LocWorld40 Presenters

Britta Aagaard is chief business officer at Semantix and is responsible for the total business within localization and advanced language solutions. With an academic background in philosophy and the science of language, coupled with an entrepreneurial mindset, Britta joined the language industry in 2004. Today she is enjoying the privilege of providing executive leadership to her organization and thought leadership to the language community. Britta serves on the board of directors of GALA and LT-Innovate and is part of the LIND Expert Group of the European Commission, with the ambition to position the language industry in the intersection of humanity and AI. Britta has a clear vision and commitment to creating a scalable business platform through sustainable integrations of people, technology, and solutions for a prosperous and democratic digital future.

Known affectionately as The Content Wrangler, Scott Abel is an internationally recognized intelligent content strategist and cognitive computing evangelist who specializes in helping organizations deliver the right content to the right audience, anywhere, anytime, on any device. He is the coauthor of Intelligent Content: A Primer and The Language of Content Strategy (XML Press). Scott is the founder, CEO and chief strategist at The Content Wrangler, Inc. He coproduces Information Development World Conferences, produces a popular series of content strategy books and is the host of the San Francisco Content Strategy Content Marketing Professionals Meetup. Scott is also a highly sought-after keynote presenter, moderator and a frequent contributor to content industry publications. He manages one of the most widely-viewed webinar channels on the BrightTALK network, producing over 100 content-focused webinars a year. Scott’s alter ego, The Audio Wrangler, is a popular DJ and dance music mashup artist.

Isabel Aguilera is the former CEO of Google and General Electric (GE), Spain and Portugal. She was responsible for the set-up of Google Iberia (Spain and Portugal) from 2006 to 2008, and the creation of NH’s international business model after it purchased hotel chains in Mexico, Germany and Holland (2002-05). Isabel has been CEO and business unit director for Dell in southern Europe and was president of GE in Spain and Portugal from 2008 to 2009. She has experience in the international world of board membership, which includes serving on the education group Laureate Inc’s board, the IE Business School’s International Advisory Board and that of the Energy Council. Isabel is currently an independent board member of Indra (a leading Spanish IT company), Banco Mare Nostrum (a bank), Aegón España (an insurance company), Oryzon (a biopharmaceutical company) and Egasa (a gaming and entertainment company). She has proven experience in creating unique business models following various company mergers and acquisitions. Isabel offers outstanding guidance on optimization, management and monitoring processes for multinational, multisectoral and multidisciplinary businesses and teams.

Aimee Ansari has over 20 years of experience in leadership positions in large humanitarian and development organizations. She has worked in several humanitarian crises from the Tajik civil war to the earthquake in Haiti, the conflicts in the Balkans to the Syrian refugee crisis and the conflict in South Sudan. Prior to joining Translators without Borders in 2016, Aimee worked with Care, Oxfam, Save the Children and the United Nations.

Hilary Atkisson Normanha is the senior internationalization program manager for Spotify. During her career in the localization industry, she has worked on both the client and vendor sides in Brazil and the US. Hilary holds a degree in psychological sciences and has over 15 years of experience in the globalization industry. She is passionate about process innovation and enabling globally scalable products.

Iwona Bąk is global production manager at Summa Linguae Technologies, a global language solutions provider. She currently manages project management, quality management, vendor management, multimedia and technology teams in Europe and Asia. Iwona graduated in sociology and company management then started her career path in recruitment, supply chain and vendor management. She spent over ten years at Argos Multilingual and later at RWS Moravia building dedicated supplier teams for up to 196 languages. With a strong customer focus, she now makes sure unique and innovative solutions are developed hand in hand with the customers.

Teddy Bengtsson is the founder and director of RoundTable Studio (RTS) – a leading regional language service specialist for the Latin American market. A Swedish native, his 30 years in localization have taken him on a global journey and now to his fifth home country. Having held senior localization roles with major IT players Microsoft and Oracle, a crazy idea led Teddy to start a language service provider business in Argentina in 2003. Founded on a buyer’s perspective, RTS has a large team of in-house linguists, project managers and technical staff in its Buenos Aires and Porto Alegre (Brazil) production centers, and a business management unit in Spain.

David Benotmane is solutions architect and product director at Glossa Group, a language service provider specialized in linguistic quality assurance (LQA) based in Hamburg, Germany. He is also coorganizer of the annual Linguistic Quality Assurance Symposium (LQAS) in Zurich, Switzerland. From 2009 to 2015 David worked as head of translation services at Migros in Zurich and was managing a team of over 100 linguists for the translations of Switzerland’s largest employer. He reorganized the translation services and implemented a fully automated translation management system with specific customized functions and various connectors to subsystems such as CMS, ERP, MRM, PIM and CRM. David joined Glossa Group in 2015 where he initially worked as a workflow and CAT tool specialist and also worked on the development of myproof®  among other activities that a rapidly growing company required. Today, he and his team are responsible for product management of the LQA product lines which include products such as myproof® and mycluster®.

Olga Beregovaya has over twenty years of experience in language technology, natural language processing (NLP), machine learning (ML), global content transformation, and AI data development and is passionate about growing businesses through driving change and innovation. She started her career in language technology building lexicons and rules for rule-based machine translation, gradually expanding her expertise into other broader applications of NLP and ML to enterprise translation workflows. Olga has served as president of AMTA, currently serves as a vice president and technology program sponsor for Women in Localization, and as an advisor for Engineering Leadership at California State University, Chico. She received her MA in linguistics/Germanic studies at UC- Berkeley and MA/BA in linguistics from St. Petersburg State University.

Andrey Berestyansky started his career in the game localization industry and has held roles of increasing responsibility including translator, editor, voiceover director, localization manager and even script writer for an online game, for both development and translation vendor teams. He has delivered high-profile games to domestic and international audiences, having developed many automation tools and process improvements along the way. As a senior localization engineer at Kaspersky Lab, Andrey finds it fascinating how a simple idea implemented as an ad-hoc Python script may evolve into a powerful project streamlining a company’s operations. When away from his keyboard, he often finds himself playing guitar or riding a bike across the city.

Gábor Bessenyei has always been enthusiastic about the combination of languages and computers — two totally different worlds. One is human and always escapes from the trappings of rules, the other is very formalized and is driven by rules. Gábor started his career in 1994 as an SAP translator. Between 1997 and 2001, he was IT manager, translation coordinator and member of the board at SAP Hungary. Since 2001, Gábor has been the founding managing partner and CEO of MorphoLogic Localisation, a language service provider and language technology company located in Budapest, developer of Globalese NMT.

Patricia Borges is the head of translation and brand assurance at FM Global and manages a global team of 28 language professionals. She has more than 20 years of experience in the translation and localization industry having worked for many years both on the client and language service provider sides, in several different roles. At FM Global, Patricia ensures that her team enables the company to effectively communicate, conduct and help propel business with clients, prospects and partners around the world. She has a passion for traveling and connecting with people from different countries and cultures.

