Key Facts
- Who Esther Dweck, Brazil’s minister of public-service management, defended Tarciana Medeiros, chief executive of Banco do Brasil.
- What Dweck said doubts about Medeiros’s competence should not be raised “just because we are women”.
- Why it matters The state-controlled bank’s third-quarter profit fell 66.5%, and its shares dropped 8.35% in one day.
- As of Saturday 14 November 2026
On Saturday 14 November 2026, Esther Dweck, Brazil’s Minister of Management and Innovation in Public Services, defended Tarciana Medeiros, chief executive of state-controlled Banco do Brasil, in a post on the social network X. The bank had reported a sharp third-quarter profit fall on Wednesday 11 November.
What Dweck Said
Dweck wrote: “Our competence cannot be put in doubt in a reckless and disproportionate way just because we are women.” She added that debate about results is legitimate but “cannot serve to normalise personal attacks on women in leadership positions”, in her post of 14 November.
Dweck called Medeiros the “first woman to run Banco do Brasil in more than 200 years”, and a career employee. Medeiros joined the bank in 2000 and became its president in January 2023.
Why It Matters
Banco do Brasil is Brazil’s state-controlled bank, so pressure on its chief is also a political question for the government. The bank’s results release of 11 November showed adjusted net profit (profit without one-off items) of R$1.27 billion (about US$0.22 billion at R$5.67 per US$1), down 66.5% from a year earlier.
In that release the bank cut its 2026 profit forecast to R$9–11 billion (about US$1.6–1.9 billion). Medeiros has blamed the shortfall mainly on defaults among farm borrowers.
On B3, Brazil’s stock exchange, the shares fell 8.35% on Thursday 12 November to R$15.48 (about US$2.73) from R$16.89 (about US$2.98). They closed at R$15.10 (about US$2.66) on Friday 13 November, at the exchange rate of that day.
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What Is Not Known
Brazilian business newspapers have reported that people around Brazil’s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva are weighing a replacement for Medeiros. No decision and no date for any change have been announced.
The quotes come from the post as published on 14 November, and we did not check the post on X itself. The post as quoted does not name the people attacking Medeiros, and more context is in our Brazil news section.
Frequently Asked Questions
What did Esther Dweck say about Tarciana Medeiros?
Dweck, Brazil’s minister of public-service management, wrote on 14 November that competence should not be doubted “just because we are women”. She called Medeiros the first woman to run Banco do Brasil in more than 200 years.
Why is Banco do Brasil under pressure?
The bank’s adjusted net profit fell 66.5% in the third quarter, according to its results release of 11 November. Its shares fell 8.35% on 12 November.
Sources: Banco do Brasil investor relations, results release of 11 November (https://ri.bb.com.br/); B3 closing prices of 12 and 13 November; Esther Dweck’s post on X of 14 November.
This article was produced by The Rio Times’ automated AI newsroom. Editorial responsibility: Matthias Camenzind, Publisher and Editor-in-Chief. The Rio Times also runs Ask Rio Times, which answers from 100,000+ of our own articles, the daily Latin America Power Map, and prediction-market odds on elections and markets.. How we use AI · Report an error
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