Breana Jeter Cultivates Talent at Wells Fargo

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In August 2017, Breana Jeter was thirty days into her first in-house role at Wells Fargo. After an expansive private practice career and time as a public defender, the current lead for the merchant services legal team was ready to serve one client and make her life more manageable for her four-year-old daughter and fifteen-month-old son.

But thirty days into her first in-house role, Jeter learned she had breast cancer. Now in addition to navigating a complex financial institution, a new role, and a young family, she was faced with a myriad of potentially life-altering healthcare decisions. Days after learning about her diagnosis, Jeter was in a one-on-one with her manager, intent on acting like things were okay until she had a better idea of what her treatment plan would look like. Then she decided to just come out with it and share her news. She’ll never forget what happened next.

“We still laugh about it to this day, because after being so sweet and kind, he said, ‘This isn’t in the manual. I literally don’t know how we proceed from here,’” Jeter says, laughing.

Although Jeter may have unknowingly added an entirely new protocol to managerial practices, the response she received is the reason she’s still proud to be on the Wells Fargo team.

“My career will have peaks and valleys. There are times where I want to stretch and run to the fire, so to speak, and there will be other times when I just want to do my job to the best of my ability.”

Breana Jeter

Her boss reassured her that how she got her work done was entirely up to her, but that she should focus on her health and family. “Work will be here, but do what you need to do for yourself,” she recalls him advising. Jeter was determined to keep working, and her employer’s flexibility made that much easier. She says the distraction of work was vital in helping her make it through the grueling experience of chemotherapy. Work also helped her maintain a strong sense of identity separate from cancer victim.

“I had so many people around me who would stop in my office to share their own stories and motivate me,” the lawyer says. “And with my manager’s support—telling me to do what I needed to do, to be myself, and not worry about extraneous distractions—I knew that if I needed help, I could work with him.”

Although 2017 was brutal, Jeter gained a renewed sense of purpose. She’d been through cancer, chemo, and surgery—all while managing her job and raising two young children with her husband. Instead of pausing her career, she began to think much more holistically about her career and her life.

“What I realized was that my career will have peaks and valleys,” the lawyer explains. “There are times where I want to stretch and run to the fire, so to speak, and there will be other times when I just want to do my job to the best of my ability. I love being at Wells Fargo because it’s big enough to allow you to do that.”

In her seven years at Wells Fargo, Jeter has received four promotions, including a brief stint in the front line. But beyond the promotions, Jeter has had the opportunity to be what she values most: an advocate.

For example, in 2021, she was able to create a role for a high-potential legal professional who previously reported to her. Her workmate didn’t want to go back to law school to become a lawyer, but she was motivated and capable of far more than she was doing. Now, that colleague has been promoted in the business several times herself, and while Jeter may not see her friend as much as she’d like, every time she does, she’s greeted with a big hug.

“Having opportunities to make things happen for people you believe in means so much to me,” the lawyer says. “Does it mean those people will eventually leave you? Of course, but I get to help people avoid mistakes I’ve made. I get to be a coach. And I get to feel the pride of helping incredible people do incredible things.”

While her docket is always full, Jeter says going in-house has afforded her the kind of balance she’s always hoped for. In her firm days, she remembers being on a late video call with a Japanese counsel calling from their home country. Jeter thought a cookie would pacify her nearby young daughter, but she watched in horror as the toddler began grinding the cookie into a white bedspread. There was nothing she could do. Jeter just had to watch it happen in real time, her daughter working diligently to make sure no crumb of dessert went unused.

“That was my own realization that things needed to change,” Jeter says. “I remember a colleague saying the difference between in-house and outside counsel is that on Saturday, when he’s at his kid’s baseball game, he doesn’t have to speed into the office if there’s an issue. That was the balance I was seeking to be a good mother, because that’s what comes first in my life.”

When Jeter isn’t serving on the board of arts education nonprofit Arts+ or leading her daughter’s Girl Scout troop, she is most excited to talk about her garden.

“I will be in that garden until my last moment on earth,” Jeter says with a smile. “I see the growth, I see the progress, and I’ve learned that even in the best conditions, sometimes those plants don’t make it.” Peaks and valleys. Jeter has experienced both, and they’ve made her all the stronger.

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