Katie Botkin is the managing editor of MultiLingual magazine. Prior to joining MultiLingual, she studied journalism and applied linguistics, taught English on three continents and did freelance writing. She continues to write or edit for a variety of other publications in her spare time including the Translators without Borders newsletter.

Wayne Bourland is recognized as an agent for change, driving innovation and process efficiencies across global organizations. He is currently responsible for translation of Dell.com and marketing collateral for more than 100 organizations across Dell. With no background in linguistics, he approaches the industry with a different perspective, focusing on end value and customer acceptance versus traditional industry key performance indicators. Wayne is a member of the TAUS advisory board and has been published in MultiLingual magazine, The Economist, Brand Quarterly and numerous industry blogs.

As principal internationalization and localization architect, Henk Boxma provides solutions to his clientele to solve problems that are related to documentation and localization of their products. He is hands-on and works together with people in various roles within an organization. One of Henk’s specialties is (visual) software localization. Many blue chip companies use his Rigi localization management platform to streamline overall localization processes.

Gloria Camino is a globalization manager with over 22 years of experience in globalization, she was headhunted to start the Alfresco Software globalization department from scratch, defining localization strategies, tools and processes to enable the release of Alfresco Digital Business Platform products and integrations globally. Gloria works in close coordination with software engineering teams, linguists, testers and technical authors encompassing marketing material, website, legal and governance content for over 100 countries and 15 languages. Previously she worked as senior localization manager at SDL and provided technical language training to the trouble-shooters at the IBM European Command Centre in Portsmouth.

David Čaněk is the founder and CEO of Memsource, a software company providing cloud translation technology based in Prague, Czech Republic. He is a graduate in translation and comparative studies, received his education at Charles University, Prague, Humboldt University in Berlin, and the University of Vienna. David’s professional experience includes product management and business development roles in software and translation industries. He has delivered a number of presentations on innovation and trends in the translation industry including the growing use of machine translation post-editing and cloud translation software.

Marcus Casal is a technologist, language geek and passionate about both. He currently runs all language and content-related technology at AMPLEXOR, ranging from connector through project management and advanced linguistic systems. Prior to AMPLEXOR, Marcus owned all production technology at Lionbridge. He has been very active in the global language industry , serving on the TAUS advisory board together with colleagues from large customers and technology providers. Marcus has also been involved with OASIS and other standards organizations. He has several patents pending in both the US and Europe for novel methods of content storage and visualization. Marcus’ career spans 20 years and ranges from founding a startup to localization consulting, production engineering, solutions development and operational management. He is a native speaker of Spanish and English, and is fascinated by the morphological richness of language as well as by linguistic evolution over time. Marcus holds both a BA and an MA in languages from Duke University and the University of Florida.

Rachida Chekaf leads the globalization and localization of all content at AXELOS Global Best Practice. Prior to that, she accumulated years of experience working with small and medium-sized language service providers, gaining valuable experience as a project manager, linguist and account manager. Rachida is passionate about delivering great multilingual content to customers and partners, no matter what language they speak. She has been part of the AXELOS journey since it was first launched in 2014 and has helped to internationalize the content and make it more accessible to global audiences.

Angela Cimmino has always been passionate about languages and their potential. She joined Fujitsu four years ago providing custumer support in different languages then joined the internal translation and localization team. Angela has been leading the team for the past year and can honestly say that everyday there is something new to learn about this field. This role taught her that language, expertise, technology and creativity together offer countless possibilities in translations and it is fascinating to see how many people and markets languages can reach.
Angela’s aim is to bring her team to the next level and engage with the global audience conquered by Fujitsu.

Melanie Clarke is a localization manager at Shopify’s headquarters in Ottawa, Canada, working primarily with Shopify’s customer support organization. Before moving back to Canada, she worked at Booking.com headquarters in Amsterdam, managing content and translation delivery at scale in 42+ languages.

Charlotte Cole is the director of content at Farfetch. During her seven years at Farfetch, she has built the localization team from a small freelance outfit producing content in two languages, to a 100-strong team covering 13 languages for the entire Farfetch platform. Moving from a startup to a public company saw the team innovate through the use of in-house technology and the onboarding of best-in-class external providers. Charlotte now plans to evolve this team into its next phase: becoming the best provider of global content within the retail industry. She has a background in French and Italian linguistics, literature, content production and orginally started her career as an editorial writer before making the move into retail, where she found her real passion for operations and content management.

Anne-Marie Colliander Lind is a recognized force in the global language industry landscape. She has spent almost 30 years helping multinational organizations solve their language issues, serving in executive sales and management positions at leading service, technology and market research companies. She is the CEO of Inkrease, a management consulting company based in Sweden that assists companies in their growth and development strategies. Anne-Marie is a sought-after speaker and is engaged part-time as marketing director for LocWorld. She is also the co-organizer of the Nordic Translation & Interpretation Forum (NTIF).

Esther Curiel is a global content and localization expert. Her mission is to help brands achieve international growth objectives by integrating localization, content strategy, and global user experience. She is currently the globalization manager at Zoetis, an animal health company operating in over 100 countries.

With over 25 years in the software industry and a decade in data and applied science, Agustín Da Fieno Delucchi​ excels in transforming complex data into strategic business solutions. He leverages machine learning and AI to drive innovation and evidence-based decision-making. Leading global, cross-functional teams, he ensures alignment with business goals, data integrity, governance, and compliance. His leadership in AI has been pivotal in internationalization and localization efforts, spearheading innovation in software development. As a polyglot, he creates accessible, culturally relevant technology experiences, driven by curiosity and a commitment to excellence in the evolving tech landscape.

During her 25 years in the localization industry, María Jesús de Arriba Díaz has held multiple positions supporting the international growth of global companies of all sizes and industries. Her localization journey started as a translator and interpreter, then leading translation teams and championing quality. From there, I took on leadership roles in both program management and vendor management. Subsequently, I stepped up to leading strategic language service operations and developing customized customer localization programs. She is currently senior global language services manager at Workday, where she leads a team of innovators providing excellent language experiences to customers by combining the best of technology with expert human input. Passionate about the globalization and localization industry, she plays an active role in driving the industry into the future through her volunteer roles as Women in Localization board member, and former chair of the board of the Globalization and Localization Association (GALA). In addition, she is an active mentor and an advocate for knowledge sharing within the industry.

Burcu Demirörs is the cofounder and CEO of HeliCo Translation based in Turkey. She is an English-German-Turkish translator and simultaneous interpreter actively working in this industry since 2009. Burcu graduated from the translation and interpreting department at Dokuz Eylul University in Izmir, Turkey, and was selected as the first “special student” for the English-Turkish translation and interpreting department at Hacettepe University in Ankara, Turkey, to study simultaneous interpretation in the master’s program. She is a hard-working and determined individual with a motivated mindset to help her start each day positively and do whatever it takes to reach her goals in life. Burcu is also one of the best women paragliding pilots in Turkey. She believes that one should always have a second passion apart from business and only by this means, one can stay motivated for growth.

