Brazilian Fintech Leader is shaking the bank

Christina Junkeira says the meeting, where she persuaded her career in the big business name and joined the rebel efforts to revolutionize the banks, is a simple seller.

The pitch was made by David Veres, a Colombian who later worked for venture capital. He wanted her to join him as the co-founder of the new Brazilian digital banking platform. “People across Brazil and Latin America were very high prices, very high interest rates, horrible (customers) experiences, and it was normal to be treated badly,” she recalls.

Junqueira recently quit her job after struggling to implement changes at a large Brazilian bank, and a mutual friend introduced her to Vélez. He saw a great opportunity for Brazilian Fintech, but needed a local partner who knew the country and understood the banking industry.

“The way he saw the financial industry and the problems were very similar to the way I saw it,” says Junqueira, who speaks from her office in Sao Paulo. “He also didn’t want to accept the horrible things going on.”

Along with Edward Weibull, a young American software engineer, Veles and junqueira began Nubank in 2013 in Sao Paulo’s wealthy Brooklyn area.

Nubank was made public the following year using a Zero Fee Credit Card, managed by the mobile app. The explosive growth over the past decade has become the world’s largest digital financial services platform outside of Asia, with over 10 million clients in Mexico and over 2.5 million in Colombia.

The company is now worth around $500 billion, and Junqueira has become a billionaire thanks to its 2.6% stakeholder. Her role at Nubank is currently Chief Growth Officer.

“I often want to tell people that I’ve never had a female boss in my entire career,” says Junqueira.

When she started as an intern at a consulting firm in Brazil, she said, “The other girl who joined me at the same time was the oldest woman in the office, as there were no other women there.

Diversity has been an important value for banks from the start, she says. When Vélez founded Nubank, he was with the co-founder and “his initial instinct was absolutely right, but “I need people who complement me, people who have different experiences.” ”

Junqueira brought her experience as a Brazilian executive who worked in banking and consulting.

All three co-founders are “very different,” she explains. “From the beginning, we already saw the value of having people who complement each other.”

She co-founded a company that was doing incredibly well and juggled her family at the same time.

Nubank has not revised the recruitment quota for historically underrated groups’ percentages, but has made great efforts to adopt them. Today, around 43% of its leadership positions are held by women, and the company promotes women in areas such as software development.

Married to four children, Junqueira is also keen to act as a role model for Brazilian women who want to combine careers and family. Her husband also works as an executive at a steel company.

With over half a million followers, her Instagram account features topics such as “Pregnant women are the most efficient mammals on the planet” and “The power of maternity” as well as posts on more common corporate subjects such as reputational risk and fear of failure.

She recalls a trip to San Francisco when she expects her first baby to seek Series A funds from venture capital firm Sequoia Capital. “I was seven months pregnant when I arrived there to make the pitch,” she says. “There were some surprised faces, but I was treated well… Two months later, my baby was born and I signed the series in the hospital.”

Just three days before her second child was born, she posed for the cover of a Forbes Brazilian magazine, apparently pregnant. Her fourth was born a few months ago.

“When I see the number of women who think they have to make choices (between family and careers), it makes me very sad,” she says. “It’s not easy to reconcile the two. I don’t want to pretend it’s very easy because it’s not. But that’s not impossible.”

Junkeira often receives requests for advice from women asking about balancing careers and family, and is willing to be obliged. “There’s no doubt that communication is one of the most basic (qualities) leadership,” she says. “It’s something that women can invest in more (time) and that would have very great results.”

Susan Segal, chairman of the American Business Lobby Council, describes Junqueira as part of a new generation of Latin American women who balance successful careers with family responsibilities. “She co-founded a company that did incredibly well, and juggled her family at the same time. She is a new generation role model for Latin American women.”

Junqueira describes herself as “Disney About Disney” and has a country home full of mementos. Her three daughters are named after Disney characters, and the focus on the entertainment group’s customer experience was Nubank’s inspiration.

“I know it’s sometimes hard for people to understand this,” she says on Instagram about her obsession. “The first thing for me is the beauty of the place. Beauty is not contradictory. And beauty calms our minds.”

Junqueira’s Meteor Nubank’s career has not been released from controversy. In a 2020 interview, when asked about the bank’s difficulties in finding managers in Afro-Brazil due to strict technical requirements, she said Nubank couldn’t “down the level.”

The statement sparked criticism, with Junqueira immediately apologizing for LinkedIn, saying she had not expressed herself in the best way. She now says it’s a “very sad episode” and that she “continues to believe that there are many talents in every underrated group, and continues to search for the best talent wherever she is.”

Junqueira, now 42, believes that Nubank’s best days are still ahead. She is confident of the potential of banks to export their technology to bring financial inclusion to millions of other banked countries around the world.

“I really want to see what we can do in the next 20 or 30 years,” she says.