Select Greater Philadelphia Newsletter

BUILDING THE REGION'S SUCCESS THROUGH RESEARCH, COHESIVENESS AND PROMOTION

In Colonial times, Philadelphia was the epicenter of our great country. Our nation started here, and it was in Philadelphia where major advances in medicine, education and commerce first saw the light of day. Philadelphia was also where, in 1781, The Bank of North America was founded-our country's first commercial bank. This bank grew, changed hands, and changed names many times. Today it is one of the direct ancestors of Wachovia Bank, which is now a part of Wells Fargo and Philadelphia 's largest bank.

At Wachovia we are proud of our history in greater Philadelphia but we are also very excited about our future as Wells Fargo. Our 8,000 area team members are part of a larger group that has delivered among the best customer service in the business for eight straight years. We have more than 200 stores across the 11 county, three-state region and they serve the needs of companies, non-profit organizations and individual consumers through more than 80 distinct lines of business.

In 2009 we contributed more than $6 million in charitable donations to hundreds of worthy non-profit organizations across the 11-county region while our team members logged well over 3,000 hours worth of volunteer time across these counties as well.

And in what has been one of the most difficult lending environments in the history of banking, our company continues to lend. In fact, over the past 14 months we have extended more than $640 billion in credit to U.S. consumers and businesses.

The Wells Fargo culture starts with our customers. At Wells, we want to satisfy all of our customers' financial needs and help them succeed financially.

Philadelphia has been very important for Wachovia and it will be just as important to Wells Fargo. We're excited about our merger with Wells and we are happy to report that our conversion process is progressing smoothly and efficiently and it will continue in this deliberate and thoughtful manner throughout 2010 and into 2011. Customers should notice very little change as we stay focused on delivering best in class customer service.

And at Wells, like Wachovia, we will be focused on helping greater Philadelphia grow.

Our company has been proud to play a leadership role in the formation of Select Greater Philadelphia and for the past six years we have been proud to watch Select grow their capacity and earn success after success as they pitch the Greater Philadelphia story to the world.

But in order for Select-and the region-to continue this success, this region's business leaders must support three things:

Building Select's research capacity so it can become the leading repository of information about the region and how it compares to its competitors. With this capacity, Select will become the go-to place for CEOs and site selectors looking to expand or relocate their business.
Deepening our efforts to overcome regional fragmentation. As a privately funded organization, Select is in the unique position of being able to define the conversation and bring business leaders and elected officials together. Our engagement through Select will not only help set the table in these conversations, it will allow Select to sit at the head of the table to guide this work.
Positioning Select as the group that markets the region to CEOs, CFOs and site selectors, who are really site eliminators. If you think about it, site selection is a lot like Survivor. Every region in the country wants to be the last region standing. If we can position Select as the trusted provider of information for the entire region, our chances of being the last region standing increase greatly.

John Stumpf, Wells Fargo's president CEO has said, "We don't get better by getting bigger, we get bigger by getting better." While John was talking about Wells Fargo, he could have easily been talking about greater Philadelphia as well. In order for greater Philadelphia to grow, we must get even better at telling our story to the world's business community and we must get even better at winning new business once interest is shown in our region. If we accomplish those two tasks, our region will prosper, and our entire community will benefit. Select Greater Philadelphia has taken great strides in marketing our region to the world. And with the help of Wachovia, Wells Fargo, and other leading businesses of this region, we can reach higher, we can get better, and we can get bigger.