Neal Dempsey has been working in the localization industry for 20 years. He has worked in various roles including operations, program management, account management and most recently customer success. Neal is customer and service focused and enjoys driving collaboration and conversation with customers that result in successful programs. He enjoys building relationships with people from all different disciplines within the industry and outside it.

Akshat Dhaon works as a senior software engineer/technical lead on the Autodesk Dublin localization engineering team. The team works on improving existing localization processes for Autodesk products using the latest tools and technologies in the market. As part of this team, Akshat works on the localization platform. He has over nine years of experience in full stack development and a master’s degree in advanced software engineering. Originally from India, Akshat worked there for a few years before moving to Ireland.

Bekir Diri has seven years of experience in the translation and localization industries and has worked as technical translator, book translator, project manager, technology expert, web localization manager and translation technologies manager for several translation companies. Before joining Localex, he managed sales and marketing of an award-winning, cloud-based translation management system and CAT tool at the Turkish market and managed web localization projects for one of the biggest language service providers in Turkey. Bekir’s experience is enhanced by a bachelor’s degree in translation studies and he is in the process of completing an MA degree in translation studies at Istanbul 29 Mayıs University with a thesis subject which covers game, software and web localization gaps in Turkish. As a localization and technology expert, he is experienced with the localization and testing of websites, software, games, mobile apps and multimedia materials.

Rikkert Engels is the founder and director of Xillio which he started in 2004 out of frustration with a migration project he was working on. There must be a better way, he thought, and it involves automation. Xillio has developed a powerful API platform for content integration projects and was awarded “Cool Vender” by Gartner in 2017. In 2019, LocHub was developed on top of this API to help automate multilingual content delivery processes.

Miquel Esplà-Gomis is a post-doctoral researcher at the Universitat d’Alacant in Spain. He obtained his PhD in computer science in 2016, but has been working on translation technologies for the past ten years. A relevant part of Miguel’s research is focused on parallel data collection and processing, and he is one of the main developers of Bitextor, a free and open source tool for mining parallel data from the internet. Miquel has been involved in several international projects related to translation technologies and, at the moment, he works on two projects that use the tool Bitextor intensively: ParaCrawl and GoURMET.

Allison Ferch is GALA’s executive director. Over the past 8+ years she has served GALA in several roles and provided leadership for many of the association’s programs and activities including events, partnerships and special initiatives. As executive director, she leads internal operations at GALA and is responsible for the growth of the association, its financial stability, and for the execution and expansion of programs and services to members. Allison has an undergraduate degree in biological anthropology and a master’s degree in library and information science. A lifelong athlete and learner, she enjoys podcasts, reading, swimming and team sports.

Alberto Ferreira has worked extensively in globalization services and product development with his key interests lying in user experience (UX) as well as content optimization technologies and processes. He specializes in aiding companies to redesign their digital presence and determine the user’s real needs with a global perspective. He has over seven years of experience in agile methodologies and corporate change, and is a cross-disciplinarian by nature. Alberto is also the author of Universal UX, to be published by Morgan Kaufmann in 2016, and often speaks and writes on design, localization and branding.

Mara Ferreira Martins is a globalization and geopolitical program manager with experience in strategy and ecommerce globalization operations worldwide. She has demonstrated success in leading globalization operations and providing thought leadership across multiple levels of the organization with impact on business revitalization and process innovation. Mara has expertise in establishing strategic direction and delivering results through implementation of efficient and cost-effective programs and initiatives in line with business objectives. She has a strong work ethic with a solid track record of driving impact though data analytics and influence across all levels of the organization. Mara has experience in finding gaps and aligning global teams with emphasis on creating partnerships to build a truly global organization with solid processes and infrastructures. She works effectively with leadership and peers across the organization to drive customer impact.

Klaus Fleischman has been active in the field of global content delivery with a focus on terminology. His company, Kaleidoscope, is a language solutions provider implementing processes, tools and delivering language services. Klaus infuses his terminology passion into enterprises that want to roll out a corporate terminology process, as well as university students and localization event participants.

Wojciech Froelich has 18 years of experience in localization engineering. He is CTO at Argos Multilingual where he leads a team of experienced engineers who are responsible for building customer-oriented localization workflows and providing internationalization consultancy and software engineering support to Argos partners. Wojciech focuses on integrating authoring, automated translation management and multilingual publishing systems.

Svetlana Galanina Ataman graduated in translation and interpreting from the Linguistics University of Nizhny Novgorod, Russia. She gained experience on the vendor side by working as a freelance translator and interpreter before taking over a language quality assurance role at Sony. Currently based in Istanbul, Turkey, Svetlana manages language quality across various Sony business departments and content types including Sony’s global consumer electronics and professional products websites. Her main focus is on bringing and implementing the best industry practices in order to deliver high-quality content contributing to the buying decision of the end customer.

Houman Gieleky studied management information systems at university and founded Toptranslation in 2010. With his team of 40 developers, project managers and translators, he aims to revolutionize the translation industry to make the translation process faster, more transparent and more efficient. Today the company connects more than 7,000 native-speaking translators and industry experts in 73 countries, has customers in over 20 countries and also develops its own SaaS solutions.

Alexander Gigga grew up in Bad Kreuznach in the Rhine Valley in Germany, a stone’s throw from the French border. After his studies of industrial engineering at Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, he joined Adidas, then world-renowned Fraunhofer Institut and eventually founded lengoo, a tech startup focusing on uniting the world’s best expert linguists with cutting-edge custom trained neural networks. As chief marketing officer, Alex is also the chief evangelist for neural machine translation, and language to him is the ultimate catalyst for creation.

Daniel Goldschmidt is a speaker and educator with software internationalization and localization expertise. He also teaches computer science and physics to middle and high school students, driven by his belief that investing in the next generation is vital for humanity’s future.

Previously, Daniel was a senior internationalization project manager at Microsoft, leading the internationalization team in the Cloud and Enterprise Division. Before that, he co-founded RIGI Localization Solutions, a venture focused on visual localization, and served as a senior software engineer on Google’s internationalization team. He is Vice-Chair of the LocWorld Program Committee and has been a member of the Internationalization and Unicode Conference review committee. Daniel frequently presents at international events and leads workshops and roundtables. He holds a BS in computer science and mathematics (cum laude) and an MS in computes cience from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

João Graça is a cofounder and CTO of Unbabel. He received his PhD in natural language processing and was a post-doctoral researcher at the University of Pennsylvania, where he developed a new statistical learning method that allowed for the insertion of declarative knowledge during learning, unlocking previously impossible-to-tackle problems for solving. João was also awarded a Marie Curie, Welcome II program (2011) scholarship, which he ended up declining to pursue entrepreneurship. He is also one of the cofounders of the Lisbon Machine Learning Summer School (LxMLS).

