We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Fernanda Soriano. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Fernanda below.

Alright, Fernanda thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. How did you come up with the idea for your business?

I was born and raised in Mexico, and as an immigrant, my journey has been filled with both challenges and hard-won lessons. Growing up, money was never a subject of discussion in my household—we simply knew if we had enough or if we didn’t, without ever exploring how to make it work better for us. This unspoken reality was compounded by the painful fact that my mom and I were victims of abuse, a hardship that left its mark on my early life.

In Mexico, my professional journey began under incredibly challenging circumstances. When I interviewed for my first internship, the hiring manager bluntly stated, “We do not accept women in technical development because you cannot keep up with the pace.” This harsh dismissal forced me into the purchasing department to start my engineering career—far from the technical roles I had hoped to pursue. However, to the surprise of that same hiring manager, I ended up being one of the top 10 interns out of more than 300 that year. That achievement opened the door to another internship, this time in manufacturing, where I eventually secured my first full-time job as a design engineer in the automotive industry.

In November 2017, I officially stepped into my engineering role, but within a few months, the company decided to relocate me to a higher cost-of-living state in 2018 to help open a new R&D facility. Despite this being a recognition of my performance, I had been raised to be humble, to never ask for more money, and simply to be grateful for having a job. I was never taught how to calculate what I should be earning, let alone how to negotiate. So when I hesitantly asked if I could have a salary increase to compensate for the higher expenses, the response was immediate and harsh—they shut me down completely, almost offended that I had even dared to ask. It was a moment that stuck with me, reinforcing the idea that money was something you weren’t supposed to talk about, no matter how unfair the circumstances were.

During my time there, I played a key role in hiring and training all the new coworkers, yet I remained significantly underpaid. It wasn’t until a casual lunch with my colleagues that I realized just how bad the situation was. As they openly discussed their salaries, I discovered I had the lowest salary in the department—even though I had been instrumental in building the team. That realization hit me hard. I was working 60-hour weeks, including weekends and holidays, and still struggling to make ends meet.

At the end of 2018, the company sent me to the U.S. to help expand our operations. While it seemed like a step forward, the reality was that I was still overworked and severely underpaid. The financial stress, combined with the relentless work hours, took a massive toll on my mental health. I reached a breaking point, where I felt completely exhausted—physically, emotionally, and mentally.

That moment of crisis became a turning point. I realized that the silence surrounding money was keeping me trapped in a cycle of financial hardship and constant stress. Determined to reclaim control over my life, I embarked on a journey to educate myself about personal finance and investing.

Eventually, I landed another job in a different engineering role, but after two years of learning about personal finance, investing, and entrepreneurship, I realized I was still playing small. No matter how hard I worked, I felt that I was still being discriminated against, that older colleagues were holding me back, and that I didn’t have a voice. I decided I was done settling. I focused on switching careers and landing a six-figure job. In just three months, I made the transition, and within the next nine months, I was promoted to manager before I turned 30.

Through my work in the industry and my growing network of suppliers, clients, and colleagues, I kept hearing the same stories repeating themselves—stories of talented, hardworking women stuck in underpaid jobs, facing workplace discrimination, and feeling powerless because they had never been taught how to take control of their finances. That’s when I realized this wasn’t just my experience; it was a systemic issue that so many women in the Latino community faced.

This realization ignited a passion in me to create a platform dedicated to financial literacy. My business was born from the desire to share the transformative knowledge that helped me break free from a cycle of stress and underpayment, empowering others to achieve financial independence.

This mission is deeply personal and continues to drive me every day. By opening up the conversation about money and providing practical education, I believe we can pave the way for a future where financial freedom is within reach for everyone.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I got into this industry because I struggled. I struggled with money. I felt like I was bad with money. I had never made a budget before, didn’t know how to handle a credit card, had loans to pay, and lived paycheck to paycheck, making bad financial decisions without even realizing it. I wasn’t investing—not because I didn’t want to, but because I truly believed I wasn’t smart enough to understand money or learn how to manage it. I had grown up with the belief that wanting more money was somehow greedy or selfish, that I had to be humble, grateful for what I had, and never ask for more.

