Cristina Junqueira is a co-founder of Nubank, which is perhaps the biggest neobank in the world right now.

Since Nubank's establishment in 2023, its growth has been astounding, propelling Junqueira to the top of the fintech industry and making her the most successful female executive in South America.

When Junqueira left the Brazilian banking behemoth Itaú in 2013, she didn't know where she thought the Nubank experiment would take her, but looking at it now, it certainly exceeded her greatest dreams.

After working at Itaú for five years, Junqueira had a thorough grasp of the Brazilian banking sector, which helped him come up with proposals for improvements.

Latin America's female fintech leader, Junqueira

Born in the historic coffee capital of Brazil, Riberão Preto, Junqueira moved to Rio de Janeiro as a toddler with her family.

Having excelled in both elementary and high school, she went on to pursue her academic education in São Paulo.

While pursuing her Master's degree in economic and financial modeling, Junqueira, an industrial engineering student at the Universidade de São Paulo, started her career as an associate consultant at Boston Consulting Group.

She then enrolled at the Chicago-based Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University in 2007 and earned an MBA there.

Following her graduation, Junqueira went back to her native Brazil to work as the sector head for small and medium-sized enterprises at Unibanco, the country's biggest private bank.

Following Unibanco's merger with Itaú, the country's second-largest private banking business, she was subsequently granted the role of portfolio manager, establishing a massive entity in the Brazilian banking industry.

Transitioning from a pillar to a contender

After working at Itaú for five years, Junqueira came up with fresh concepts for improving the bank's product line.

In an attempt to improve Itaú's customer care services, she suggested commission-free credit cards and direct client communication.

But when her demands seemed to be ignored, Junqueira started to worry that Itaú and the other incumbents were dismissing financial inclusion concerns too lightly.

At that point, she bravely decided to leave her senior role as a product manager and go it alone.

However, Junqueira soon met David Velez, who was employed by the massive venture capital firm Sequoia Capital, after leaving Itaú.

Junqueira discovered a kindred soul in Velez, another participant in the Latam financial ecosystem fed up with a mindset that prioritizes inertia over customer requirements.

The idea for a new banking model in Latin America began to emerge during their talks. Following their partnership with Edward Wible, a third co-founder, Junqueira and Velez started soliciting money for their new business.

A Nubank is created

The three founders chose the moniker Nubank to represent their desire to create something completely new for their cutting-edge digital banking business. Nu means "nude" in Portuguese, reflecting Nubank's dedication to openness in its services.

By the end of 2023, Nubank's businesses in Brazil, Colombia, and Mexico had served over 90 million consumers throughout Latin America.

Nubank, one of the biggest digital financial companies globally, is maintaining its standing as one of the fastest-growing financial institutions worldwide.

Nubank, which was most recently valued at US$23 billion, is still pushing hard to overtake Itaú and gain a sizable portion of the Latam market.

Mother Junqueira

In the years that Junqueira has contributed to the growth of Nubank, she has faced a whole new challenge: parenthood. Indeed, Junqueira was significantly pregnant with her first child at the time of Nubank's debut, yet she was still able to sign transactions from her hospital bed just a few hours after giving birth!

Having had two children, Junqueira is still in charge of Nubank's Brazilian operations and manages to balance her responsibilities as a mother and employee with skill.

"I want my daughters to grow up in a world where they can dream of being whoever they want to be—and you can't dream of what you can't see," Junqueira says in an interview with McKinsey & Co.