Stefani Grothe has a 20+ year track record in the translation and localization industry, both on the client side and the service provider side. She is a senior localization manager at LinkedIn where she has witnessed the intensive growth from startup to global corporation in the past ten years and has been growing the localization team and tirelessly evangelizing localization best practices. Stefani holds a master’s degree in applied linguistics from the University of Mainz-Germersheim, Germany. She is part of the GoGreen team at LinkedIn and enjoys singing in two choral formations.

Melanie Heighway leads product localization at Atlassian, managing localization of Atlassian’s range of products including Jira and Confluence. She is a passionate advocate of international customers and enjoys evangelizing localization within organizations. Prior to joining Atlassian in 2019, Melanie managed localization of all content as a one-person team at an Australian startup, Invoice2go. Over the past 15 years, she has worked on both client and language vendor sides in Australia and the UK. Melanie has managed a diverse range of language tasks, including speech and language technology projects, mobilization and management of face-to-face speech and sign language interpreters, and medical device document localization at companies such as Cochlear, Appen, SDL and LanguageLine.

Bruno Herrmann has more than 25 years of experience in international product, content, and customer experience leadership within large organizations and startups, and in various industries such as technology, market research, business intelligence, and life sciences. Until early June 2022, he was the director of localization operations at IQVIA, creating and leading an international team of more than 150 hub-based project managers, content design experts, vendor managers, and internal linguists in the US, LATAM, EMEA, Greater China and APAC. From 2003 to 2019 Bruno had roles of increasing responsibility in marketing, business operations, and product leadership at The Nielsen Company, including digital globalization leader between 2008-2019 where he was responsible for global content creation, localization, testing, certification, and delivery, product management, and international customer experiences. Before joining Nielsen, he managed online globalization programs at HP and content operations including localization at Compaq and Digital Equipment Corporation. Prior to joining Digital Equipment Corporation, Bruno worked in marketing communication and localization startups, taking part in major international projects for high-profile technology clients. He has been a practitioner, change agent, thought leader, and strategist in data-driven and client-first information, transformation, and product management, both in the offline and online world. Bruno is a regular speaker, panelist, moderator, and workshop leader during conferences and events around the world.

Udi Hershkovich is the business development manager for speech and language AI services at Amazon Web Services (AWS), leading go-to- market solutions such as media subtitling, call center modernization, in-game multilingual chat and retail and enterprise content localization. Prior to AWS, he was CEO of multiple AI startups including LeanFM Technologies and Safaba Translation Solutions. Udi is keen on inventing and simplifying on behalf of AWS customers worldwide.

Nair HId is the user experience manager for Latin America at Oracle NetSuite cloud enterprise software. She’s an Argentinian who has lived in Germany, Uruguay and is now based in Boston, Massachusetts, USA. Nair is always moving for growth and learning opportunities. She’s worked for banking software companies, tech startups and big corporations such as Robert Bosch and Oracle working in different product areas including smart home automation, ecommerce and enterprise software. At the moment, Nair’s team’s focus is to internationalize the business suite so it improves the work life of NetSuite users in Latin America and the world.

Roeland Hofkens combines over 20 years of experience in multilingual content management with extensive software engineering skills and a strong background in machine learning to deliver innovative products and solutions for LanguageWire. He was one of the founders of enterprise content management (ECM) system AMPLEXOR in Belgium. Roeland has continued his journey in multilingual ECM as the CTO of Westernacher in Germany. HIs main focus is on applying deep learning and analytics to all kinds of natural language processing and automation tasks.

A native of Japan, Aki Ito has been involved in the localization industry since 1996, working in various activities such as sales management, operations management, project management, Japanese language management and consulting, and translation memory tool management. He previously served on the Globalization and Localization Association (GALA) board of directors in 2005-2006 and as chairman of the board in 2006. He has also served on the editorial board for MultiLingual magazine. Prior to his involvement in the localization industry, Aki was an account executive at Dell Computer in the United States and Japan, selling personal computers and networking solutions to multinational companies for their worldwide implementations. Aki has an MBA in international marketing and a BA in international relations.

Sabina Jasinska is an international marketing leader with experience in managing global marketing and operations teams and activities for top language service providers Donnelley Language Solutions, SDL and Welocalize. Her specialization is driving growth in the rapidly evolving translation industry by capitalizing on regulatory changes and marketing trends. Sabina is currently leading global sales and marketing teams for a digital agency specialized in marketing automation for financial services companies. One of her passions is building communities — that’s why she dedicated her time as a member of the board of directors of GALA, Translation Commons and the advisory board of  The Localization Institute. Sabina is also an active member of the largest grassroots movement in Poland, campaigning for the preservation of parks and historical monuments.

Gabriela Jungblut is Shopify’s product localization lead. She manages Shopify’s product localization program as part of the languages team.

Maria Kania has worked in the localization industry for over 20 years, holding various roles including sales director, account manager, quality ISO manager, and business development manager. Maria is very active in the localization community as a presenter and localization activist. She currently holds the role of board member for strategic global sponsorship. Since 2017, Maria has been leading a team of ten account managers at Translations.com who serve large enterprise clients mostly from fashion retail, travel and hospitality, and other verticals. She is a Polish-Canadian native and has been living in Barcelona, Spain for 15 years.

Lone Kanstrup started her career in the localization industry as a translator. She’s spent the past 15+ years nurturing language and language technology at both industrial companies and language service providers. Today, Lone works at Ørsted (formerly DONG Energy), an energy company with 6,300 employees globally. She’s responsible for key account management of internal customers, language project management, terminology, language technology and language processes optimization. Creating value for the company through high-quality language, localization and transcreation in close cooperation with external language partners is always top of mind – as is continuous improvement by leveraging technology.

Tarja Karjalainen runs the localization program at OURA, the sleep-tracking smart ring startup. She has a keen interest in languages and user experience (UX), with a passion for serving as the cross-functional link between the two. Tarja previously led a team of UX writers and localization managers in the wearables industry at Polar, as well as running an international UX-driven localization program at HappyOrNot. For the past ten-plus years, she has worked in the language and software industries in various roles from translation to program management, and continues to advocate for localization and internationalization in all her endeavors.

Having worn many different hats in the localization and technology space, Kamilla Krawczyk also brings to the table a uniquely disruptive perspective, challenging us all to think bigger. Starting off as a linguist, she worked in many roles in localization, ranging from running a translation company, sales and marketing to project and program management. Kamilla’s interests were always around using technology in driving efficiency and process improvement. She worked both on client and vendor sides and for several years ran a software company, offering systems for logistics and relevant consulting services around these. Kamilla’s current role is technology solutions manager at RWS Moravia. She helps teams to make fact-based decisions around selection of systems and technology, following buy-first and strategic standardization approaches. Kamilla is also engaged in building partnership programs at RWS.

