He attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he was a Morehead Scholar and a member of Beta Theta Pi fraternity.
[5] First Union changed its name to Wachovia after fending off a hostile takeover attempt by SunTrust Bank.
[3] In 2006, under Thompson's leadership, Wachovia acquired Golden West Financial Corp. for approximately $26 billion, at the peak of the real estate market.
[5] Thompson was pushed out of Wachovia on June 2, 2008, becoming one of many financial services executives who were ousted amid turmoil in the U.S. housing market.
[1] On July 10, 2008 Robert K. Steel, the former Treasury Undersecretary and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. executive, took over as CEO of Wachovia.
[7][4] In 2010, Wachovia settled out of court a case in which it allegedly laundered over $378 billion in cash and traveler's checks from Mexican drug cartels between 2004 and 2006, during Thompson's tenure as CEO.
[5] He also served on the Hewlett-Packard (HP) board starting in 2006; in April 2013, he stepped down following his very narrow re-election with 55% of the shareholder vote.