CHAPTER 6

GOCOMPARE

For many, just the phrase ‘go compare’ is enough to lodge in one’s head for a week the warblings of opera singer, Gio Compario, about the comparison site ‘where the wise go to economise’. Indeed, Gio has directed huge traffic and brand success to the insurance and financial services aggregator that he’s named after. But the mustachioed man is not the driving force behind the website that brought in a £30 million profit last year. That’s Hayley Parsons, a Welsh entrepreneur who left school at 16 to work in the insurance industry, and found she quite liked it.

Parsons’ dad advised her to start up a local hairdressing business when she quit school. But that wasn’t her cup of tea. Instead, she secured a job making endless cups ...

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