Paul Hazen

Who is Paul Hazen?

Paul Mandeville Hazen is an American businessman. He is a chairman of the board of directors of Accel-KKR and KKR Financial Holding Corporation and the former chairman and chief executive officer of Wells Fargo & Company. He is a member of the Democratic Party.

Hazen was born on November 29, 1941 in Lansing, Michigan. He received his BS degree in finance from the University of Arizona in 1963 and his MBA degree from the Haas School of Business at Berkeley, California in 1964. Starting his banking career with Security Pacific National Bank in 1964, he joined Union Bank in 1966 and Wells Fargo & Company in 1970.

At Wells Fargo, Hazen was an executive with several of the banks subsidiaries, including serving as president of the Wells Fargo Real Estate Investment Trust, a publicly traded REIT, from 1973 to 1978. Moving up to the parent company, he was elected executive vice president of Wells Fargo in 1978 and vice chairman in 1981.

Elected president and chief operating officer of Wells Fargo in 1984, Hazen led the bank through mergers with Crocker National in 1986 and Barclays Bank of California in 1988 and the recession of the early 1990s. He succeeded Carl E.