Mazin Al-Jumaili has worked in international localization and the post-production sector for nearly 30 years. His previous positions include managing director of UK at BTI Studios, vice president of localization at Deluxe Europe, and head of operations at Visiontext. For the past ten years, Mazin has managed international localization and media packaging operations in addition to upholding his role as a key sales and business development leader. He has recently taken on a role to recruit in-territory talent representatives and dubbing studios to build a network of capture facilities, voice actors, adaptors, and audio engineers.

Markus Albers is a well-known writer, consultant, and entrepreneur living in Berlin. His roles include executive, director thought leadership at C3 as well as cofounder and partner at Rethink. He publishes a monthly newsletter, “Rethinking“, about the intersection of tech, society, and communication. As a journalist, Markus worked in various editorial and management roles at Brand Eins, Monocle, Vanity Fair, Welt am Sonntag, and SZ-Magazin. His texts have also been published in, among others, Die Zeit, GQ, AD, Spiegel, and Stern. Markus has also written a few nonfiction books: Morgen komm ich später rein, Meconomy, Rethinking Luxury, and Digitale Erschöpfung which have been translated into five languages. He speaks and host workshops based on his books’ topics. Markus is a member of the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences, a jury member at Best of Content Marketing Award, a guest lecturer at ESCP and Do-School, and he cochairs the department for Future of Work at the German Association for the Digital Economy. In his agency roles, he has worked for clients such as Volkswagen, PWC, Microsoft, Facebook, Google, Bosch, Vodafone, Lufthansa, RolandBerger, Deutsche Bank, NXP, and Mazars.

Petr Antropov is the chief revenue officer and cofounder of Lokalise. He started his career in investment banking, then turned serial entrepreneur cofounding Odnoklassniki, a social network service sold to the Mail.ru Group, streaming provider Megogo.net, and Roamer app. The latter turned out to be the starting point for Lokalise. Leading all commercial operations at Lokalise, Petr has secured over 2,500 customers from 80 countries, ranging from startups to Fortune 500 companies, including BASF, Revolut, Monday.com, and Arduino.

Andrea Ballista has been working in the game industry for more than 25 years. Starting from his passion of music, songwriting, and singing, he holds a degree in computer music. Since cofounding Binari Sonori in 1994, Andrea has been the audio director for Keywords Studios from 2015 until the end of 2019. In 2020 he  cofounded Voiseed to proceed into research and development of deep learning-based emotional virtual voices.

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.

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.

Passionate about growth, mentorship, and technology, Sonya Biernath has built several high-performance teams while creating strategies and workflows to help increase return on investment from recruitment to training, production, and delivery. In her current role, she oversees Deluxe’s Spain client services across dubbing, subtitling, creative post-production, fulfillment, and advertising. Originally from Canada, she received her formal education in Toronto at Ryerson, in Montreal at Concordia, and in New York at NYU. Before joining Deluxe, Sonya worked primarily in marketing, communications, and audiovisual production. In another lifetime, she was an award-winning choreographer who worked under the mentorship of Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker.

Melissa Biggs is a cofounder and consultant with Locale Solutions, providing localization strategy consulting for companies in technology. Previously at Sun Microsystems/Oracle, she held senior management positions, managing both program managers and globalization strategies. Melissa expanded into marketing localization management and initiatives at Informatica and Check Point Systems. She has served on globalization industry-wide boards including TAUS, the Localization Institute, and is a member of the GILT Leaders Forum. Melissa is active in nonprofits, including the US State Department TechWomen program, and as a board member of the Global Lives Project.

Alessandra Binazzi is a leading expert in globalization strategy, tech stack definition and implementation, process automation and change management for global companies looking to expand reach and maximize revenues. Proficient in all major European languages, Alessandra has dedicated her professional life to advocating for international users and to create, market, and support products and services that engage customers in all continents. She is the principal consultant of Global Sights Consulting, member of the Board of Advisors of the Process Innovation Challenge, a former Board Member of the Globalization and Localization Association (GALA).

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 the product owner for the TMSQA and CFT systems at Argos Multilingual, Robert Brodowicz drives development by discussing requirements with users and stakeholders. He also dabbles in AI and strives to bring innovation into the old and dusty quality assurance status quo. Robert moved to Kraków for his studies about ten years ago and has remained there ever since.

Julia Cassidy has been in the localization industry for over 16 years and has held various roles at tech companies ranging from technical translator, machine translation specialist, language and process engineer to language quality and localization manager. She is passionate about building scalable localization programs that help companies connect and resonate with a global audience. Since early 2021, Julia has been the head of localization at Momentive (the makers of SurveyMonkey) as well as the chapter manager of Women in Localization Ireland.