Christel Weber Kristensen Gouas started her career in the localization industry 21 years ago and has spent the past 13 years nurturing language at large industrial companies. Today, she is working at Ørsted (formerly DONG Energy), an energy company with 6,200 employees. Christal is responsible for global language service provider management, the company’s language policy, language project management, business intelligence reporting, language guides and processes related to the company’s language services. Creating value for the company through high-quality language, localization, transcreation and machine translation in close cooperation with external language partners is always top of mind — as is continuous improvement by leveraging technology.

Justin Lawler is a team lead and developer, currently working on the Autodesk localization team. He has over 18 years of experience in the tech industry — including development, team leading and technical communications. Originally from Dublin, Justin has lived and worked in Malaysia, the UK and Ireland. At Autodesk, his role now involves developing the Autodesk platform and building artificial intelligence into the localization processes to optimize time to market.

Julio Leal is the head of the localization team at Rover, where he leads initiatives to adapt content and services for global markets. Prior to joining Rover, he directed the localization program at Spendesk for nearly two years, enhancing the company’s international presence. Julio has also contributed his expertise to industry leaders such as Wayfair, Ciena, and SAP.

Fluent in Spanish, English, and German, Julio holds a Master’s degree in Translation and Interpreting Studies from the University of Granada in Spain. He also earned an MBA and possesses executive certificates in Digital Team Management, Web Globalization Management, and Global Marketing.

Gary Lefman is a chartered engineer, internationalization evangelist and educator, passionate about software globalization. He is a Fellow and chair of the British Computer Society, the Chartered Institute for IT, with nearly two decades of authority and leadership in software localization. Gary gained his master of science in multilingual computing and localization from the Localisation Research Centre (University of Limerick), where he is now a visiting lecturer. He is a STEM ambassador and Code Club leader, enthusing children across England in the subjects of science, engineering and computational thinking. Talk to Gary about internationalization and continuous localization.

István Lengyel is the founder of BeLazy, the project management automation company that makes continuous localization efficient across the entire supply chain. He also works as a technology consultant for Nimdzi Insights. Previously, István cofounded Kilgray, the makers of memoQ, and also worked as a translator and director for customer success for On Global. István holds several degrees in economics and translation including a PhD in translation studies from the ELTE University of Budapest.

Antonio Magalhaes is a senior international experience manager at Adobe, Seattle. He is a customer-focused professional with over 15 years of experience in localization and globalization program and product management. Currently, Antonio manages globalization of on-premises and SaaS software applications, on-line help, documentation and websites. He has a broad career history as program manager, vendor manager, mentor and educator. Antonio is a fluent Portuguese speaker.

Jeff Marques is a senior experience manager at Adobe in New York City, and has been with the company since 2012. He manages software and documentation globalization programs in Adobe’s Digital Experience group, acting as the main point of contact between product and globalization teams. Additionally, Jeff leads the development of new localization workflow processes and best practices, especially around documentation. He is currently driving the markdown documentation initiative at Adobe, focusing on improving localization efficiencies and customer experience. Jeff enjoys languages, martial arts, mediation and comic books, and holds a BA in Japanese from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, as well as PMP certification from the Project Management Institute.

As vice president, globalization and localization, Teresa Marshall drives globalization and localization-related efforts across Salesforce, including internationalization, localization management and development of features designed to enable global Salesforce deployment. In 2009 she joined Salesforce as senior localization manager and led all product localization through a period of intensive growth. Since 2015 Teresa has led both globalization and localization for Salesforce. Teresa started her career as a German linguist and has been working in localization for over 15 years. She has held program and operational management positions at a number of Silicon Valley companies, including leading the Google localization team. From 2010 to 2014 Teresa was an adjunct member of the faculty at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey (MIIS) and taught in the translation and localization management program of the Graduate School of Translation, Interpretation and Language.

Patrick McLoughlin manages localization at Verily Life Sciences. Prior to Verily, Patrick spent ten years at Eventbrite where he founded and managed the localization function, and five years at Yahoo! as a localization project manager and terminology manager. Patrick has also held positions as a lexicographer, adjunct professor at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies, translator, multilingual researcher, and writer. He holds a variety of certifications and degrees from universities in Italy, the UK, and California.

Financial technologies shaped the career of Margarida Mendes da Maia and, in a certain way, her persona. She loves the challenge of innovating and finding creativity in the midst of something most people may take as too institutional. Margarida has been exposing herself to various experiences: helping to create and manage the first innovation hub with the Portuguese Regulatory Authorities (The Portugal FinLab); helping write the Portugal Fintech Report 2018, the most comprehensive overview of the Portuguese Fintech industry; investing as a venture capitalist in early stage Fintech startups (through BiG Start Ventures) and helping shape and implement the first investment account aggregator in Europe (BiG Total Banking). From project management, marketing, regulatory standards to innovation research, she has been focusing her efforts on the digital transformation of retail and investment banking.

Asako Miyazaki has worked for a wide variety of companies from startups to multinational corporations for the past 20 years. In each organization, she led the launch of their first localized product for Japan and managed the Asia localization team. Asako’s localization experience started in graduate school when she helped a company launch a product in Japan. She realized that her academic background in intercultural communication could be fully utilized in localization, and thus her career began. Asako has an MA in speech and communication with emphasis on intercultural communication in the work place.

Wafaa Mohiy started her career more than 25 years ago as a software engineer in the internationalization and localization industry then moved to localization project management in 1995. Since that time she has managed and helped to manage many localization projects for clients across the world. Wafaa’s areas of expertise cover management (account management, project management and resources management); automation and process enhancements; internationalization and localization; and translation automation and tools. She is currently a member of Saudisoft’s board and has been a board member for Globalization and Localization Association (GALA) since being elected in 2016.

As the founder of ImageTranslate, Harsha Mudumby is chiefly involved with the company’s business development and engineering. He was previously a research and development engineer who developed machine translation and other natural language processing solutions. An ardent enthusiast of startups and technology, Harsha also enjoys great typography and adventurous outdoors.

With 25 years of experience in the industry, Yuka Nakasone owns Global Bridge, a consultancy company in Barcelona, Spain, that provides globalization strategies and its execution for a variety of clients. As its name suggests, Global Bridge’s mission is to bridge different cultures and countries. Yuka has held various leadership roles including globalization and localization director at Beabloo in Spain, and Intento in the USA. She also drives innovation as well as professional and leadership development in the industry through her activities including LocWorld’s Process Innovation Challenge and Translation Commons’ leadership portal.

