View from the sponsor - Bella Caridade-Ferreira
Bella is London born and bred and was brought up a stone’s throw from St Paul’s Church (and today lives close by too).
Although catholic and a member of St Mary’s Church, she spent many happy hours at St Paul’s services and events over the years.
Her parents are Portuguese and husband Jorge is French/Spanish so her family is European in every sense. She speaks French, Spanish and Portuguese fluently.
The musical backdrop to her childhood included the likes of Amalia Rodrigues (Fado), Gilberto Gil, Chico Buarque, Julio Iglesias, Edith Piaf and Jacques Brel as well as Motown and the pop music of the day.
With such an eclectic musical culture, it wasn’t long before she was drawn to opera too. Having studied Othello for A-levels, Bella’s first opera was Otello at the ENO. It remains one of her favourites today.
Bella is particularly fussy about grammar and punctuation, and loves going to the theatre/opera, disco dancing and pub quizzes.
It’s always interesting to hear why a sponsor chooses to support the arts. CEO of ComparethePlatform, Bella Caridade-Ferreira, tells us why St Paul’s Opera is a good fit:
As I walk around the streets of Clapham, I’m often asked why ComparethePlatform is sponsoring St Paul’s Opera. To many people, this personal finance site and opera don’t mix and don’t have much in common, but for me it’s a match made in heaven. Let me explain why.
I’ve already mentioned the first reason… Clapham. I grew up and went to school in Clapham and although I spent some years away (university and living abroad), the only place I felt truly at home was here, so when I returned to the UK with my French husband, this is where we set up home. And about eight years ago, it’s where I set up my investment research business.
As a local girl and business woman, I think it’s important to put something back into the ‘community’ and give back a little bit of what I’ve taken from Clapham over the years. That may sound insincere, but it’s true. And what better way to do it than by sponsoring something that I love? Not that I would ever describe myself as an opera buff like my dear friend Tricia, but I adore all the well-known and popular operas. Opera can be an expensive habit to have, but St Paul’s Opera gives us wonderful staging, angelic singing and fabulous acting for a fraction of Opera House prices, making opera accessible to all.
And that brings me to my third reason. Accessibility. ComparethePlatform is designed to help people find the right investment platform for their specific needs. Trying to compare different savings platforms is difficult at the best of times, but when you consider that they charge for different things, offer different services, are either simple and well-designed or very complicated to navigate, it becomes a nightmare. Our tool makes finding the right one for you a piece of cake.
“I think it’s important to put something back into the ‘community’ and give back a little bit of what I’ve taken from Clapham over the years. That may sound insincere, but it’s true”
Lastly, it’s no coincidence that some of our typical users are also opera aficionados so that’s another reason for spreading the word. You might not need to use ComparethePlatform at the moment, but at some point in your life you’ll want to investigate your options and we’ll be here to help. And this is just the beginning — we’ve got more tools in the pipeline to help you make informed decisions about where to save and invest your hard-earned money.
Bella Caridade-Ferreira