Gender Equality: Where do Female Entrepreneurs Stand Today?

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Oprah Winfrey. Sara Blakely. Angie Hicks.

These women are the embodiment of successful American entrepreneurs - but do they accurately reflect the "state of the union" when it comes to female entrepreneurship?

Despite the fact that the number of women-owned businesses is on the rise, we still face an uphill battle. In the U.S., gender-based challenges - including stereotypes and access to finance - present significant obstacles to women who want to launch and run businesses.

So, where do female entrepreneurs stand today? In many areas, American women have taken the business world by storm:

• According to this Fortune.com article, the number of women-owned businesses grew by a whopping 74% between 1997 and 2015. That's 1.5 times the national average!
• Black females are the fastest growing group of U.S. entrepreneurs; businesses owned by African American women grew 322% since 1997.
• Nearly half (46%) of the privately held companies in the U.S. are now at least half-owned by women.

But the big picture isn't all rosy.
In addition to the "typical" challenges all entrepreneurs face, women must overcome additional obstacles to launch and run a business:

Gender bias. Despite the fact that Americans say women are every bit as capable of being good leaders as men, 4 in 10 people believe females are held to higher standards than males - and that our country is "just not ready" to put more women in top leadership roles (Pew Research).

Access to finance. Women cite barriers to access to capital as the biggest obstacle they face in funding and growing their businesses. And it's easy to understand why. In the U.S., only 13% of venture capital goes to women-led enterprises (Deloitte).

Venture capitalists are predominantly white men, who in turn fund companies started and run by men. As a result, female entrepreneurs typically start out with less capital and are more likely to rely on personal credit or family money.

Pay gap. While U.S. gender wage gap may be narrower than ever (especially for young women), it's still over double the size of other industrialized nations'. According to Pew Research and Forbes:

• Women working full-time earn 77% of what their male counterparts earn.
• African American women earn 60% of what their white male counterparts earn.
• Latina women earn 55% of what their white male counterparts earn.
• Younger women (ages 18 to 24) earn 88% of what their male counterparts earn.

Closing the entrepreneurial gender gapEntrepreneurship is an undeniable driver of our nation's economic growth - and women need to play an equal role "behind the wheel." Moving forward, companies, governments and societies as a whole must collaborate to close the gap by:

• embedding diversity and gender equality within corporate cultures;
• formalizing policies to provide the flexibility and parental leave women need;
• adopting talent management practices that nurture women's professional development - especially in leadership roles;
• increasing women's representation on boards of directors;
• passing legislation to equalize pay;
• developing and implementing public policy frameworks to support women's economic empowerment and access to finance.

On an individual level, women can do the following to pave their own way:

• Ignore traditional gender expectations. Working women face pressure to excel in every aspect of their lives - their careers, their family relationships, their appearance and their seeming ability to "have it all." I say, "Forget 'having it all' - have what matters most."
• Find role models, sources of inspiration and mentors. Learn and draw strength from as many successful female entrepreneurs as you can!
• Seek out female angel investors (like Hera Fund), or VC firms that have a history of funding women-owned startups.
• Push past fear of failure. It's okay to fail in business - often. Frequent, small failures are signs that a business leader is constantly trying new things, taking calculated risks and pushing outside their comfort zone. In my opinion, failure doesn't define a female entrepreneur; the way she bounces back from it does.

Time Management: It's NOT About Time

I'm often facilitating a group class or meeting with a coaching client when the beautiful topic of "Time Management" comes up. It came up just last week: A group had the same set of questions and wanted answers.

"What do I do if I'm constantly interrupted?"

"How can I handle my work if I don't have time to take a lunch break?"

"My boss keeps making me work more, and I can't say no. There is way too much on my plate."

"I am surrounded by people that are constantly complaining and waste my time with their banter."

Don't get me wrong - these are very valid concerns, and each one of us has likely been in one of these situations before. But where we do go wrong is when we think it's all about TIME. That magic component to life: If we just had more of it, we would get everything done, and more!

WRONG. The problem about time management is that it's not about time at all.

Time cannot and will not be managed, and you will never get more of it. The problem is rooted in the choices you are making with others and your own choices. You choose how to use it every moment of every day, whether you believe you do or not.

At this point, you might want to stop reading and tell me I'm full of crap, and I understand. It really does suck to realize that all of your "time" problems could be related to things you might have some control over. I've been there, and I feel your pain.

