Mike Mayo

Mike Mayo is the Managing Director and Head of U.S. Large-Cap Bank Research at Wells Fargo Securities. With more than 30 years of experience as a top-ranked bank analyst, he is renowned for his independent thinking, analytical rigor, and bold critiques of the financial services industry.

Mayo began his career in 1988 as a bank analyst at the Federal Reserve in Washington, D.C., and went on to hold senior research positions at major financial institutions including UBS, Lehman Brothers, Credit Suisse, Prudential, Deutsche Bank, and CLSA Americas. In 2017, he joined Wells Fargo Securities to lead their U.S. large-cap bank research coverage.

He is widely respected for his commitment to transparency and accountability in banking, and has frequently been recognized for raising early warnings about systemic risk and governance issues. Notably, Mayo was the first analyst to testify before the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission on the causes of the 2008 financial meltdown, and the only Wall Street analyst to testify before Congress in support of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act.

His advocacy for ethical practices earned him the CFA Institute's award for ethics and standards of practice in 2013. He was also named one of Fortune’s “Eight Who Saw the Crisis Coming” in 2008.

Mike Mayo is the author of Exile on Wall Street, a critically acclaimed memoir that chronicles his career and provides a candid account of the inner workings of the banking sector. He holds a Bachelor of Science degree (magna cum laude) from the University of Maryland and an MBA from George Washington University.