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How Not To Grow Revenues-A Lesson From Wells Fargo

[vc_row][vc_column width=”2/3″][vc_column_text]In case you missed it, the United States provided yet another wonderful case study in bad corporate governance in the Wells Fargo case this past September.

On September 8th 2016, Wells Fargo Bank was fined $185 million (Kes 18.5 billion) by regulators after it was found that more than 2 million bank accounts and credit cards had been opened or applied for without customers’ knowledge or permission between May 2011 and July 2015. Employees had been opening and funding accounts in order to satisfy sales goals and earn financial rewards under the bank’s incentive-compensation program.” Dice it or slice it, this was a fraud of monumental proportions that had to have been known from the top. Or was it known? Well, John Stumpf was not trying to take one for the team. Following the termination of about 5,300 employees (about 1% of the workforce) in relation to the allegations, the champion stallion appeared on television on September 13th 2016 quite unapologetic. “I think the best thing I could do right now is lead this company, and lead this company forward,” in response to calls for his resignation. Stumpf was acting straight out of the African leadership playbook titled “Id Rather Die Than Resign.”

A week later, Stumpf met the inimitable Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren. Ms. Warren had done her homework extremely well and in 17 short minutes excoriated the bank CEO. I’ve extracted the first painful minutes here:
Warren: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Stumpf, Wells Fargo’s vision and values statement, which you frequently cite says: “We believe in values lived not phrases memorized. If you want to find out how strong a company’s ethics are, don’t listen to what its people say, watch what they do.” So, let’s do that. Since this massive years-long scam came to light, you have said repeatedly: “I am accountable.” But what have you actually done to hold yourself accountable? Have you resigned as CEO or chairman of Wells Fargo?
Stumpf: The board, I serve —
Warren: Have you resigned?
Stumpf: No, I have not.
Warren: Alright. Have you returned one nickel of the millions of dollars that you were paid while this scam was going on?
Stumpf: Well, first of all, this was by 1 percent of our people.
Warren: That’s not my question. This is about responsibility. Have you returned one nickel of the millions of dollars that you were paid while this scam was going on?
Stumpf: The board will take care of that.
Warren: Have you returned one nickel of the money you earned while this scam was going on?
Stumpf: And the board will do —
Warren: I will take that as a no, then.

Two things to note here: First of all is how Stumpf was trying to bring in his board of directors as the reason why he was not resigning. We will never know if his board quite frankly wanted him gone by this time but couldn’t get garner the guts to ask him to leave, after all he was both Chairman and CEO. Secondly, he also laid the decision to pay back his past bonuses squarely on the board’s hands. Under Warren’s probing eye, he was not trying to take the flak for not paying back unfairly earned bonuses. On this one, he was going to go down with his board. Having seen how Wall Street executives had walked away with a slap on the wrists following the global financial crisis of 2008, Warren went for the jugular:
Warren: OK, so you haven’t resigned, you haven’t returned a single nickel of your personal earnings, you haven’t fired a single senior executive. Instead evidently your definition of “accountable” is to push the blame to your low-level employees who don’t have the money for a fancy PR firm to defend themselves. It’s gutless leadership.

Stumpf, who had probably had the best legal brains prepare him for the Senate hearing, had even been trained on the classic “I don’t recall” technique for any questions whose answers might lead to self incrimination. But Warren was in no mood to take prisoners and gave the classic ultimatum.
“You know, here is what really gets me about this, Mr. Stumpf. If one of your tellers took a handful of $20 bills out of the cash drawer, they probably would be looking at criminal charges for theft.
They could end up in prison. But you squeezed your employees to the breaking point so they would cheat customers and you could drive up the value of your stock and put hundreds of millions of dollars in your own pocket. And when it all blew up, you kept your job, you kept your multi-million dollar bonuses and you went on television to blame thousands of $12 an hour employees who were just trying to meet cross-sell quotas that made you rich. This is about accountability. You should resign.
You should give back the money that you took while this scam was going on and you should be criminally investigated by both the Department of Justice and the Securities and Exchange Commission. This just isn’t right. A cashier who steals a handful of twenties is held accountable. But Wall Street executives who almost never hold themselves accountable. Not now, and not in 2008 when they crushed the worldwide economy. The only way that Wall Street will change is if executives face jail time when they preside over massive frauds. We need tough new laws to hold corporate executives personally accountable and we need tough prosecutors who have the courage to go after people at the top. Until then, it will be business as usual. ”
It is noteworthy that it is not only Kenya that is struggling to get corrupt practices actively prosecuted, especially those perpetuated by “untouchables”. And after that lacerating and very public questioning, the bank’s independent directors announced on September 27th that Stumpf would not be receiving $41 million (Kes 4.1 billion) of promised compensation while they launched an independent investigation. Clearly, being thrown under Stumpf’s bus was not what they had signed up for and necessary action was taken.

