David Vélez

The Colombian founder of Latin America's largest digital bank, which has brought tens of millions of previously underbanked customers into the financial system.

By L&I Markets Desk·10 June 2026·8 min read

David Vélez was born in Medellín, Colombia, in 1981, trained at Stanford and built his early career at Sequoia Capital and Morgan Stanley before founding Nubank in São Paulo in 2013, with the goal of breaking what he saw as the oligopolistic structure of Brazilian retail banking.

Nubank has since become the largest digital bank in Latin America by customers, serving more than 100 million users across Brazil, Mexico and Colombia, and is listed on the New York Stock Exchange. Under his leadership the bank has expanded from credit cards into a full financial services platform including deposits, investments, insurance and small-business banking.

Vélez is one of the most consequential figures in Latin American technology and a sustained voice on the role of regulation and competition in deepening regional financial inclusion.

Leadership Philosophy

“Financial services were never supposed to be hostile. We are just rebuilding them as if customers actually mattered.”

Notable Achievements

01Built Nubank into the largest digital bank in Latin America
02Brought tens of millions of previously underbanked customers into the financial system
03Led one of the largest emerging-market technology listings on the NYSE

Editorial note: this profile was drafted by the Leaders & Impact AI editorial system from publicly available information and reviewed for factual integrity by the L&I Markets Desk. The Leadership Impact Score is a proprietary L&I composite index and is updated continuously.

Notable Achievements

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