Corporate finance professional Federico Sandler helped Mercado Libre and Nubank establish a dialogue with the world’s most experienced investors. After achieving his vision of success, burnout came into his life and set a goal before any situation. This is your story.
Federico Sandler helped two Latin American giants — Mercado Libre and Nubank — establish a dialogue with the most experienced investors in the world. He created narratives that moved billions on Wall Street, developed global road shows and managed relationships with funds such as Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan and Tiger Global.
He’s reached the point most predict as his peak, and yet that’s where he found his greatest breakthrough.
The moment has come in the cathedral of financial capitalism. Sandler rang the bell on the NYSE, accompanying Nubank’s stock market debut following a more than $3 billion public offering. As the cameras panned the scene, which for many symbolizes ultimate success, he felt something completely different.
“I could keep climbing, yes, but I didn’t want to climb this wall anymore.”
That moment, he says, wasn’t a sudden burnout: it was a tacit confirmation of a decade running on autopilot. “I’ve mastered Excel, PowerPoint and exhaustion,” he states wryly. The phrase he repeats as a diagnosis sums up the corporate style, created at great speed but with no room for what is essential.
The first signs were: not getting enough sleep and congratulating yourself for it, feeling guilty about taking time off, confusing productivity with personal worth. And then there were the late signs, the ones that could no longer be ignored: missing out on unique family events, watching the “bonus” without feeling anything, living surrounded by talent and still feeling empty.
“The internal phrase that stopped me was an uncomfortable one: I can keep doing this… but I don’t want to keep being the person I’m being asked to be.”
His mother’s illness and subsequent death eventually put his priorities in order, including being close to his family. “The corporate journey could have continued without me, but I didn’t want to continue without my life.”
From Excel to Compass: What to Watch Now
Sandler has not given up on the financial world. She refused to communicate without purpose. Today, he advises and invests, but according to seven criteria that function as an important filter:
- Does the founder have a purpose, or does he just want some buzz?
- Is culture real or just a bulleted story?
- Is there a specific problem with data, customers and friction?
- Can I give a specific value?
- Do I see myself there in five years?
- Does it improve anything real in the world?
- Does it give me energy or take it away?
The last one sums it all up.
“Don’t give up on your career. Don’t give up on losing your life in it. There’s no professional success worth sacrificing your health and relationships for. If you don’t make room for your health, you end up making room for your illness,” he says.
Today, Sandler devotes his time to several projects with clear influencers and founders who he believes are capable of creating markets, not just exploiting them. One of them is Win Investments, a football talent funding platform that he describes as “a new class of financial assets”.
What Vin saw first wasn’t a symbol or a fad. It was a global problem – how talent is funded where it is born, not where it comes from – and a solution with incentives agreed between clubs, academies, players, investors and fans.
“It was not tokenization for the sake of tokenization. It was the opening of a market historically reserved for funds and great wealth. Democratizing access,” he says.
Sandler assures that, as in Mercado Libre or Nubank, the main thing is not the narrative, but the real conflicts that are resolved. And that the market is still underestimating the size of that impact.
For Sandler, yes. But with one condition: don’t measure life with the wrong metrics. Don’t confuse success with exhaustion, or purpose with ego.
“When you feel like you’re climbing the wrong wall, get down, breathe, and choose again. There’s no bonus that pays for living a life you don’t want to live.”
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