John Stumpf threw in the towel and finally resigned on October 12th 2016 from the Wells Fargo Board and also stepped down from Chevron Corp and Target Corp on October 19th 2016 where he served as a non-executive director. An honorable action that was a day long and a dollar short.
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How American trains opened up their economy

[vc_row][vc_column width=”2/3″][vc_column_text]A large two engined train was crossing America. After they had gone some distance one of the engines broke down. “No problem,” the engineer thought, and carried on at half power. Farther on down the line, the second engine broke down, and the train slowed to a dead stop. The engineer announced:
“Ladies and gentlemen, I have some good news and some bad news. The bad news is that both engines have failed, and we will be stuck here for some time. The good news is that you decided to take the train and not fly.”

I spent a lovely summer in the village of Pewaukee, Wisconsin in the United States, which has a population of 8,236. It is part of the bigger city of Pewaukee that itself has a total population of 13,195 as at the last census in 2010. Tucked away in a corn and soya bean growing topography in central Wisconsin, the nearest large city is Milwaukee which lies about 17 miles East and Chicago which is a fast ninety minute drive to the south. The central focal point of the village is Lake Pewaukee which is about the size of our own Lake Elementaita and is surrounded by million dollar homes. The lake therefore attracts residents to its shores during the weekend and the local authorities have ensured a well maintained pier exists for the public to walk along, bring their chairs and sit, swim and generally enjoy free safe and secure access to a public asset. There are also clean public toilets and changing facilities and I once found a man in a waterproof overalls waist deep in the water cleaning out the waterfront area near the pier. Pewaukee is fairly safe and front doors are often left unlocked and the local police’s idea of excitement is catching a wayward driver doing 35 miles per hour in a 25 mile per hour zone. Enough said. The serenity is, however, often interrupted by the ear splitting warning horn of cargo trains that often traverse through the village as the railways tracks are part of the wider interstate web of railway track that opened up the United States to progress, new population settlements and vibrant trade in the 19th century.

On one lazy, languorous afternoon we sat by the lake and watched a cargo train trundle past. It took all of five minutes. But five minutes is 300 seconds of a long, rumbling iron snake carrying containers arranged in a double stack on wagons. So we did some quick back of a grease stained serviette calculations. Having lost count after about 30 wagons (the relentless heat and humidity does wear one down when conducting a mind numbing activity like counting train wagons) we figured that the train was easily carrying 200 containers. Assuming that a Kenyan truck on the nail biting treacherous Mombasa to Nairobi journey carries one 40-foot container, this particular train we were observing could easily eliminate 200 trucks from the road, just like that. It goes without saying that 200 trucks off Mombasa road would also mean far less damage to the road and, heaven be praised, less traffic on that critical East African artery. But surely I’m exhibiting bouts of insane fantasy so let me get back to reality.

The railroad system in the United States can be traced to the dawn of the 19th century and was primarily built to haul cargo and later, as more railway lines were built on the back of a rapidly developing financial system in Wall Street that provided funding options, passenger trains emerged. The railroad system thus opened up significant trade opportunities for manufacturers of goods as they could find and reach new markets in a cost effective manner. Towns soon started popping up along the railway routes as the trains needed skilled craftsmen to repair the steam locomotives which developed difficulties along the journey. It is also noteworthy that by the mid 19th Century, over 80% of farms in the Corn Belt (from Ohio to Iowa states) were within eight kilometres of a railway. Access to markets had led to the creation of many large scale farming communities.

Like any industry, the railways in the United States have gone through great highs and spectacular lows. Competition from trucks did affect the railway in the mid 20th century particularly with the rapidly developing interstate highway system. However deregulation of much of the industry in the early seventies removed the stumbling blocks that had made it economically unviable thus making the American freight railway system one of the best in the world.

Which brings me to our Chinese driven standard gauge (SGR) railway that is currently under expedited construction. I did a little research and was pleased to see that actually I wasn’t exhibiting bouts of insane fantasy. A typical freight train on Kenya’s SGR, once complete, will consist of 54 double stack flat wagons and measure 880 metres long. 54 double stack wagons converts to 108 containers. Poof! 108 trucks gone just like that off our roads, assuming of course that the wagon is carrying two 40 foot containers rather than 20 foot ones.

It bears some reflection as to what role the SGR can play in the reversal of the importation pressures placed on the shilling. Since our oil will have its own pipeline to take it to the port when it is eventually extracted, our higher capacity trains should not return to the Mombasa port empty. As American history shows, the railroads were a core component of the growth of the economic powerhouse as they were used to crisscross raw material and finished goods to domestic markets. What impact will having the faster delivery mechanism called SGR have on future production of agricultural and finished product in Kenya? I want to believe that this is being given careful consideration within the facilitative roles of Ministries of Agriculture as well as Industrialization. Otherwise both these engines of facilitation will have catastrophically failed.

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Twitter: @carolmusyoka [/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/3″][/vc_column][/vc_row]