Members Only: Tony Wells, Chief Brand Officer, USAA

Tony Wells is the Chief Brand Officer at USAA, leading Marketing, Corporate Communications, Military Affairs, Corporate Responsibility, Brand Shared Services and Diversity & Inclusion, including the USAA Foundation and the USAA Educational Foundation. Under Tony’s leadership, the Brand team protects, promotes and advocates for the USAA Brand, fulfilling the association’s mission to ensure the financial security of its 13 million members within the military community.

Tony has been with USAA for three years, leading various Marketing functions including Marketing for USAA Bank, the USAA Financial Advice & Solutions Group, and Marketing Research, Analytics and Member Intelligence. In these positions, he focused on inspiring action through data-driven marketing activities and strengthening brand equity for the customer satisfaction-leading lines of business within USAA.

Prior to joining USAA, he served as Chief Marketing Officer for Schneider Electric, ADT Security and 24 Hour Fitness. Additionally, he held senior leadership roles for Marketing and Communications at various leading brands in the automotive, financial services and retail industries including, Visa, General Motors, SFX Sports Group, The Mills Corporation and Nissan. Throughout his career, Tony has been at the forefront of innovation including evolving customer experiences, executing on IOT strategies by creating technology platform ecosystems, and helping to introduce the first mass market smart home and security product.

Tony is a 35+ year member of USAA. He was an infantry officer in the U.S. Marine Corps serving as a company commander, company executive officer and platoon commander. He received an additional specialty assignment as a Marine public affairs officer. Tony is a graduate of the United States Naval Academy and has a management certificate from Johns Hopkins University.

Tony is on the boards of the Association of National Advertisers, Yelp and Pattern89, an AI software company. His prior board experience includes Octiv Software, the national board of Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD), Make-A-Wish Mid-Atlantic, and his alma mater Our Lady of Good Counsel High School. He and his wife Lydia are the proud parents of three children.