We are stronger together

Charlie Scharf, CEO, Wells Fargo:

Throughout the month of June, I hope you will join me in celebrating Pride Month, a time to come together to honor the achievements of the LGBTQ community. We are stronger together. It's a good reminder of the work we must do to continue to create a culture within Wells Fargo, where every person feels valued, included, and supported. For Wells Fargo to be successful, we must create a truly diverse and inclusive workforce that brings a diversity of insight and perspective to all levels of our company. While Pride Month is typically a time to celebrate, it's important to speak out against the challenges and injustices facing the LGBTQ community, particularly the ongoing violence against the transgender community. In this video, you'll hear from colleagues across Wells Fargo discussing how they define ‘stronger together’.

Ryan Rosa, Wealth & Investment Management:

We are stronger together means being able to value each other's differences and recognize that there is benefit to all of us not being the same, and that there's a lot to learn from other people.

Ellen Palafox, Enterprise Complaints:

We are stronger together, because we are. It's hard to be on your own. I experienced that. I have to navigate my journey towards my acceptance of myself on my own.

Mary Mack, Consumer and Small Business Banking:

Our collective understanding and empathy and support and learning around differences just makes us a better place.

Grace Pedroza-Matijasic, Consumer and Small Business Banking:

I have kids come up to me and say, Are you a boy or girl? I used to always just answer off the top of my head like, ‘Oh, I'm a girl.’ But now it's like ‘I'm me.’

Jason Vasquez, Communications and Brand Management:

When I was very young, I knew instinctively that I was very different from my peers, but I didn't really know how to address it, how to embrace it, and I didn't know what it meant.

Suzie Asmar-O’Guin, Human Resources:

I identify as a gay woman, and I realized that when I was about four years old. I mean, at that age, I obviously couldn't put any definition or reasons behind it. But I was very drawn to some of my girlfriends.

Shaka Farr, Human Resources Enterprise Talent:

I identify as a queer black cis male. Cis is defined as someone whose gender identity matches the one assigned to them at birth.

Ketty Avashia, Technology:

By definition, if I go, I'm a straight transgender male.

Danielle Arcuri, Consumer and Small Business Banking:

There are a lot of terms out there and a lot of vocabulary, I think needs more awareness.

Rosa:

I identify as gender fluid and trans and I also identify as bisexual and generally queer.

Pedroza-Matijasic:

I identify as nonbinary. I don't necessarily fit in the all-female bucket, but I also don't feel like I fit in the all-male bucket.

Arcuri:

I think the generational differences, it used to be that you were gay, or you were a lesbian and that was it, and now they don't really understand why there has to be so many terms.

Pedroza-Matijasic:

I have Googled so many different things. And I've read a lot of articles that you are who you choose to be and who you really are.

Michael Roman, Wealth & Investment Management:

I am a gay man. I'm also a Jewish Arab. We all live on this highway of lanes, this intersectionality.

JD D’Amore, Consumer and Small Business Banking:

Growing up as a biracial man, I feel like the LGBTQ community has historically had lots of challenges embracing those intersectionalities.

Juan Lopez, Brand Communications:

I grew up in a border town in California, so there was a lot of what looked like me physically. So I never felt ashamed for being Mexican, or Latino. A lot of the shame for being who I am, came from being gay. And I look back to my behavior for so many years, I was always gay first, and I don't know if that's necessarily the right thing to think anymore. I don't think pride can exist alongside racism, sexism, or discrimination. We are stronger together. We're in this for each other.

D’Amore:

Allyship is the most important thing for anyone who belongs to what they would consider to be a marginalized community.

Farr:

In my opinion, ally is a verb. It's an action.

Jon Weiss, Corporate and Investment Banking:

I can't talk about allyship without talking about my son who came out as a gay man twelve or so years ago. It's been a great experience for me and my wife to learn, to get challenged from time to time on our way of thinking.

Ian Gabrinao, Consumer Lending:

Even within the community, I think allyship is very important, because there are certain groups within the community that need more help and need to take more space.

Ben-James Brown, Regional Banking:

The pandemic has given us an opportunity to not just point our fingers, but to ask ourselves, ‘What am I going to do about it.’

Jerome Flores, Human Resources, Enterprise DE&I:

Given everything that's happened, the pandemic, George Floyd, the AAPI hate, it's emboldened me to speak up more and really, you know, maybe challenge some people about what they believe in.

Clint Cedillo, Human Resources:

We will not progress as a society, as a community, as human beings, if we do not appreciate that we might be different, but we are the same. We're just doing something differently.

Kleber Santos, Senior Executive VP, Head of DE&I:

And that's why it is so important that we find ways to respect differences, to embrace differences, to leverage the best of one another, to support one another. Because all of our lives are interconnected. And yes, of course, we are stronger together.

Sasha Strock, Consumer Lending:

There is no human being that, in my opinion, has the corner on the market of what we should all be. And if we are going to survive this planet, we have to do it together.