Wells Fargo Securities engages in practices that sideline women employees while providing a “free pass” to their male counterparts who engage in serious and substantial misconduct, according to a lawsuit filed in California State Superior Court in Los Angeles County.
The lawsuit, filed Thursday by Vanessa Carney, a 16-year employee, said Wells Fargo’s public pronouncements of its commitment to diversity and inclusion of women “are nothing more than window dressing and hollow gesture.”
The lawsuit also accused the bank of tolerating misogynist and racist behavior.
Carney said she was overlooked for promotions, subjected to verbal abuse and threats by a male partner and denied benefits that were readily provided to her male counterparts. She also claimed that male employees mockingly referred to a female client as a “fat pig.”
Carney, who worked in the Asset Backed Finance Sales Group, rose through the ranks early in her career, from being hired as an associate in 2005, promoted to vice president in 2007 and elevated to director in 2009. But she was never promoted again or given an increase in her base salary since 2010, despite glowing annual reviews, the complaint said.
The complaint cited instances where several male employees within her group were elevated to managing directors, despite joining the company several years after she did and not having an MBA or the CFA designation as she does. In fact, the complaint noted that Carney for the longest time was the only woman director in the sales group and that the disparity between the number of men and women professionals remains “staggering and indefensible.”
“Considering that, but for her gender, Ms. Carney should have and would have been promoted to managing director (or beyond) long ago, the compensation that she has been denied is in excess of $1 million,” the complaint said.
It further noted that Carney’s incentive compensation changed each year based on several factors, but the complaint said for all her efforts, skill and knowledge, she was denied promotions and advancements provided to her less experienced male peers. “What separated Ms. Carney from the male peers who leapfrogged her was simply her gender—she was a woman in a male-dominated profession.”
The complaint said Carney, like many women in the financial services industry and beyond the industry, “attempted to grit her teeth, keep her head down, and ‘bear it,’ but realizing the breadth of Wells Fargo’s discrimination, its latest retaliatory act of placing her in career purgatory—in a business unit with no upward mobility, significantly less compensation, and decimating, dividing, and distributing her hard-earned leads to others—is no longer bearable.”
Carney alleged that numerous male employees were permitted to relocate seamlessly during the Covid crises and continue within their same roles with the firm. But her request in early 2021 to move back to Los Angeles (from New York) with her husband and children due to “significant personal events taking place in [her] life" was at first rebuffed. But she was then told that she could move only if she accepted a “made-up” role in the Short Duration Sales Group—a major “step down” from her position, the complaint said.