Takeyoshi Nakayama is a solutions engineer. He has worked for over ten years in developing localization software and machine translation (MT) systems and supporting customers. His focus is on making all parties happy, including end users, clients, translators and translation vendors.

Julie Newcome has worked with content planning, information architecture and modeling, structured writing, content management and content delivery for more than 15 years — all those things that we can now happily slip under the umbrella of content strategy. Currently she spends her time with her work family at Ultimate Software where she does content strategy work, writes guidelines and is working on the rollout of a recently developed product brand voice.

Kevin O’Donnell is the fractional leader and advisor for international expansion and revenue growth at Global10x. He help B2B SaaS companies expand internationally, grow their international revenue and modernize their localization processes. He has 20+ years in product and international leadership roles at Microsoft, Dropbox, and Nitro.

Robert O’Keefe is the senior program manager at Citrix and has held a diverse number of roles in the 20+ years he has spent with the company. Based in the UK, he works in a globalization group 70+ strong, spanning four time zones. Overseeing more than 300 releases a year, Robert advocates technical innovation and automation at every stage of the workflow to ensure capacity scales in line with the business. Experienced in Lean Six Sigma and Kaizen, he fosters a culture of continuous process improvement and defect prevention. Robert’s current focus is on combining software analytics with business and customer data to refine the globalization strategy and maximize the opportunity offered by product globalization. In his spare time, he is most likely to be found cycling around the hills in the south of England.

Diane O’Reilly  is global head of enterprise sales at Iconic. Previously, she was head of industry development at the CNGL Centre for Global Intelligent Content at Trinity College Dublin. Diane joined CNGL in 2013 from IDA Ireland located in Tokyo, where she held the position of deputy director for the Japanese and Korean markets for the ICT  and digital content sectors. Now based in Dublin, she previously spent over 15 years in Japan in a variety of global management positions in business development, sales, marketing and communications at Omron Corporation, NEC Corporation and Shinsei Bank.

Janine Oliveira heads globalization at Lenovo/Motorola, leading language services and program management, software integration, international quality assurance and tools innovation. Current team research and focus include machine translation and regional linguistic impact, large scale software content management, voice technologies and localization, and advanced UI visualization methodologies for testing. Originally from Brazil and currently living in California, Janine has 20 years in the industry and built various teams and operations handling large scale, cross-technology global product releases.

As director of localization programs, Claire Pagès manages a team of about 20 program and project managers who together advise on and implement the localization strategies of the various brands that form the Expedia Group. In 2012, she joined Expedia as a localization program manager dedicated to brand Expedia. Claire started her career in the localization industry in 2002 as a French linguist. Having worked on both vendor side and client side for the past 15 or so years, she endorsed various roles and responsibilities in the localization space, and has always been passionate about languages and travel.

With over 20 years in the industry, Patricia Paladini Adell is a leading globalization consultant specializing in designing and building scalable and agile localization programs. Patricia is the Founder and CEO of Paladini Global. The firm expertise in continuous localization and systems integration makes Paladini Global a key parent to accompany companies to efficiently adapt their offerings for international markets. Proficient in translation technologies such as translation management systems, machine translation, large language models (LLMs), and terminology management, Paladini Global ensures high-quality, culturally relevant content delivery. Paladini Global excels in change and stakeholder management, guiding organizations through complex transitions and securing support at all levels. The firm’s advocacy for Agile methodology fosters collaboration, flexibility, and rapid iteration, accelerating time-to-market and enhancing global operations. Dedicated to helping corporations.

Milica Panic is the product marketing manager at TAUS, a neutral industry organization and resource center that helps translation buyers and service providers advance their global content delivery. She is responsible for communicating the value of TAUS services to the market. Milica’s background is in localization, project management and content marketing in an ecommerce environment. Outside of work, she is passionate about continuously inventing new ways to teach languages.

Donna Parrish is co-organizer of the LocWorld conferences. She was publisher of the magazine MultiLingual for 18 years. Prior to her work at MultiLingual Computing, Inc., she was a computer programmer for 25 years. Donna holds a degree in mathematics from Peabody College of Vanderbilt University. She is presently the secretary of CLEAR Global (Translators without Borders) and CLEAR Tech.

Juliana Pereira has over 15 years of experience in marketing and ecommerce. She has worked across various verticals and industries, from nonprofits and publishing to tech and fashion, including key roles at Ralph Lauren, The Met Store at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Ziff Davis and eMusic. In addition to her passion for all things digital and marketing, Juliana is a semiprofessional violinist, an advocate for music education and an activist philanthropist for women’s issues. She holds a BA from Brown University, and an MA from the New School.

Dawn Pick-Benson is founder/CEO of GlobeStory, a content company focused on multicultural brand messaging and brand storytelling strategy. She teaches the CultureSmart Story Strategy based on nearly two decades of experience as a writer, digital storyteller, traveler and student of culture. Dawn has spent her career working for and consulting with companies on content and digital marketing strategy to help them clarify and simplify their brand message. She’s also a certified cultural intelligence facilitator, has lived and worked in the Middle East and Eastern Europe, and holds a master’s degree in journalism and mass communication from The University of Georgia.

Carlos Pons is a localization user experience designer at Oracle Netsuite in Barcelona, Spain. Originally from the Mediterranean island of Majorca, during his career he has taken on product design and development roles for a variety of companies such as Hotelbeds Group, trivago and eDreams ODIGEO. Carlos is a self-taught professional, passionate about the intersection of technology with sociology. He is always thinking of ways technology can improve the life of people and loves sharing knowledge to empower the teams he works with.

Oleksandr Pysaryuk is a localization leader with experience in building and growing successful teams and disciplines focused on internationalization, software development, localization and internationalization technical program management, and global product management at the enterprise scale – in sports technology, telecommunications, human capital management, e-commerce and engineering organizations.

Nishant Rai works as an internalization engineer for Adobe’s globalization team, working on technologies and services across projects. The team works on Adobe’s product software and content localization frameworks. As part of the team, Nishant works on building a localization platform built on Adobe Experience Manager. As a research project, he has been exploring the multilingual and nonnative aspects of a speech recognition system that can improve the performance of in-product voice assistants. Nishant has six years of experience in software development and a master’s degree in information technology.

Åsa Ralpher is head of language and publishing at Scania and part of a team consisting of four terminologists, one language advisor and five translation managers. The team is in charge of Scania Lexicon, a terminology database with approximately 7,000 approved terms and 1,000 deprecated, in an average of 24 languages, as well as handling the translation processes for all Scania service information, approximately 45 million target words divided between 25 information products and 18-29 languages. She has a professional background of five years in the consultancy business for technical writing, over  ten years in different managerial and selling positions within the localization business, and the past five years as head of language and publishing. Åsa has formal training in business administration and languages from Uppsala University and the University of Kingston upon Hull in the UK, and a diploma for corporate governance/board of directors from the Stockholm Chamber of Commerce.