Isaure Chundoo holds a master degree in English and Spanish translation from the University of Paris. She has over ten years of experience working in localization at Amplexor (now Acolad), with roles in translation, project management, and team management. Isaure is currently a presales consultant at SYSTRAN, where she supports machine translation users in their journey toward making the most of technology.

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).

Karen Combe recently retired from her position as vice president of localization at PTC, where she was responsible for product localization as well as for localization support for PTC University, technical support, and marketing. Since its inception, she has been a member of the GILT Leaders Forum, a community of peers in the localization industry. Previously, Karen was senior vice president at International Language Engineering, where she managed client services, sales, and marketing. She holds a BA in linguistics from the University of California at Berkeley and a post-graduate degree in social anthropology from the University of Cambridge. Karen served in the Peace Corps in Senegal and in International Voluntary Services in Algeria. In addition, she worked for eight years on a ranch in northwestern Colorado training horses and looking after a large herd of cattle.

Alex Coope has nearly 20 years of professional IT experience with over ten years specializing in ServiceNow global and multilingual implementations.  He helps customers optimize their way of working and removing languages as a barrier to achieve their ambitious visions and achieve great outcomes.

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.

Emer Dolan is president of enterprise services, holding overall responsibility for developing the company’s enterprise services revenue growth that encompasses solution architecture, data services, delivery, and commercial operations. With more than 25 years’ experience in internationalization and enterprise software services, Emer began her career in the localization industry in 1995 when she joined one of the globe’s largest technology companies. She moved on to hold several senior product-focused positions. Passionate about the role of language in global market enablement, Emer returned to the localization industry and joined Moravia IT (acquired by RWS) in 2015, as a program director, later becoming chief client services officer. She has since held several leadership positions within RWS. A native of Dublin, Ireland, Emer currently lives in the US.

Anne-Cécile Dousson-Lhéritier is a manager of content management at Amazon. Her strengths and focus areas are process optimization, business efficiency, and lately data forecasting. Prior to joining Amazon in 2019, she gained professional credentials by building and running the content department of GetYourGuide GmbH, a Berlin-based travel unicorn. Anne-Cécile started her career at translation agencies and tech companies in Silicon Valley. Her content and business strategies, localization expertise, and technical innovations are the basis of her thought leadership. Anne-Cécile is an occasional contributor to MultiLingual magazine and industry conferences, and also participated in the localization community expansion by managing the Women in Localization, Germany chapter.

Formerly of Memsource, where he collaborated on a big data program, Konstantin Dranch runs translationrating.ru, a ranking and research blog for language service providers (LSPs) in Russia and Ukraine. He currently collaborates with the ATC association to survey LSPs in the United Kingdom, and with CNET in France. Konstantin is one of the creators of national translation conferences: Translation Forum Russia and Ukrainian Translation Industry Conference.

Bert Esselink has been active in localization for nearly three decades. He worked for many years as a localization specialist and solutions architect, focusing on process management, language technology, multilingual marketing and global content management. In 2000, his book A Practical Guide to Localization was published and since then Bert has continued to contribute to publications on localization including most recently The Language of Localization in 2017 and The Routledge Handbook of Translation and Technology in 2019.

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.

Tomas Franc is a lead sales solutions architect at Lokalise, where he designs tailored localization processes. He has over 22 years of experience in the localization industry and has designed and implemented truly agile, state of the art localization processes for the biggest technology brands. Tomas was the LocWorld Process Innovator of the Year USA 2017 and is an occasional LocWorld conference speaker.

Giada Gerotto is a reckless optimist, a learner-by-doing, and a cat lover. After gaining experience through several roles in the localization industry, she claims she has found her place in vendor management, where she has been for the past seven years. Giada is now the community manager at Creative Words, where she oversees recruitment, development, and monitoring of the company’s network of freelance translators, working hard toward fostering healthy and satisfactory business relationships with all of them.

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.

Ulrich Henes is the founder and president of The Localization Institute, a Madison, Wisconsin-based consulting and event organizing company. Already in his early years, Ulrich was fascinated by language, cultural differences, and global business. He spent the first decade of his career organizing international campaigns against the arms race and apartheid; and promoting global social justice. For the past 25 years Ulrich has channeled his passion for all things global into promoting awareness and respect for differences among people, countries, and languages in the international business community.

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.

