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After conquering Brazil, Nubank’s Cristina Junqueira takes on the U.S.

Emma Hinchliffe
By
Emma Hinchliffe
Emma Hinchliffe
Most Powerful Women Editor
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Emma Hinchliffe
By
Emma Hinchliffe
Emma Hinchliffe
Most Powerful Women Editor
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February 17, 2026, 11:40 AM ET
Cristina Junqueira, Nubank cofounder, is now building out the digital bank's first market outside Latin America.
Cristina Junqueira, Nubank cofounder, is now building out the digital bank's first market outside Latin America. Betty Laura Zapata/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Cristina Junqueira has made past appearances on Fortune‘s Most Powerful Women lists (especially when we had a separate international version) for her role as a cofounder of Nubank, the Brazilian fintech startup that is the world’s largest digital bank. Her 3% stake in Nubank made her one of the world’s youngest female self-made billionaires.

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The last time I spoke with her a few years ago, she was calling from Brazil. Last month, she was at her desk at her new home in Miami. “At least couple times a month there are dolphins swimming in the water in front of my house,” she says of her new home. She made the move from São Paulo last year with her husband and four young kids with the goal of building Nubank in the U.S., its first market outside Latin America. (Her cofounder David Vélez is the company’s CEO.)

Right now, Nubank has more than 120 million customers; the vast majority are in Brazil with a fast-growing business in Mexico and Colombia; customers are drawn to Nubank for its ease of use and low fees. Last month, Nubank won preliminary approval for a national bank license in the U.S. It expects to launch within 18 months.

Nubank’s first opportunity in the U.S., Junqueira says, is to serve customers who have either immigrated from Latin America or travel back and forth frequently—a market it estimates is anywhere from 800,000 to 5 million customers. Longer-term, Junqueira isn’t thinking of Nubank as a “Latino brand” in the U.S. “We want to build for the average American, whoever that is,” she says.

After cofounding Nubank, Junqueira was the force behind the company’s brand-building. Her new gig in the U.S. takes her back to the “0-1” phase of startup life. “The biggest thing in the U.S. will be building the brand—cutting through the noise and connecting with customers, building that emotional connection. That’s something that I was the one leading for a very long time,” she says. “I was the one that really led the effort of building this brand in Brazil that is the most valuable brand in Brazil today, the most loved brand in Brazil today, one of the most valuable brands in Latin America.”

To get started on Nubank’s U.S. brand presence, Nubank signed on as an official brand partner for Mercedes’ F1 team last month. Junqueira chose F1 because it’s “truly a global sport” that helps reach new U.S. audiences and Nubank’s existing customer base.

Junqueira didn’t have to uproot her life to keep building Nubank’s next major market, 13 years after cofounding the company and five years after its IPO. “I seek impact,” she says. “I’ve been called crazy for much less.”

Emma Hinchliffe
emma.hinchliffe@fortune.com

The Most Powerful Women Daily newsletter is Fortune’s daily briefing for and about the women leading the business world. Subscribe here.

ALSO IN THE HEADLINES

Goldman Sachs gets rid of diversity as a factor for its board. The four factors considered for candidates for directorships currently include a broad description of diversity, which includes viewpoints, military service as well as "other factors" traditionally associated with DEI. Now those are being crossed off the list, according to the WSJ. This is for Goldman's own board—last year the bank already scrapped a commitment to board diversity for companies it was taking public. 

The 'Blade Angels' are competing today in Milan. And Amber Glenn, Alysa Liu, and Isabeau Levito got a promo video recorded by Taylor Swift. The Olympic trio are "three American showgirls on ice," Swift said. 

The latest Epstein fallout. Wasserman founder Casey Wasserman said he has begun the process of selling his talent agency, to remove the "distraction" of his emails with Ghislaine Maxwell. He said he would focus on bringing the Olympics to Los Angeles in 2028—but L.A. Mayor Karen Bass is now calling for Wasserman to resign from that chairman post too. Another figure caught in the files is the supermodel Naomi Campbell; emails show her requesting to use Epstein's private plane and she's on a list of people given his address in prison in Florida in 2008. Campbell's attorney says she has no idea why she was on that list and she wasn't aware of his criminal conduct until 2019. 

Women are driving the box office. Wuthering Heights took in $34.8 million in ticket sales this weekend, the biggest opening so far this year. Women bought 76% of those tickets. Fortune

ON MY RADAR

Why burnout feminism is replacing the girlboss, Lean In era Bloomberg

'They all tried to break me’: Gisèle Pelicot shares her story NYT

Goldman’s Kathryn Ruemmler wore out her welcome Bloomberg

PARTING WORDS

"She was a young woman in New York City, driven to make it on her own. She had this vibrant life before and after John, she was really her own person."

— Actress Sarah Pidgeon on playing Carolyn Bessette Kennedy in the new series Love Story

This is the web version of MPW Daily, a daily newsletter for and about the world’s most powerful women. Sign up to get it delivered free to your inbox.
About the Author
Emma Hinchliffe
By Emma HinchliffeMost Powerful Women Editor
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Emma Hinchliffe is Fortune’s Most Powerful Women editor, overseeing editorial for the longstanding franchise. As a senior writer at Fortune, Emma has covered women in business and gender-lens news across business, politics, and culture. She is the lead author of the Most Powerful Women Daily newsletter (formerly the Broadsheet), Fortune’s daily missive for and about the women leading the business world.

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