If you are still reading, I'd like to share 3 valuable concepts that can help you delve a bit deeper into your "time" problem. Explore these, consider your current struggles, and see what you call pull from them:

SMART CHOICES

We feel that we have a lot less control over our circumstances than we actually do. We might not have control over a particular event, but we DO have control over how we choose to react to that event. How we choose to respond to others and to our work also determine our ultimate outcomes. We CAN choose responses that are different from how we were conditioned, even if it feels unnatural or difficult. Next time: choose to walk away from that complaining coworker, choose your lunch break instead of your work, choose to focus on you work instead of the 'ping' of someone's red-flagged email, and choose to stand up for yourself and say "NO" when you are asked to do more than you are able.

GET REAL

Get really honest with yourself, your work situation, and your surroundings. Dig down deep to explore your strengths and accept your weaknesses. Get gritty with the reality of your job, workplace and team. Look around at your office and figure out if the set up or schedule works at all for what you are trying to achieve. If you are a person that needs quiet to concentrate but are surrounded by chaos, what can you do to alter your environment, schedule or set-up to give you some quiet? You instead might be fast paced and social, but easily distractible, like me. How can you remove yourself from distractions or force focus? Be brutally honest about your work and environment, and set yourself up for success when possible.

SET EXPECTATIONS

How are you teaching others how to treat you? If you answer those work emails at 11pm, your coworkers and boss will quickly learn that you will make yourself available in the middle of the night. Examine whose expectations you are trying to meet in each situation. Is there a chance you spending too much time on some things because you have set the expectations too high on your own perfection? Not sure of what's expected of you in a situation or project? ASK for clear expectations - it is normal to manage up to your supervisor in that way.

We are all guilty of using and abusing some of the above concepts, and it's ok. We are human, and expecting perfection of ourselves if ridiculous.

The key, however, is to consciously stop and recognize when our choices, self-awareness, and expectations are working either for or against us.

And if you realize you've been working against yourself in one arena, start to push back and start creating positive momentum with little steps, and you'll be amazed how far that little movement will take you.

How I Stopped Buying Things I Don't Need

This article is part of HuffPost’s “Reclaim” campaign, an ongoing project spotlighting the world’s waste crisis and how we can begin to solve it.

I’m kind of an impulsive shopper. You might even call me a compulsive shopper. I never met a white Zara blouse I didn’t like. 

I’m also an introvert who primarily enjoys the company of New York City streets. This means a Saturday walk in November can easily turn into a $75 binge on bathing suit bottoms at H&M.

I buy something cool and cheap, rip the tags from my bounty and, by the next week, I’ve lost all interested in wearing it. On top of that, I hate returning things. My aversion is rooted in a chronic lack of patience, general interpersonal anxiety and tendency to become lightheaded while waiting in lines.

When you don’t have a ton of money or an excess of square footage to call home, these habits can get out of hand. Within the last year, I realized things for me were way, way out of hand. 

Running late to work one day, with my hands two feet deep in new blouses, I was forced to confront the fact that I was draining a modest bank account into an even more modest bedroom closet.

The person I wanted to be has one quality black blazer she wears every day. The person I had become would crawl beneath a sale rack to claim three.

Solving my problem meant confronting a lifetime of neuroses and unproductive coping mechanisms. The first step was to start returning unworn items to the stores where I found them. The next would be to stop over-buying altogether.

I was draining a modest bank account into an even more modest bedroom closet.

Fashion is estimated to be one of the most polluting industries in the world. One facet of this complex problem is the sheer volume of stuff we throw out: About 85 percent of America’s 15.1 million tons of textile waste ended up in landfills in 2013. Secondhand clothes are often sent to cheap markets in the developing world, compromising local vendors’ ability to compete.

According to the International Labor Organization, many of the 170 million child laborers across the globe are employed in garment and textile-making industries ― in part because of massive demand for inexpensive, trendy clothes in the Western world. 

Meanwhile, my walls were dripping with cheap scarves and reckless materialism. I was paying a premium for cage-free eggs from chickens treated better than some of the humans who made my clothes. I was dropping off piles of never-worn polyester to Goodwill on the way to the farmers market with reusable bags. It didn’t make sense to me anymore.

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It me!

But returning things was not a habit I ever developed. It’s certainly not something I ever learned from my parents. My mom grew up poor and my dad grew up cheap, so I inherited an irrepressible drive to acquire as many things as possible for the lowest possible price. Where frugality began, more good sense didn’t always follow. If you took a gamble on a bargain purchase and it didn’t work out, you just cut your losses.