Natalia Horbachevska is a co-founder and CEO of the Task Force translation company, established in 2011 and proudly originating from Ukraine. While Ukraine is at war, Natalia’s team is working and translating for global clients. Today the team translates more than 100 language pairs with a primary focus on Eastern European languages. Task Force, with its main focus on legal, pharmaceutical, and healthcare, as well as IT and cybersecurity, is ISO 17100 certified, ranked in the top three Ukrainian translation companies, and included in the international index of Slator.com for translation companies as a boutique.

Jochen Hummel is cofounder and CEO of Coreon GmbH. He also heads ESTeam AB, a leading language operations company. As founder of TRADOS, Jochen established computer-assisted translation as a product category, with Semiox he is reinventing multilingual again. He is an internationally known software executive, business angel, and serial entrepreneur.

Naho Inuyama is an Amsterdam-based marketing localization team manager at the software development company, Atlassian. Active since 2010 in the localization industry, Naho has a unique background in both engineering and Japanese marketing management. She has worked at marketing firms, team specialization, and software engineering. Along with her extensive experience in team optimization, scripting languages, and web content management, Naho’s technical and marketing background has allowed her to build an effective strategy to focus on local needs, as well as grow a localization team with agile.

Originally a linguist, Selcen Kalender has been in localization for over 15 years, both on the buyer and provider sides. She has recently joined Patreon to lead their localization program. Previously, Selcen built localization teams, including linguists, project managers, content delivery, localization analytics, and quality experts. She also deployed globalization programs at various companies to support them with their global expansion strategies. Throughout her career, Selcen has collaborated closely with marketing and product teams, developing fully localized integrated marketing campaigns, with a focus on increasing conversion globally, and improving user experience in different territories.

As the senior head of localization services, Alex Katsambas oversees the localization, transcreation, and content creation in 15 languages across the FARFETCH group and its partners. Heading a global team of language specialists, project managers, and technical experts, Alex and his team build workflow, process, and resource solutions for the localization of editorial, CRM, performance marketing, product information, UX, and e-Learning content, supporting FARFETCH and its partners to realize their international expansion plans. The FARFETCH localization services team puts a special focus on quality and branding, aiming to provide a truly luxurious experience for fashion and beauty customers around the world. Prior to FARFETCH, Alex worked in the localization of digital channels for clients such as Adidas, Unilever, Turkish Airlines, and others.

Saurabh Kavathekar is on a mission to help software users throughout the world with a truly localized experience leveraging technology and innovation. Having spent over 20 years in software globalization, he is among the first few who have laid the foundation of modern software globalization practice in India. Saurabh is currently the head of product and support globalization at NetApp. He has worked with companies such as CA Technologies and Symantec where he introduced process and technology changes to make globalization teams more efficient and enterprise software products more competitive and profitable in international markets.

Alon Lavie is vice president of AI research at Phrase. He has been at the leading edge of AI research in language technology for many years. He has just concluded a tenure as VP of language technologies at Unbabel, where he led the company’s U.S. AI lab based in Pittsburgh, and provided strategic leadership for the company’s broader AI R&D teams. Prior to this, Alon headed up the Amazon Machine Translation R&D group in Pittsburgh. Notably, earlier in his career, he co-founded and led a machine translation technology start-up, Safaba Translation Solutions, ultimately serving the company as president and chairman of the board, until its acquisition by Amazon in 2015. Additionally, Alon has been at the forefront of academic research in machine translation. His impressive academic credentials include 20 years of serving as research professor at Carnegie Mellon’s Language Technology Institute (LTI) where he is now consulting professor. His primary research has focused on machine translation and translation evaluation as well as related areas such as MT adaptation approaches with and without human feedback, quality estimation, and methods for multi-engine MT system combinations.

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.

Pascale Le Blévennec is the senior account manager in charge of language service providers (LSPs), banking, and consulting at SYSTRAN. She has a deep understanding of LSP needs and challenges in regard to translation technologies. With a strong background in project and sales cycle management, and 20 years of experience bringing value to clients through machine translation (MT) projects, Pascale is focusing on building long-term relationships to help customers maximize the benefits drawn from their MT solution.

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.

As a localization deployment specialist, Alexandra Lemer helps customers realize the full potential of ServiceNow products in languages other than English. Internally, she constantly advocates for internationalization and localization evangelization by empowering other teams to deliver the best localized services.

Wouter Maagdenberg started his first tech company during his BA studies at Erasmus University in 1996. He sold his former company, Calamares (Enterprise Video Content Management), to SDL in 2011. Wouter left his role as VP media worldwide at SDL in 2016 to start TXTOmedia. TXTOmedia technology transforms structured content into rich media in an automated way, procedures become interactive how-to videos on-the-fly. Wouter’s role combines product management with business development.

