When David Vélez, MBA '12, moved to Brazil in 2008 to open a regional office for a private equity fund, he didn’t expect one of his biggest challenges to be getting a bank account. The process took five months.

Five years later, he was in São Paulo after working as a partner for Sequoia Capital, a venture firm, and has just graduated from Stanford Graduate School of Business. To him, Brazil’s financial services sector seemed ripe for disruption. So in May of 2013, with seed funding from Sequoia Capital and Kaszek Ventures (a firm founded by two Stanford GSB graduates), Vélez launched Nubank, a fintech bank which has grown to be the largest in Latin America. 

Vélez shared the story of his path to entrepreneurship with students at a recent View From The Top event on Stanford GSB campus. 

"You want to position yourself in the scarcity of the market, not in the oversupply," he said. Vélez was interviewed by Christopher Stromeyer, MBA '22, and shared how his drive to continuously be challenged played a large part in his drive to reinvent a part of the banking system. "Why would you wait decades to solve issues if you can now?"

Prominent leaders from around the world join MBA students for a conversation on effective leadership, core values, and lessons learned throughout their career. View From The Top, the podcast, is based on the dean’s speaker series at Stanford Graduate School of Business. It is produced by Michael Reilly, Jenny Luna, and the theme music was composed by Lily Sloan.

Show notes

How Stanford GSB alums created one of the most valuable startups in Latin America, Stanford GSB Insights

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