By Dan Freed
(Reuters) - Betsy Duke, a former Federal Reserve official and community banker from Virginia, may become chairwoman of the board of Wells Fargo & Co, according to the Wall Street Journal
The change comes as investors have agitated for new leadership at the board, and as the third largest U.S. lender confronts a sales scandal that has grown beyond millions of unauthorized accounts to harm additional depositors and borrowers.
Duke became a director in 2015 and was named vice chair last year after the scandal broke and led to the resignation of then-Chairman and Chief Executive Officer John Stumpf.
On Thursday, the Journal reported that Stephen Sanger, who took over the role of chairman in October, will step down by early September, with Duke likely to take over as chairwoman.
Investors had earlier told Reuters that they wanted Duke to become chairwoman, citing her regulatory and banking experience.
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Duke "has put a lot of leadership and effort into helping us manage a variety of regulatory reform implementations," Wells Fargo Chief Financial Officer John Shrewsberry told Reuters in an interview last month, adding that she has become "more heavily involved" in those reforms.
(Reporting by Dan Freed in New York; Additional reporting by Aparajita Saxena in Bengaluru; Writing by Lauren Tara LaCapra; Editing by Sai Sachin Ravikumar and Jonathan Oatis)