Juliana Roldan of Banco BTG Pactual: The spirit of fire in the world of finance

“If I knew then what I know now, I might not have had to fight so hard. But I am who I am because I fought those battles – and I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

Juliana Roldan

When Juliana was a teenager, her father had a heart attack. Watching the paramedics save his life ignited a spark – she decided to become a firefighter and enrolled in a first aid/EMT course. Right after that, she studied Physical Therapy and, later, she attended graduate school. At a certain point, Juliana’s day seemed to have 25 hours. She was attending the Military Academy to become a firefighter during the day, and teaching anatomy, physiology and basic hospital procedures at a technical health course at night, in Jandira, a small town in the western outskirts of São Paulo.

So, how did she end up in the financial market?

While Juliana was teaching at the school in Jandira, her career shifted to the administrative area. At age 25, she decided to quit the Fire Department. Six months later, she realized she needed better tools for the new area, so she enrolled in an MBA program at Fundação Getúlio Vargas, one of the most prestigious business schools in Brazil. It was then that Juliana was “discovered”.

In 2009, a former classmate from her MBA program invited her to join the financial arm of “Lojas C&A”, a retail clothing store chain, in Brazil. The job involved many operational tasks that required different skills and Juliana thought she wouldn’t be back the next day. But, she never gave up. “As a first aid responder, I had faced my share of emergency situations on the streets…The difficulties of this job were not going to stop me.” To get the skills to face the challenge, she pursued two technology certifications.

As most people, Juliana didn’t have an understanding of how the financial markets worked; in hindsight, she believes it might have eased her career path.

“If I knew then what I know now, I might not have fought so hard. But, I am who I am because I fought those battles and learned a lot along the way. Being a ‘raw recruit’ in this market forced me to learn a lot on my own – and I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

Inspiration and perspiration

Juliana attributes her success to her willingness to do the work that others consider bureaucratic. “I love the operational side of the business”, she says. She started at BTG in the technology area, which was growing fast in financial institutions, in 2012. As a result, contracts needed to be reviewed to increase governance and compliance. With her experience managing the technology area in financial institutions, this was a perfect fit for Juliana. It was clear that her expertise in negotiating purchases, structuring contracts, and putting together the required infrastructure applied to other departments and operations.

“I am a jack of all trades of sorts”, she says. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Juliana worked with a coworker and the bank’s council to deliver more than 100 projects the bank supported to relieve the impact of the crisis. “My role was to be out there, working with everyone involved.” When she was promoted, she became the leader of a team of negotiators and took on many back office tasks, which support all the business areas of the bank.

Helping others is particularly important to Juliana, who appreciates all the help she received in her own career. For example, she is very grateful to Cláudio Salituro (VP of Information Technology at “Caixa Econômica Federal”). “We met during the MBA program, and he saw my potential and gave me the opportunity at Ibi Group. I didn’t know the first thing about the financial sector.” Now, she can do the same for others. Many people in her team had no experience in the financial sector, she says, and they have become great professionals.

Another executive that helped Juliana was Darlene Fasolo (BoFA). “She taught me to trust the strength of women – a mix of experience, expertise and intelligence.” Darlene taught her two lessons: the first is that knowledge is critical to survive in this market. The second is that you have to stand your ground – “in a polite way, of course; but if you don’t, people will just take advantage of you”.

According to Juliana, increasing diversity in the financial sector is a two way street. On the one hand, companies need to be open and promote it by hiring women and people from different ethnic, geographic and social backgrounds. On the other hand, people also need to make an effort to adapt to what companies expect.

She shares a personal experience about flexibility: “When I used to teach, students would constantly challenge me. You must be confident and assertive, and yet flexible and open to conversation too – otherwise, things won’t work. I still remember when I was 19 and I had to teach this class about safety in the workplace to a group with 45 men – all ‘wise guys’. One of them asked: ‘Hey, where is the teacher?’ And I said: ‘Guess what! I am the teacher.’”

Competition and collaboration

Juliana is very active and loves sports, such as biking, wakeboarding and going to the gym. “If there is competition, I am there,” she says. At the same time, she praises collaboration. “People need to feel they are part of the project,” she says. “I always seek help and delegate responsibilities. If different people are engaged in a project, it is much more likely to be successful. And everyone involved will share the success.”

“Once, I was in São Paulo downtown area – think Times Square in NY, back in the 80’s. I was a first aid responder back then, and I was trying to help a person who was having convulsions. There was this young man distracting me. I kept asking him to back off, and he would come back.” Juliana realized she needed to do something, or he wouldn’t let her help the victim. So, she asked him to guard the sidewalk, and not to allow anyone near the victim. “He felt like Superman, totally in charge.” Juliana understood that the best way to neutralize someone who disrupts a team’s effort is to include this person in the project.

Focus on work

Being clear and having some hierarchy at work are important for Juliana. She wishes someone had given her this one piece of advice at the beginning of her career: listen more than you speak. “I just started to behave this way after I joined the Military Academy. If you opened your mouth when you were not supposed to… That is why I say: everyone should have a military experience.”

Work occupies most of Juliana’s time. “I read the newspaper a lot. I wake up with the news, listen to [the news on] the radio, read more news. I watch the news on TV at night, or in the tablet, if I am at the office.” She recommends ‘Sonho Grande’, considered a mantra at the bank, a book about the success story of three billionaires in Brazil – Jorge Paulo Lemann, Marcel Telles and Beto Sicupira.

Juliana also enjoys the TV series Billions, which portrays the financial world. Besides TV series and the news, she enjoys novellas – a very Brazilian genre that is a distant and richer cousin of soap operas: “I even watch the reruns”, she says. Juliana is a great fan of The Voice and enjoys gastronomy.

Juliana is not a slave of routine, though. When the bank made acquisitions and started operations in Chile and Colombia, she went all in “For me, that was a chance to broaden my horizons, and to learn how to implement a new area in a bank in a foreign country. It was like starting all over again.” She is always ready and open to accept new challenges at work.

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this blog are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of Bloomberg.

Bloomberg invited the GETTERS of the financial market in Latin America to share their insightful stories about their careers, their success stories and the challenges they had to face while not only witnessing the development of this fast-paced environment, but actively contributing to its evolution by creating new tools, sharing best practices and inspiring change.