Why CIOs Make Great CEOs: Saul Van Beurden’s Leadership Playbook

November 3, 2025

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About the Guest

Saul Van Beurden

Chief Executive Officer of Consumer, Small, and Business Banking at Wells Fargo

Saul Van Beurden is the Chief Executive Officer of Consumer, Small, and Business Banking at Wells Fargo, one of the largest banks in the United States by market capitalization. In this role, he oversees a business that serves over 50 million consumers and 3.5 million small and mid-sized businesses through 4,000+ branches, digital channels, and service centers. Prior to this, Saul served as Wells Fargo’s Head of Technology, where he led an engineering-first strategy to modernize IT, strengthen risk controls, and enable innovation. He previously held CIO and senior technology roles at JPMorgan Chase, ING Group, and Marsh McLennan. Saul is also the executive sponsor of Wells Fargo’s enterprise-wide neurodiversity hiring initiative.

Episode Overview

1025: What does it take to go from CIO to CEO? For Saul Van Beurden, tech leadership was the ideal proving ground.

Now CEO of Consumer, Small, and Business Banking at Wells Fargo, Saul shares how his background in IT helped him lead at enterprise scale. In this episode, he speaks with Peter High about the strategic, operational, and cultural mindset shifts that enabled his rise—and why CIOs are uniquely positioned to lead beyond technology.

Key topics explored: