I was born in Paris, grew up in Rio, studied in the US, lived in South Africa and Australia then worked at Microsoft in France and Germany, but when it came down to launching my first business I moved to London for it. There is something about the English speaking world that attracts task driven and results oriented people, making it an ideal environment to build something from nothing.

One international market that should be considered more by small businesses looking to expand is Brazil. In the past decade, Brazil has become one of the fastest growing emerging markets. It has the largest economy in Latin America and the seventh largest in the world; in 2012, it overtook the UK in the Centre for Economics and Business Research (Cebr) World Economic League Table.

Here's a challenge for you, name just two global companies that originated in Latin America. Tricky, right? Believe me, it will get easier as time goes by and "multilatinas" spread across the world.

Here's a test for you. If you smile while you read these phrases, you have done or attempted to do business with Latin America...

Payments solutions business Pay Corporation, part of Boxhill Technologies PLC, has signed an agreement with CRM software business Bright Office, further extending its reach outside of the gaming and lottery sectors.

On Friday 1st November, the Crowdfunding: Deep Impact Conference will be offering a once in a lifetime opportunity to hear from the founders of various crowdfunding platforms, as well as meet with likeminded business owners and investors. 

Business in Brazil is booming. The countries’ GDP is the 7th largest in the world, and its scale of manufacturing and industry is staggering.

Monitise plc (LSE: MONI.L) is the global trusted enabler in Mobile Money solutions, with proven technology and expertise to enable financial institutions and other service providers to offer a wide range of mobile banking, payments and commerce services to their customers in developed, emerging and hybrid territories.

SoundOut is a web based music technology and data company using crowdsourcing and the wisdom of crowds to predict the market potential and demographic resonance of new music.