Jay Marciano, director of machine translation outreach and strategy at Lengoo, has spent 25 years at the forefront of developing and applying machine translation (MT). He has held senior positions  at SDL (2001-2010) and Lionbridge (2010-2020), where he was responsible for the global strategy of using MT to increase translation efficiency. Jay is president of the Association for Machine Translation in the Americas (AMTA) and presents widely on MT, AI, and the future of the translation industry. He is a leading figure in building understanding among language professionals of the power and potential of MT and other AI-driven technologies.

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.

Priscila Mottola has been immersed in the buyer side of localization for almost a decade. With an eclectic career history and always championing efforts to resonate deeply with multiple target audiences, she won first place as a researcher at a US communications conference, took part as a soundtrack composer in Cannes Lions-awarded projects, and spent years as a regional translation manager at a multinational. Priscila is a certified Security Awareness and Culture Professional (SACP) and leads the quality assurance team that ensures the quality of localized content at KnowBe4.

Bryan Murphy is the CEO of Smartling, a translation and localization software company servicing hundreds of global companies. He was formerly the vice president of vertical markets at eBay, and CEO and Cofounder of WHI, a software-as-a-service company, acquired by eBay in 2012. Bryan has also served as CEO of Breather and president of digital for Serta Simmons. He serves as a director for JEGS.com and Playpower. Bryan is also an advisor for Starboard Capital Partners and is a former director of Neighborly and PartsSource.

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.

Iris Orriss serves as a vice president of internationalization, product quality, and product experience analytics at Meta. She has been with Meta since January 2013 and is passionate about eliminating the internet language and cultural barriers, and improving the overall user experience. Her work focuses on growing Meta in international markets. From 2012-2019, Iris was a member of the board at Translators without Borders, a nonprofit organization that provides vital information in the right language at the right time. Prior to Meta, she was a director at Microsoft, working on product internationalization and development process in the enterprise and language technology divisions. Iris is a native of Germany, speaks four languages, and was educated at Freie Universität Berlin.

Véronique Özkya has established herself as a prominent figure in the localization industry, demonstrating expertise and leadership across various professional roles. At Lionbridge and Moravia, she helped scale the businesses to become among the largest content services players in the industry. Post-Moravia, Véronique became CEO at Xplanation, and then at Argos Multilingual, where she played a pivotal role in shaping organizational strategies and fostering growth across sectors such as technology, life sciences, finance, and retail. She is a frequent public speaker on leadership, growth hacking, diversity, and inclusion. Véronique is a former GALA board chair.

Maria Paez Playa is the head of localization program management at Meta. Her team drives localization strategy at scale for Meta’s diverse suite of products. Maria started in the localization industry ten years ago as a linguist and found her passion for program management at Snapchat where she founded and grew the localization team.

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.

Born into a multicultural family of scientists, Marina Pantcheva paired her multilingual background with an eccentric childhood dream that led her to mastering 11 languages…and still counting. After working as translator, educator, consultant, and founding her own language school, she turned to exploring the elementary particles of language in her PhD research on nanosyntax. In 2014, Marina exchanged academic life for the high-paced world of localization, and currently leads a multifaceted crowd localization project. In her spare time, she reads about science and engages in research inspired by the vast amount of data she encounters in her daily work.

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.

Mariette Pepping created and manages the ServiceNow marketing localization team, which is responsible for the translation and adaptation of marketing content and digital experiences to worldwide audiences. Since January 1, 2024, Mariette has relocated to Costa Rica, where ServiceNow opened a new office. Next to her marketing localization responsibilities she now also manages the Marketing Center of Excellence in Costa Rica. She has over ten years of experience in global digital marketing including designing and executing connected programs across the globe.

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.

Xinzi Rao is workstream lead for data within the localization area at SAP. She is responsible for data modeling, low-code, no-code strategies and promotion of data literacy. Being a true global citizen and digital native, Xinzi was trained in anthropology, sociology, transcultural studies, and religious studies.

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.

For more than 20 years Jon Ritzdorf has been immersed in localization; starting as a translator, transitioning into engineering, and ultimately moving into strategy where he has remained for over a decade. As a former senior solutions architect, he currently crafts globalization strategies for companies ranging from Fortune 100 to start-ups and unicorns. Outside of his full-time job, Jon is also an adjunct professor at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies and the University of Maryland where he strives to uplift the next generation of professionals in language technology, solutions development, and the business side of the translation industry. In 2012, he received an award in “Teaching Excellence.”

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.

