Hayley Parsons

FOUNDER OF GOCOMPARE, ENTREPRENEUR

Brought up in Cwmbran, Hayley Parsons left school at 16 to start work at a small, family-run insurance company near her home. Moving to new Cardiff-based national company, Admiral, in 1992, she successfully set up a small insurance brokering service for the firm, followed by the car insurance comparison site, Confused.com. She left Admiral in 2006 to set up GoCompare, which rapidly became a multi-million-pound corporation, winning her many business awards. Always deeply committed to the Welsh business economy, she sold her remaining stakes in GoCompare to esure for £43.7m, with the proviso that the firm remain in Newport, South Wales.