Cigdem Gencer - Member Profile

Cigdem Gencer brings 30 years of professional, executive experience to the consulting work she does with leaders and teams. Her own executive journey has spanned start-ups, non-profits, and Fortune 100 companies. In 2021, Cigdem founded Fazilet Consulting, focused on the accelerated success of leaders, teams, and their organizations. She works closely with C-suite leaders to address growth and scaling challenges.

Cigdem started her career in management consulting to Financial Services and Media/Telecom clients. Following executive and CFO roles in start-up and mid-size companies, she spent 18 years at Wells Fargo Bank in a variety of executive roles in the Wealth Management, Data/Analytics, Human Resources, and Risk Management divisions. Throughout her career, she specialized in developing high performance teams at inflection points of scaling. Her experience ranges in roles from CFO, CDO, COO, to CHRO of both enterprise-wide organizations and specific lines of business.

As the CFO of Wells Fargo’s Wealth Management division, she revitalized the financial focus, contributing to the doubling of top-line revenue and 15% profitability improvement. As COO, she successfully led the merger of the UHNW businesses of Wells Fargo and Wachovia, with no client impacts, enhanced operational effectiveness, and improved profitability. She also led International HR at Wells Fargo, leading a multi-year effort to build systems, teams, and programs to support the 25,000 employees outside the US. She also had leadership roles in establishing the first Chief Data Office, as well as the enterprise-wide Customer Remediation risk organization.

Throughout her 18 years at Wells Fargo, she directly managed organizations ranging from 10-1000+ employees, and led multiple efforts to build and scale new and/or complex organizations.

Prior to Wells Fargo, Cigdem was CFO for Intrax, Inc., leading the post-9/11 strategic digital transformation for the $50mm group of four international, cultural, and educational exchange companies transitioning from 22 years of founder ownership. Her early career was as a management consultant to clients in financial services, media/telecommunications, and healthcare industries in the US and Europe.

Cigdem is a multi-cultural, multi-lingual leader, fluent in English, Spanish, and Turkish. She has twice been an in-market leader in Spain and Turkey. She has led global teams in APAC, EMEA, and LATAM, particularly in India, Hong Kong, and the Philippines, as well as the UK, Ireland, and Canada.