Why spend two hours and $5 on subway fare to return a $10 blouse when you can just buy more hangers? 

More importantly, shopping for deals was a bonding activity for my mother, sister and me. Even as an adult confronting my own issues with clutter and overspending, the idea of declining my mother’s invitations to the outlet mall fills me with guilt.

For our family, buying things for people is an act of love. My mother sent me many of the unworn items that remain in my closet, which I imagine her buying and mailing with an excitement I understand all too well. A therapist once told me that my “money issues” with regard to shopping are really my “mommy issues.” I stopped by Urban Outfitters on the way home.

So here’s how I began to break out of the cycle. 

I could keep buying clothing under two conditions: I’d leave the tags on an item until I wore it, and I’d keep my receipts. Previously I’d throw away both immediately with post-purchase euphoria. And rather than wear the item immediately, I’d wait until I really wanted to wear it. Often, that moment never came. 

A therapist once told me my “money issues” are really my “mommy issues.” I stopped by Urban Outfitters on the way home.

I found that when I bought a new item on a whim, I’d get bored with it faster than its return policy would expire. I always had the option to bring it back.

Parting with the item was painless, but something that took 10 minutes to buy often took far, far more time to return. It wasn’t long before I realized the excitement of buying something new wasn’t worth the time and effort involved in returning it. 

Finally, a closet filled with cheap clothes I barely liked no longer appealed to me. And now that I was keeping better track of the items I bought only to endure an aggressive Zara return line a week later, I just couldn’t be bothered to buy them in the first place. 

With that small change, I’m happier and slightly richer. I feel better about myself as a global citizen and as a woman with at least a little self-discipline. Walking past a department store on payday isn’t exactly easy, but paying rent on time and choosing an outfit in under five minutes definitely is. 

While I didn’t completely cure myself of the impulse to shop, I put up enough barriers to doing so that I created a clearer path to reducing frivolous consumption. Will I resist buying underwear later this week to postpone doing laundry? Well, I’m only human. 

More stories like this:

• This Family Went A Whole Year Without Buying New Clothes
• These African Countries Don’t Want Your Used Clothing Anymore
• The ‘Chilling’ Moment This Father Realized Where His Kids’ Clothes Come From
• Before Buying More Clothes At H&M, Read This
• Something To Think About Before Donating Your Clothes
• This Company Is Basically A Hospital For Sad, Damaged Clothes
• Why This Company Wants You To Fall In Love With People’s Old Jeans

There Are More Immigrant Billionaires In The U.S. Than Ever Before

The Forbes 400 list might look like just a bunch of really, really rich Americans from afar. But what’s notable this year is that an unprecedented number of those who made the list ― including three married couples ― are foreign-born. 

Overall, the 42 foreign-born entries on the 400 list have a combined net worth of nearly $250 billion, and come from 21 different countries. With six people, Israel has the most representation, followed by India with five, and Hungary and Taiwan with four each. As far as continents, Asia and Europe led the pack with 21 and 15 people, respectively.

Sergey Brin, co-founder of Google, is 10th on the list. His estimated net worth is $37.5 billion, according to Forbes. He and his family fled Soviet Russia when he was 6 years old due to anti-Semitism.

George Soros, the richest hedge fund manager in the world, also made the list. His family survived Nazi-occupied Hungary, fleeing when the country was overtaken by communism. 

America's 400 richest people are worth more than ever before: a combined $2.4 trillion https://t.co/7ok3eTho7O #Forbes400 pic.twitter.com/95RFWVC3AC

— Forbes (@Forbes) October 5, 2016

It’s impressive to see the ways in which these billionaires have given back to causes that are tied to their own immigrant experiences. Brin, for instance, donated $1 million to HIAS, the nonprofit that helped his family resettle in the U.S., in 2009. Soros pledged $500 million to help refugees and migrants in September.

Also of note ― one-third of the foreign-born billionaires on the list are richer than Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, whose net worth has dropped to $3.7 billion, down $800 million from last year, Forbes said.

Familiar names still sit at the top of the list. Bill Gates, founder of Microsoft, holds the No. 1 slot with a net worth of $81 billion, followed by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, worth $67 billion, Warren Buffett, worth $65.5 billion and Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s founder, worth $55.5 billion.

Snapchat Is Reportedly Planning A $25 Billion IPO

Snapchat’s video messages may be ephemeral, but its staying power as a startup in a hotly competitive field may be anything but.

