This episode features an interview with Ellie Bertani, SVP of HR Transformation & Services at Wells Fargo. With twenty years of cross-sector professional experience in philanthropy, health care, retail, and financial services, Ellie has helped to improve Wells Fargo’s HR operating model and implement new ways of working.
On today’s episode, Ellie discusses HR operational effectiveness , meeting the needs of different generations of employees, and a passion for skills-based programs.
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About Ellie
Ellie Bertani is SVP of HR Transformation at Wells Fargo. She is responsible for architecting and implementing HR’s target operating model while establishing new ways of working to improve the employee experience. In addition, she leads the Culture COE, charged with driving cultural change across Wells Fargo. With a background in the nonprofit, public, and private sectors, she brings a shared value approach to drive sustainable impact.
Ellie joined Wells Fargo in December 2020, after spending eight years at Walmart in a variety of roles in HR, Corporate Affairs, and Finance. In 2020 she was awarded Walmart’s highest recognition, the Sam Walton Entrepreneurship Award, for the development of LiveBetterU, the largest educational benefits program in the US, and Walmart’s most successful diversity & inclusion program.
Ellie received her Master of Public Administration from Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government and her MBA from MIT Sloan School of Management. Her professional career has included fifteen years of experience in the nonprofit, public, and private sectors, including positions with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the U.S. State Department, Third Sector Capital Partners, and Rotary International. She loves comedy, karaoke, and being kept on her toes by her husband and three crazy boys.
About Wells Fargo
Wells Fargo & Company (NYSE: WFC) is a diversified, community-based financial services company with $1.9 trillion in assets. Wells Fargo’s vision is to satisfy their customers’ financial needs and help them succeed financially. Founded in 1852 and headquartered in San Francisco, Wells Fargo provides banking, investment and mortgage products and services, as well as consumer and commercial finance, through 8,050 locations, 13,000 ATMs, the internet (wellsfargo.com) and mobile banking, and has offices in 38 countries and territories to support customers who conduct business in the global economy. With approximately 265,000 team members, Wells Fargo serves one in three households in the United States. Wells Fargo & Company was ranked No. 26 on Fortune’s 2018 rankings of America’s largest corporations. News, insights and perspectives from Wells Fargo are also available at Wells Fargo Stories.
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“You really touched on an area of passion when you started talking about skills and how that can be the building block of how we think about talent going forward and the unit of currency as I like to think about it.” -Ellie Bertani
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Show Notes
- The Blueprint
- (1:20) Ellie’s role at Wells Fargo
- (2:32) What opportunities she saw in joining the company
- (4:00) Most rewarding part of the role
- The Journey
- (5:09) Measuring success through OKRs and a new talent mobility program
- (7:23) Navigating change management through strong sponsorship
- (8:46) Forcing prioritization and trade-off conversations in a complex business
- (11:11) Building out Wells Fargo’s operations function
- (12:21) Ellie’s talent strategy
- (14:29) Guild Education and Ellie’s passion for skills-based programs
- The Future of Talent
- (17:51) Meeting the needs of different generations of employees
- (20:17) Prioritizing data and creating a culture of two-way dialogue
- (23:02) Engaging with qualitative and quantitative data
- (24:58) Creating skill-based programs around the business strategy
- (27:26) The future of hybrid work and skills-based programs
- (30:21) Parting words: pay attention to culture and leadership
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Sponsor
The Talent Blueprint is brought to you by Beamery. Beamery's Talent Lifecycle Management Platform makes it possible for companies to deliver more human talent experiences and unlock the skills and potential of their global workforce using industry leading AI. Learn more at beamery.com.
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Links
Connect with Ellie on LinkedIn
Connect with Sultan on LinkedIn