Rebecca Ray has focused on designing, testing, adapting and marketing software outside of the United States since 1980. She has managed worldwide product design, localization and marketing for successful products sold internationally by IBM, Netscape Communications, Remedy Systems, Symantec Corporation and Sun Microsystems. She is fluent in English, French and Spanish and proficient in Portuguese and Turkish. In her work at Common Sense Advisory, Rebecca’s primary focus is enterprise globalization, social media, multilingual SEO and global product development. Her other coverage areas include outsourcing, testing, multimedia localization and internationalization. A former Rotarian scholar and Silicon Valley veteran, Rebecca was most recently managing editor for the Localization Industry Standards Association. During her tenure, she oversaw all of the association’s research and publications. She also coauthored a book for global high-tech companies on doing business in the United States. Based in Turkey, she has lived and worked in Asia, Europe, the Middle East and Latin America for many years.

Juliana Peres Rebelatto Pereira has 12 years in the industry and manages the globalization language services team at Motorola Mobile Business Group. She has built a team of project managers who focus on innovation and research while always aiming for process scalability and language quality assurance for final users, as well as a group of linguists who provide localization of products in the consumer electronics market through advanced UI visualization methodologies for testing. Juliana has a BS in languages from Pontifical Catholic University of São Paulo in Brazil, where she currently lives, has earned a postgraduate degree from Fundação Getulio Vargas in people management and holds a certification from the University of California Berkeley in project management.

Antoine Rey, senior vice president, customer development at Argos Multilingual, started his career in localization in 1997 and has held various technical, sales, and management roles in the industry. His main area of focus is to consult, develop, and implement mature operational and business globalization models with clients across various industries. Antoine is a French native and holds a MS in information technology and a BA in international business and communications. He lives in Dublin, Ireland.

Vera Richards has spent over 20 years in various positions within the localization industry. With a passion for removing language and cultural barriers, she has worked on the client side and for the past 11 years on the language service provider side, always keeping the target global audiences at the forefront of her mind. Vera embraces the constant evolution of the localization process and sees it as an enriching and exciting challenge. In her current role as a vice president of localization at Akorbi, she focuses on matching talented individuals with new technologies fulfilling the growing global market needs.

Gregor Rosulnik is the leading generator of GORR’s business, financial and technical development, which he does with passion and devotion. Gregor’s positive energy, outgoing personality and entrepreneurial attitude will not leave you indifferent. Or just wait to see him slaying on a badminton court.

Dave Ruane started his 25-year localization industry journey in technology and solutions roles, followed by operations management, consultancy, and then designed globalization business solutions for enterprises. He is a regular moderator and speaker at industry events, and runs the Process Innovation Challenge at LocWorld. He is a self-confessed techie, based in coastal Spain and more often than not can be found near fly fishing water.

Florian Sachse is chief evangelist of memoQ Ltd. where he advocates for memoQ, its strategy, and positioning in the localization industry. He has worked for memoQ since 2013 and previously worked as a C++ developer, developer team lead, head of development, and CTO. One of his first development projects dating more than 40 years back was to get the German umlaut into an English word processor application. In 1998, Florian started working with language technology when PASS Engineering introduced the leading software localization solution PASSOLO to the market. As managing director of PASS Engineering, his initial focus was the development of mission critical software for clinical analyzers.

Gaya Saghatelyan is responsible for globalization enablement at HubSpot. As an internal consultant she enables teams to scale globally and create an equitable experience for users regardless of the language they speak. Gaya was born in Armenia, raised in the United States and now lives in Germany. She’s passionate about language accessibility and education.

Martin Schneekloth has more than 20 years of experience in the localization industry and is a firm believer in internationalization best practices to achieve high-quality localized products. As globalization manager at RippleWorx, Martin is responsible for product strategy and direction as it pertains to internationalization, localization and quality. Along with his globalization management role, he manages localization into 35+ languages. Martin has obtained PMP certification along with a select number of localization professional certificates. He also holds a bachelor of business administration degree and a master of science degree in management.

Miguel Sepulveda is a localization geek, blogger, toastmaster, avid reader of management and self-growth books, PMP, proud father of two great kids and a video games player with not enough time to master (yet) the new version of FIFA. He will never forget his first localization project in 1995 as a localization Spanish specialist for Microsoft Excel ’95, the early days of the localization industry when the pillars were being constructed at Microsoft Dublin.

Languages and cultures are Tatiana Shanler’s passion. She has over 15 years of experience in globalization, localization and translations. Tatiana built her career from localization testing specialist and quality assurance to project manager on the vendor and client sides working at Lionbridge, IBM, Pearson and other companies. She holds a BA/MA in linguistics and an MS in information technology management.

A Localization Institute-certified localization project manager, Robert Shaw has 17 years of content management experience and is based in London. Since graduating from City University of London with a BS (Hons) in business computing systems, his career has to date taken in ebooks, satellite navigation, local radio and rock music. Most recently at OpenTable, the world’s leading provider of online restaurant reservations, he ensures that all content on all websites and mobile apps engages with diners and restaurateurs from all over the world, enabling diners to discover and book their restaurant visits — and restaurateurs to make their restaurants discoverable and bookable.

Richard Sikes has been immersed in technical translation and localization for over 30 years. He is passionate about linguistic technologies of all kinds and spends much of his time deploying technology solutions. Richard has managed localization teams at several industry-leading software companies. He contributes frequently to MultiLingual magazine, and is well-known as an organizer, speaker, and moderator at translation industry events.

Cornelia Sittel leads the localization team at Salesforce Commerce Cloud. After working for over a decade in various software quality assurance management roles, seven years ago, she returned to the career she originally trained for, and built a localization team and processes at Demandware (which became Salesforce Commerce Cloud 2016). Cornelia’s team is proud to enable the global reach of a world-class eCommerce software suite. She holds a master’s degree in translation from the Ruprecht-Karls-University in Heidelberg, Germany where she also pursued a doctorate in applied modern linguistics, which ultimately took her to Boston University. Cornelia is a native speaker of German, and besides English, is fluent in French, Italian, Spanish and Dutch as well as an avid student of Japanese. Her main interests include internationalization engineering, automated quality assurance, speech technologies and machine translation. She holds five US patents in internationalization/location.

Wolf Steinhauer studied at the SDI Müchen for translators and interpreters. He has been working for more than ten years in different sectors such as professional sports, the manufacturing industry and finance as a translator and interpreter. Wolf shares his insights with his colleagues all over Europe to help them reach their full potential.

Giulia Tarditi is a localization professional with 15 years of experience setting up localization programs and teams on the client-side. She is a regular speaker for localization webinars, panels, talks, and social network debates. Giulia is known for her innovative approach and out-of-the-box ideas, and is highly praised for implementing data-first and highly customized operating models.