The company last month renamed itself Snap Inc. to mark the launch of a line of sunglasses with built-in cameras, its second product after its popular social network. Now the Los Angeles-based firm is working on an initial public offering that could value the company at $25 billion or more, according to a report on Thursday in The Wall Street Journal.

The move, expected by late March, would be the most closely watched stock market debut in years.

Snap’s prominence has soared over the last five years, and with it, its value.

In May, the company’s worth surged to nearly $18 billion, placing it firmly in the top five most valuable “unicorns,” a term used for privately held startups worth more than $1 billion. 

By June, Snapchat had surpassed Twitter in users, with 150 million people using its service each day, a 36 percent increase from last December. Ten-year-old Twitter, by contrast, had just 140 million daily active users.

Ironically, Snap arguably would be the highest-profile tech IPO since Twitter made its disastrous debut three years ago, which sent its value up to $24 billion. The company, symbolized by its little blue bird, has struggled to attract new users and the advertising dollars that come with them. Twitter reportedly is seeking a buyer before its Oct. 27 earnings call, but the only suitor considering a bid may be cloud-computing giant Salesforce, Recode reported on Thursday. 

Snap may be better positioned. For starters, the company makes money, even if it has yet to turn a profit.

Last year, Snap, tapping its popularity with the coveted teenage demographic, started charging advertisers $750,000 a day for TV-style ads. Earlier this year, the company dropped its ad prices. A “Live Story” ― compilations of users’ videos or photos from a specific event or location ― costs about $250,000, CNBC reported in February. Taking over a “Discover” channel ― branded sections in which publishers such as Mashable, CNN or Comedy Central post daily magazine-like features ― goes for about $50,000.

A Snap spokesman declined to comment on ad prices. 

Snap told investors earlier this year it expected to earn between $250 million and $350 million in revenue this year and as much as $1 billion next year, according to the Wall Street Journal report.

OLIVIER DOULIERY via Getty Images

Snapchat CEO Evan Spiegel with his fiancée, Australian model Miranda Kerr. 

Ads aren’t Snap’s only business anymore. The company is selling Spectacles, its first-ever hardware, for $129.99. Given that Snap describes itself as “a camera company” on its website, Spectacles may not be its last foray into selling actual things. 

That revenue could help stave off intrusive new advertising features that have historically frustrated longtime users of ad-supported social networks.

Soon after Facebook went public in 2012 ― the biggest tech IPO in history, at about $104 billion ― users began complaining about ads appearing in their timelines. But Facebook, almost entirely reliant on advertising at that point, needed the money. 

Last month, CEO Evan Spiegel said changing the firm’s official name to Snap Inc. served as a way of separating the products from the parent company. 

“Changing our name also has another benefit: when you search for our products it will be easier to find relevant product information rather than boring company information or financial analysis,” he wrote in a blog post. “You can search Snapchat or Spectacles for the fun stuff and leave Snap Inc. for the Wall Street crowd :)”

The Snap spokesman declined to comment “on rumors or speculation about any financing plans.” 

But, given Spiegel’s explicit nod to Wall Street, perhaps he should have ended his paragraph with ;) instead. 

Behind the Listing: the Struggles of an Amazon Based Startup

"Such a great razor! My boyfriend bought one of these and I ended up using it so much that I had to buy one for myself. Definitely recommended - great close shave."
-Amazon Customer

When my Evahs razor arrived in the mail, I was instantly impressed by the packaging--a matte textured black surface with a glossy "Evahs" debossed across the top. I carefully opened the package like a perfectly wrapped Christmas present. Inside the box, the razor was well-secured in a specially designed tray. Integrated into the tray was a small compartment labeled "blades" in crisp font. The thoughtfulness of design extends beyond just the packaging. Meticulously crafted out of solid copper and chrome-plated to achieve a well-balanced weight and finish, this double edge safety razor boasts of precision.

The Evahs razor arrives in a carefully crafted package.

According to co-founders Arash Malek and Max Swift, "The Evahs razor is meant to be an heirloom piece--something that is known for its quality for generations." I sat down with both of them to talk about what it's like to be one of the many startups utilizing Amazon as a platform to sell products.

Evahs co-founders Maxwell Swift and Arash Malek.

