of advanced services for everybody we come in contact with. Even though people we’re all Americans, we all have different needs. We have different experiences. Some of our customers are first-generation bankers. Their parents never trusted banks. They came from countries where the banks took advantage of people and where they were excluded. How many successful people bank with their bedding? Not too many. So we need to bring them in. You do that in different ways.

If you’re in a largely Latino/Hispanic community, build stores that remind customers that you are in tune with their culture. In African-American communities, we build African-American-themed stores. Same thing is true for Asians. There’s a number of different ways. We have different languages on our ATMs. We’re not there to serve ourselves, to make our lives easier. We’re there to make their lives easier. We have team members who can speak [their languages] and who come from their communities. We do business with 1 in 3 Americans. I have not yet met one of them who has said “I want to bank with you because you’re so big, you’re so large and you’re so indifferent that I can just be a number. Give me my number.”

I’ve never heard that. People tell me, very simply, “Know me, understand me, help me and reward me.” Make it very personal. We want our customer to think “I’m their only customer.” We do 10,000 customer interactions a minute in this company. We have more than five billion customer interactions a year. These are massive numbers. We can’t afford to be right 99.9 percent of the time. We’ve got to be right all the time. We’ve got to make it very, very individual.

The Personal Connection

Visconti: Why do you think it’s important for you personally to be involved in your diversity efforts?

Stumpf: If not me, who? If this is so important, why delegate it? I think my primary job here is to be the keeper and the advocate of the culture. There are 280,000 of us who go to work every morning. We get up, take a shower—well, hopefully take a shower—and go to work … How do we know how our role makes a difference that day? We don’t walk around with manuals and policies and books. We know what to do because of our culture. Culture is so undervalued in business today. The two big things are culture and recognition. Culture is the bond that makes us different from other companies.

Customers know culture. You walk into some place and sometimes you think, “What an awful place.” The person behind the counter doesn’t like what they’re doing. You can’t wait to get out of there. Then you walk into another store and people are having fun and they’re engaged and they look you in the eye. You say, “Man! I want to be here.” Happy customers are a result of happy team members. So that’s why I think culture and diversity effort are at the core of our culture. Inclusiveness. Respect. Trust. A shoulder to lean on once in a while. Everybody moving in the same direction. These are powerful concepts that are hugely undervalued in business.

Visconti: You have a personal story about diversity. Do you want to talk about that?

Stumpf: I’m one of 11 children on our family farm. I grew up in a small town in central Minnesota. We were all white. We all were the same religion. We were all from the same ethnic background. I didn’t meet a non-German Catholic until I went to college. That was a big deal. I then had a chance to move our family to San Antonio, Texas, which we just loved.

In San Antonio, about two-thirds of the population was Latino. I learned what it was like not to have the unearned advantage of the majority. The schools we went to were largely Latino. It was a powerful example for our family to learn another culture. If you go full-circle back to my hometown today, it has changed, and it’s largely because of the wonderful brothers and sisters I have. Today, I have 33 nieces and nephews on my side of the family. And of those 33, 11 are adopted. Five are African American and three are Latino. I’ve had the personal experience to have teaching moments. But teaching moments are so much more powerful if they’re preceded by understanding months and trying years. These children have opened the eyes of our family and have enriched our experiences and have helped us become a better family.

If it could do that for a large family in a small community, think what it can do for corporations.

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