But beyond my personal struggles, I also felt like there weren’t many voices in finance that looked like me or shared experiences similar to mine. Most of the financial experts I came across were men, and their advice didn’t always resonate with me or reflect the reality of my circumstances. I realized that women—especially Latinas—have unique financial challenges and stories that are often overlooked. And at some point, it hit me: if I wasn’t seeing many people like me talking about money, maybe that was my opportunity to be the one to do it.

Money is one of the biggest stressors for people in the United States—it’s a leading cause of divorce, anxiety, and burnout. What I like to teach my clients is that financial literacy and financial independence are forms of self-care, and when we don’t take care of our finances, other areas of our life or all areas of our lives suffer.

I firmly believe that our most valuable asset is time. It’s finite—we can’t buy more of it, and once it’s gone, we can’t get it back. And what is life if we don’t have the time to share it with the people we love? Money is just a tool, but it’s a tool that can buy us time. That realization turned into a passion, a purpose, and ultimately, a business.

I started managing my own finances and, in just three and a half years, built a $100,000 investment portfolio. People around me started noticing, and I kept getting the same questions over and over—How did you do it? Where did you start? What account should I open? That’s when I decided to start sharing my journey on Instagram. I wanted to document what I was learning, thinking maybe a few people would find it helpful. But then, something unexpected happened—people really needed this information. My audience grew, and before I knew it, people were asking for more structured guidance, for courses, for coaching.

That’s how my business was born. Today, I provide financial education for women, starting from the absolute basics—how to budget, build an emergency fund, and pay off debt—to more advanced topics like investing, understanding the stock market, tax-efficient accounts, and different asset classes. My program is literally designed to take someone from zero to investor.

I’m teaching finance because I was a woman struggling, feeling lost, feeling like financial success wasn’t meant for me. I know what it’s like to feel powerless over money, and I also know what it feels like to take that power back.

The thing I’m most proud of is the messages I receive every day. When someone DMs me saying, “Thanks to you, I asked for a raise and got it,” or “Because of you, I finally opened my first investment account,” or “You inspired me to start my emergency fund,” I know I’m making a real difference. Those messages remind me that I’m leaving a small legacy in people’s lives, and to me, that means everything.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

The lesson that I had to learn is that sometimes even the most experienced people or the people that know you the most don’t really know what’s best for you and your business. And sometimes you just have to follow your heart and your instincts.

The backstory is, in 2023, I went to a conference. At the time, I was a little bit lost before launching my business. I had the idea, I was active on social media, and I was gaining some traction. Part of this conference involved asking for opinions, support, or ideas from other entrepreneurs and business owners. I remember receiving a lot of “You should do this” or “You should do that.” For example, “You should start with one-on-one coaching,” or “You should open your niche to not only women and the Latino community, but to a broader audience because it’s ‘better for business.’” I started following some of that advice, thinking it would help me. But I soon realized things weren’t going the way I wanted. I was attracting the wrong people, I wasn’t following my purpose, and I wasn’t being fulfilled by helping people with stories like mine. People were only reaching out because they wanted to, quote unquote, get as rich as possible. And I started to realize that I was not enjoying doing this anymore.

That realization was what made me step back and re-evaluate. I think one of the biggest lessons I had to learn is that while it’s important to listen to advice, and it’s vital not to be the smartest in the room, at the end of the day, this is your business and you’re the only person who knows how it’s meant to run. Your business needs to be aligned with your personal values. When you get external opinions, those are coming from people’s values, stories, and backgrounds, not your own. And funny enough, when I started to do things that were more aligned with who I am, everything began to grow rapidly.

We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?

In my experience, there’s nothing like being 100% authentic and transparent. Like I said, I started sharing my own personal finance journey—mainly how my investments grow and sometimes how they go down. I also share a lot about how I deal with the emotions around it, as well as my own career experiences and stories. I believe these real stories help people realize that on the other side of the phone, there’s an actual person with real feelings, emotions, stories, and struggles. I don’t think the perfect picture that social media often paints is what people need in the financial space. At the end of the day, we all struggle.

So for me, authenticity and transparency have been key. I also realized that people resonate with stories that touch their hearts, whether it’s sharing vulnerable moments or funny experiences. Things that people can relate to, things they say, “Hey, this happened to me too,” or, “I did this too,” are what make them feel connected. They share it because they find it educational, funny, or simply because they identify with it. And that’s what builds community.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://relentlesslatina.com
• Instagram: @relentless.latina

Image Credits

Photos from: Cinthya Trujillo Photography