Frustration, Meet Inspiration

The idea for the Evahs razor was born during a road trip through the Pacific Northwest. While driving through the Columbia River Gorge, Arash and Max, started listening to the Amazing Seller, a podcast by Scott Voelker that discusses successful entrepreneurship by way of Amazon. Instantly inspired, the two decided to pursue an e-commerce venture together. Previously frustrated by the lack of quality, fair-priced safety razors, they decided to take the matter into their own hands. By the time they returned home from their trip, they had already chosen the name Evahs, the word "shave" spelled backwards.

Thinking Inside the Box

"Constraint inspires creativity. It's one of my favorite sayings," Arash tells me during the interview. Working inside a framework forces you to eliminate the excess, leaving behind only what's necessary. Minimalism has inspired some of Arash's past work, like the well-known and successfully funded Kickstarter project the X-pen.

Despite their passion for working within constraints, Arash and Max have found Amazon's limitations to be quite challenging.

Max and Arash confront the the challenge of working inside the box by getting creative.

Max explains, "It's particularly hard as a new startup to stand out on Amazon with their limitations. But that doesn't mean we're not up for the challenge." He grins as he says this.

Crowned as the largest online retailer in the US, Amazon draws thousands of emerging small businesses looking to capitalize on the breadth of audience. Despite their limitations, Amazon has brought Evahs more business than they could've done on their own, and for that, the two tell me, they are extremely grateful.

While Amazon's sales process is pretty straightforward--"list, sell, ship"-- the accomplishment of the sale can be more complicated. On a site that's built on social proof, it can be difficult to gain the credibility that leads to orders and, in turn, more reviews. Amazon sellers need reviews to get more orders, but at the same time they need orders to get more reviews. Without the brand name recognition of say, Gillette, Evahs could easily get lost in the more than 55 pages of Amazon's safety razor category.

In order to overcome this problem, Max personally reached out to numerous top 500 Amazon reviewers. He sent them emails asking them if they would be willing to try out their razor for free, and in return, they would leave an unbiased review on their Amazon listing. To his surprise, nearly half of them replied and eventually wrote reviews after receiving their razors. Creative solutions like this have helped Evahs climb the ranks of the Amazon listings. They recently ranked on pages one and two for safety razors.

Avoiding the Void

Aside from getting more reviews, what else would help an emerging startup get noticed among the thousands of razors on Amazon? Customization--something that Amazon forbids unless you're a large company like Gillette or Schick.

An example of Amazon's uniform listing: the Evahs product set against a white background with limited text or distraction.

Amazon utilizes a standard template in order to make each listing as uniform as possible. The main image can only include the product that is being sold, set against a pure white background. Additionally, the ratio of the product image to the background white space has to be within a certain range, so that it looks the same as all other listings. Amazon also limits the amount of images posted per product and the amount of text allowed for the title and the description. In theory, this model allows sellers an equal chance of being noticed. On the flip side, companies struggle to make their products stand out due to indistinguishability.

"From the beginning, we chose to differentiate ourselves on Amazon by not compromising our quality," Max says proudly. The problem they faced: how to convey that quality within the constraints of Amazon. Their solution: turning to additional platforms like Instagram, Facebook, and shaving blogs.

Evahs leverages Instagram and other platforms to build their brand.

Out of the (Amazon) Box

Pushing past Amazon's rigid image and text style parameters, Evahs has been able to show off the true standard of their product on social media. With almost 15,000 Instagram followers, their feed features nature-inspired images that speak to Arash's preferred minimalist aesthetic. The two hope that the Instagram platform will allow them to convey that shaving is more than just a step in the grooming process; it's a morning ritual that should be savored, just how I savored opening the Evahs package.

Wells Fargo CEO Should Resign Over 'Egregious Fraud' With Fake Accounts, Lawmakers Say

WASHINGTON/NEW YORK - U.S. lawmakers called for Wells Fargo & Co chief John Stumpf to resign on Thursday and a top House Democrat demanded the bank be broken because it is too big to manage.

Stumpf’s second trip to Capitol Hill on Thursday went no better than his first as lawmakers from both parties angrily rebuked his handling of sales abuses and said the bank has damaged customer trust as well as the broader banking system.

Representative Maxine Waters, the committee’s ranking Democrat, said fraudulently opening accounts amounted to identity theft and called for Wells Fargo to be broken up because it is too big to manage.

She called the sales abuses “some of the most egregious fraud we have seen since the foreclosure crisis.”

“I’m moving forward to break up Wells Fargo bank,” Waters said.

Although Stumpf offered fixes for the widespread abuses, members of the House Financial Services Committee blasted him over the bank’s culture, his compensation, and whether those responsible got the appropriate punishment for overseeing the opening fee-generating phantom accounts. Several called for his resignation.

