Spotlight: Q&A with Wells Fargo's Patty Juarez
Patty Juarez is EVP & Head of Diverse Segments for Commercial Banking at Wells Fargo, bringing more than 26 years in Commercial Banking. Internally, Patty is the Enterprise President of Hispanic & Latino Connection, one of the largest employee resource groups at Wells Fargo (50 chapters) representing more than 48,000 Latinos. She also serves as co-chair of the market place outcomes committee in the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Council for Commercial Banking.
Q: How does Wells Fargo currently support high-growth startups?
Our priority is to build relationships — to be good listeners, to be a sounding board, and to truly understand the vision and strategy behind their business. With every relationship, we strive to be the best advisors and partners, even if it means helping you find a solution that may sit outside of Wells Fargo.
For high-growth startups, our teams help companies think about their capital needs and how those can be best met, whether with equity or debt, or a combination of the two.
Additionally, we collaborate to assess the areas of friction that could hinder high velocity growth of a company. Our services include debt and equity capital, investment banking, treasury and payment services, investment of excess cash and hedging products to protect companies against fluctuations in rates, currencies and commodities, among others.
Q: What does diversity, equity, and inclusion mean to you/Wells Fargo?
At Wells Fargo, we are deeply dedicated to diversity, equity and inclusion (DE&I). We strive to ensure that our teams reflect the communities we serve and to provide affordable, easy-to-use products and services, to enable financial well-being and planning, and to help in the formation and growth of small businesses in diverse communities.
In 2020, we renewed our commitment to DE&I at the direction of our CEO, Charlie Scharf. New DE&I initiatives were put into place to help accelerate our efforts to increase diverse representation at all levels of the organization, including senior-level roles. It also allows us to better serve growing, diverse customer segments, and partner with diverse suppliers across all business lines.
On a personal level, diversity, equity and inclusion mean that we as a company celebrate, appreciate and leverage opportunities for our team members to bring their best selves to work. When we’re able to be ourselves, we are more engaged and we do our best work. If we focus our efforts on being diverse, equitable, and inclusive, our company will be more successful and will be able to take care of our customers and our people.
Q: How are you celebrating Hispanic Heritage Month?
We are very excited to celebrate this important month internally with our teams, and externally with our Hispanic/Latino clients and the communities we serve.
Our Economics group has released a report, The Budding Potential of Hispanic Americans for the U.S. Economy, which discusses recent demographic trends among Hispanic/Latino Americans and their implications for the U.S. economy in coming years.
Our Hispanic/Latino Employee Resource Group (ERG) will host a kick-off call that will outline the festivities for the month – including campaigns focused on storytelling of our multifaceted Hispanic/Latino culture and the importance of advancing our Hispanic/Latino talent at Wells Fargo.
Many business lines within Wells Fargo will host client events to celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month. These include a book club, celebrity cooking class, and more.
Lastly, we will extend our commitment to this community by reinforcing our relationships with some of the largest organizations serving Hispanic/Latino businesses and communities through sponsorships and collaborative programs, including: United States Hispanic Chambers of Commerce, Latino Donor Collaborative L'ATTITUDE Conference, and ALPFA.
Q: In what ways can Chicago's business community provide greater support to underrepresented startup founders?
All business communities should be committed to fund underrepresented startup founders as they are a powerful and growing segment of U.S. businesses.
According to Latino Donor Collaborative's Latino GDP Report, between 2012 and 2017, the number of Latino owned businesses grew three times faster than non-Latino businesses: 31.6%, compared to 9.3%.
In the venture capital arena, while there has been significant growth over the last decade, particularly for women, only 1% of VC-backed founders are Black/African-American and less than 2% are Hispanic/Latino.
Chicago:Blend's efforts to connect underrepresented founders into the technology ecosystem exemplify the types of commitments that need to be adapted throughout all business communities. Underrepresented founders greatly benefit from having the access to guidance and resources to navigate their business development and growth. Equally important is working towards bringing diversity to the venture capital world as it is estimated that just about 1% of venture capitalists are Hispanic/Latino.
Addressing the needs of underrepresented founders, while addressing representation within our organizations, can lead to dramatic change for this growing segment of our business community.