Alison Toon has over 25 years of experience in the translation and localization industry with an emphasis in management of translation and localization tools, processes, architecture and operation for content management, and ebusiness services across enterprises. Her experience in these research areas and key projects help CSA Research’s clients gain key insights into the technologies, pricing and business processes key to executive buy-in.

Anne-Maj van der Meer is a marketing professional with over ten years of experience in event organization and management. She has a BA in English language and culture from the University of Amsterdam and a specialization in creative writing from Harvard University. Before her position at TAUS, Anne-Maj was a teacher at primary schools in regular as well as special needs education. She started her career at TAUS in 2009 as the first TAUS employee where she became a jack of all trades, taking care of bookkeeping and accounting as well as creating and managing the website and customer services. For the past five years, Anne-Maj has served as the events director, chief content editor and designer of publications. She has helped in the organization of more than 35 LocWorld conferences, where she took care of the program for the TAUS track and hosted and moderated these sessions.

Kirti Vashee is a language technology evangelist at Translated who was formerly an independent consultant focusing on machine translation (MT) and translation technology. He has been associated with several MT developers including Language Weaver, SDL, Systran, and Asia Online. Kirti has long-term experience in the MT technology arena and several software companies including Lotus, OTG, Legato, and EMC. He is the moderator of the LinkedIn Automated Language Translation (MT) group with over 8,000 members, and is also a former board member of American Machine Translation Association. Kirti is active on Twitter and is the editor and chief contributor to a respected blog that focuses on MT, AI and translation automation, and industry-related issues.

Jennifer Vela-Valido is a localization strategist with over ten years of experience in various roles in the localization industry. She has recently completed a PhD in localization quality management and she collaborates with several universities as a researcher and guest lecturer specializing in localization strategies, vendor management, and linguistic quality management. Jennifer is a member of ASTM International’s  Subcommittee F43.03 on language translation and the ISO/TC 37/SC 5/WG 1 translation working group.

Sarah Weldon is a product manager for Google’s AutoML Translation and Cloud Translation API. She joined Google’s Cloud AI team in 2018 after five years at Microsoft, working on Azure. Sarah joined Microsoft after completing her MBA at UC Berkeley Haas School of Business.

Lorna Whelan has been working in localization for over 20 years and has led localization at TripAdvisor since 2010. She is responsible for the localization of all brands within the TripAdvisor Media Group. Previously Lorna held positions at Sun Microsystems and Welocalize, and she holds a BA in languages and computer science from the University of Limerick.

Camille Xu is the director of translation technology of Linguitronics Co., Ltd., where she has been fully devoted to language services, translation management and translation technology for the past five years. She received a BA degree in translation and interpreting and an MS degree in European studies. Camille has been a translator in the IT and life science domains for more than nine years. She also has extensive experience in project management as well as training and consulting in translation environment tools and other translation technologies. Camille is a frequent speaker and trainer at Linguitronics in Taiwan and China.

After earning an MS in translation technology at UCL and a master’s in marketing management at LUISS, Benedetta Zamagni joined the localization industry as an account manager. As a natural-born geek, her interest quickly shifted toward process automation and applied machine learning, first by building a parser for lead generation, and then a classifier for translators’ résumés. Benedetta now combines her knowledge of technologies with creative marketing, leading Translated’s content strategy for what concerns products.

Britta Aagaard is chief business officer at Semantix and is responsible for the total business within localization and advanced language solutions. With an academic background in philosophy and the science of language, coupled with an entrepreneurial mindset, Britta joined the language industry in 2004. Today she is enjoying the privilege of providing executive leadership to her organization and thought leadership to the language community. Britta serves on the board of directors of GALA and LT-Innovate and is part of the LIND Expert Group of the European Commission, with the ambition to position the language industry in the intersection of humanity and AI. Britta has a clear vision and commitment to creating a scalable business platform through sustainable integrations of people, technology, and solutions for a prosperous and democratic digital future.

Known affectionately as The Content Wrangler, Scott Abel is an internationally recognized intelligent content strategist and cognitive computing evangelist who specializes in helping organizations deliver the right content to the right audience, anywhere, anytime, on any device. He is the coauthor of Intelligent Content: A Primer and The Language of Content Strategy (XML Press). Scott is the founder, CEO and chief strategist at The Content Wrangler, Inc. He coproduces Information Development World Conferences, produces a popular series of content strategy books and is the host of the San Francisco Content Strategy Content Marketing Professionals Meetup. Scott is also a highly sought-after keynote presenter, moderator and a frequent contributor to content industry publications. He manages one of the most widely-viewed webinar channels on the BrightTALK network, producing over 100 content-focused webinars a year. Scott’s alter ego, The Audio Wrangler, is a popular DJ and dance music mashup artist.

Isabel Aguilera is the former CEO of Google and General Electric (GE), Spain and Portugal. She was responsible for the set-up of Google Iberia (Spain and Portugal) from 2006 to 2008, and the creation of NH’s international business model after it purchased hotel chains in Mexico, Germany and Holland (2002-05). Isabel has been CEO and business unit director for Dell in southern Europe and was president of GE in Spain and Portugal from 2008 to 2009. She has experience in the international world of board membership, which includes serving on the education group Laureate Inc’s board, the IE Business School’s International Advisory Board and that of the Energy Council. Isabel is currently an independent board member of Indra (a leading Spanish IT company), Banco Mare Nostrum (a bank), Aegón España (an insurance company), Oryzon (a biopharmaceutical company) and Egasa (a gaming and entertainment company). She has proven experience in creating unique business models following various company mergers and acquisitions. Isabel offers outstanding guidance on optimization, management and monitoring processes for multinational, multisectoral and multidisciplinary businesses and teams.

Aimee Ansari has over 20 years of experience in leadership positions in large humanitarian and development organizations. She has worked in several humanitarian crises from the Tajik civil war to the earthquake in Haiti, the conflicts in the Balkans to the Syrian refugee crisis and the conflict in South Sudan. Prior to joining Translators without Borders in 2016, Aimee worked with Care, Oxfam, Save the Children and the United Nations.

Hilary Atkisson Normanha is the senior internationalization program manager for Spotify. During her career in the localization industry, she has worked on both the client and vendor sides in Brazil and the US. Hilary holds a degree in psychological sciences and has over 15 years of experience in the globalization industry. She is passionate about process innovation and enabling globally scalable products.

Iwona Bąk is global production manager at Summa Linguae Technologies, a global language solutions provider. She currently manages project management, quality management, vendor management, multimedia and technology teams in Europe and Asia. Iwona graduated in sociology and company management then started her career path in recruitment, supply chain and vendor management. She spent over ten years at Argos Multilingual and later at RWS Moravia building dedicated supplier teams for up to 196 languages. With a strong customer focus, she now makes sure unique and innovative solutions are developed hand in hand with the customers.