Representative Mick Mulvaney, a South Carolina Republican, said, “The damage you have done to the market and your industry far exceeds the damage you have done to your business.”

Wells Fargo shares fell 2.4 percent to $44.22. Since Sept. 7, the last trading day before the scandal broke, its stock has lost 11 percent, or about $27 billion in market value, based on Reuters data. The stock is trading at its lowest since early 2014.

Stumpf said he has had one conversation with Warren Buffett, whose company Berkshire Hathaway is Wells Fargo’s largest shareholder, since the penalties were announced Sept 8. Buffett’s secretary told Reuters he was not immediately available for comment.

Jeb Hensarling, the Republican chairman of the committee, said in his opening statement that he has lost faith in Wells Fargo, where he has a mortgage.

“Mr. Stumpf, I have a mortgage with your bank,” Hensarling said. “I wish I didn’t. I wish I was in the position to pay it off because you have broken my trust as you have broken the trust of millions.”

Stumpf said he was sorry the bank broke the trust of its customers and admitted under questioning that employees stole money through unwarranted fees.

“I am deeply sorry that we didn’t do the right thing,” Stumpf said in response to a lawmaker who said the scandal has eroded the bank’s market value.

Asked by Representative Sean Duffy, a Republican from Wisconsin, about whether Wells Fargo employees ‘stole,’ Stumpf said, “In some cases, they did.”

The sales practices have exploded into a scandal in Washington, on Main Street as well on Wall Street. The hearing, the second on Capitol Hill this month, raised the possibility lawmakers may look at banks’ sales practices beyond Wells Fargo.

Republicans on the committee have often advocated easing Wall Street regulations but at Thursday’s hearing they were among Stumpf’s strongest critics. Duffy said small fees wrongly levied on Wells Fargo accounts amounted to customer theft, an accusation Stumpf accepted.

Representative Steve Pearce, a Republican from New Mexico, faulted Stumpf for saying the company’s board could eventually be relied upon to sanction the executives responsible.

“I, sir, think you ought to submit a resignation and your board cannot hold off action on that,” he said.

Representative Brad Sherman, a Democrat from California, asked the committee to summon other Wall Street chiefs, including from Citigroup Inc and Bank of America Corp, to determine if they have imposed sales demands and quotas on their employees.

“I don’t think, Mr. Stumpf, that you should be alone in this joyous experience,” said the California Democrat.

Stumpf told lawmakers that Wells Fargo will eliminate sales quotas for branch staff starting Oct. 1, three months earlier than planned.

He said the bank was strengthening oversight of sales tactics and changing procedures for issuing credit cards. It also paid back past and current customers for any fees incurrent on the ghost accounts.

Earlier this week, the bank took back $41 million in stock awarded to Stumpf, an unprecedented rebuke to a major U.S. bank CEO, but the move is unlikely to silence calls for his resignation. Investigators found that branch staff opened as many as 2 million unauthorized credit card and deposit accounts to meet sales quotas.

When pushed about whether the bank would waive its mandatory arbitration rules so customers could sue the bank, he said “no.”

Representative Carolyn Maloney raised questions about $13 million in stock sales by the CEO in 2013 after he learned about the abuses. Stumpf said he sold stock with proper approvals and added that the sales were made “with no view about what was going on.”

The affair has triggered lawsuits, more investigations and wiped more than $20 billion from the bank’s market value.

On Wednesday, California, Wells Fargo’s home state, suspended business relationships with the bank for a year and said it would work with the state’s two giant public pension funds to change the management structure at the bank, including separating the roles of CEO and chairman.

The episode has been a stunning reversal for Stumpf, long regarded as a safe pair of hands in the industry for navigating Wells Fargo successfully through the financial crisis.

Thursday’s testimony follows a bipartisan tongue-lashing from the Senate Banking Committee on Sept. 20, when Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts called Stumpf a “gutless leader” who should be criminally investigated.

Criticizing Wells Fargo’s practice of calling its branches stores, Representative Ed Perlmutter, a Democrat from Colorado, said, “You don’t sell Veg-O-Matics. You don’t sell grapefruit. Why are you calling these things stores? You’re a bank.”

(Additional reporting by Ross Kerber in Boston and Lisa Lambert in Washington; Writing Nick Zieminski in New York; Editing by Carmel Crimmins, Jeffrey Benkoe and Alan Crosby)