Our Mission

Our mission is to provide an effective, inexpensive and convenient way of learning Brazilian Portuguese with native speakers, and thus open a window of opportunities related to Brazil for our students.

Our Story

PortugueseLive was co-founded by husband and wife team Veronica Ponce de Leon and Charlie Ferguson. The two met in 2001 when Charlie rented a room in Veronica’s apartment in São Paulo, while he participated in an exchange program at local business school. The two fell in love and eventually moved to Texas.  

While Charlie finished his MBA, Veronica taught Portuguese in a local coffee shop. Before long, Veronica was teaching private lessons to over a dozen students. The high demand for private Portuguese lessons from quality native speaking Brazilians prompted the couple to target a wider audience via online webconferenceing software. PortugueseLive was born and now teaches students from the US to Dubai.

Our Backgrounds

Veronica, our Lead Instructor and Teacher Coordinator, is from São Paulo, Brazil and has degrees in Journalism and Public Relations. She worked for Lula’s presidential campaign, served as Project Manager for an online media company and has taught private Portuguese lessons since 2004. She speaks fluent Portuguese, Spanish and English. Veronica’s favorite things about Brazil are eating her mom’s feijão, spending days at the beach and the all-you-can-eat sushi restaurants of São Paulo.

Charlie, our Chief of Operations, is lover of Brazilian culture from Houston, Texas. He has exhibited an acclaimed photo documentary about São Paulo, managed an outsourcing company and served in the Peace Corps. He holds and MBA and is fluent in English, Spanish and Portuguese (thanks to Veronica!). As for Brazil, Charlie loves the music of Jorge Ben, meandering along São Paulo’s Avenida Paulista and consuming large bowls of açaí.

Our Teachers

Our teachers are qualified native Brazilians with university degrees. They have extensive experience teaching one-on-one Portuguese to foreigners, ranging from beginner to advanced levels.