Libor Safar is the vice president of growth at Argos Multilingual. He has localization and translation industry experience spanning over 20 years. Libor joined Moravia in 1995 and held various translation, production, sales, marketing and other management responsibilities in Europe and Japan during the company’s growth. Libor holds a master’s degree in electrical engineering from the Brno University of Technology, and an MBA from the Open University in the United Kingdom.

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.

After receiving a PhD in 2008, Konstantin Savenkov led research and development efforts for online content services, then worked as CTO at Zvooq and as a chief operating officer at Bookmate. In 2016, he contributed his experience in artificial intelligence (AI), technology, and operations to found Intento, Inc., where they build tools to source, evaluate, and use machine translation and other cognitive AI services.

Commonly referred to as “the guy in the pink shirt”, Scott Schwalbach has been in the localization and globalization business for 45+ years, working for and with some of the largest companies and governments in the world. He has worked with sales, solutions, and operations divisions of service companies ensuring that they delivered solutions that drove customers to success.

Scott worked on the original localization pilot team at Microsoft and stayed for 18 years. In addition, he has worked on Google localization for 7 years, Amazon for 4 years, and spent 10 years with the U.S. Government.

Scott teaches various courses in communications and customer expectations, group dynamics as well as advises start-ups and VC’s on globalization best practices. Scott’s free time involves taking care of his mini orchard, adventuring with his Sheltie, Cody, trying out new recipes and other adventures around the world.

Gilberto Segura is a localization industry veteran starting in ’00 where he has navigated the complexities of communication on both the buyer [i.e. Dell, Amazon] and vendor [i.e. Welocalize, Lionbridge, and others] sides for over twenty plus years. From enterprise problems related to startup, Gilbert [a localized name!] has always been found around the transit between language and technology. With Voxabot and PGLS he’s starting to explore the land of speech; and despite the Ai hype cycle, he is exploring multilingual communication beyond the confines of text.

Jenny Seidel is terminologist and language process consultant at berns language consulting GmbH (blc). At blc, she supports major customers in the field of terminology management and process consulting. Jenny completed her studies as a technical translator at the TH Köln in 2014.

At Translated, Michael Stevens is responsible for growth: finding interesting companies to work with and building a team that values the humans in the ever-growing world of automation. As cohost of The Global Podcast, he explores areas of the localization industry that spark his own curiosity and he then shares it with the industry at large. Over the years, Michael has studied languages, marketing, and searched deeply to understand the mind of God. He has worked successfully with two major language service providers and also consulted in software development. Michael lives in Seattle, Washington with his family.

Agnieszka Szarkowska is an audiovisual translation researcher and media localization trainer. She works as a university professor at the University of Warsaw, where she is also the head of the AVT Lab research group. She is also an honorary research associate at University College London. Drawing on her passion for teaching, Agnieszka has co-founded AVT Masterclass, an online platform for professional audiovisual translation education.

Min Tan is a localization consultant from Google’s global business solutions team. She has been in the localization industry for almost ten years, working on both the service provider and buyer sides. Most recently, Min worked as the Simplified Chinese language manager for Google. She graduated with a master’s degree in translation and localization management from the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey.

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.

Miklós Urbán has been in the industry for over 20 years, working both on the language services and the tool provider sides. As an expert in translation automation and machine translation-driven localization, he is building solutions for some of the greatest brands in the world at RWS Moravia. Miklós strives to share his knowledge to the young generation of translation professionals as well as spread the love of the sky as a hobby astronomer.

Peggy van der Kreeft is an innovation manager at the research and cooperation projects department of Deutsche Welle, the German world broadcaster based in Bonn. She is an applied linguist, specialized in bringing language technology applications, in particular speech-to-text, automated translation, subtitling, and voiceover into the media world. Peggy coordinates human language technology efforts and further enhancement of the plain X localization platform. She currently runs the Monitio project on multilingual media monitoring and also actively participates in SELMA research and innovation advancements such as speech-to-speech translation, summarization, and multilingual analysis of datastreams.

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.

Beatriz Verdasco has been in internationalization and localization for over 16 years and has 10+ years of experience leading multicultural and multidisciplinary global teams that multiply growth by bringing digital products to international audiences. She leads localization and global readiness at Trendyol Group, the largest eCommerce company in Turkey and the most valuable private internet company in the EMEA region. Bea is passionate about the combined power of technology and languages to create authentic, inclusive experiences for people across cultures and geographical borders.

Hartmut von Berg is senior director of localization at GoTo, a company that helps people and businesses do their best work — simply and securely — from anywhere. He serves as the site leader of GoTo’s office in Karlsruhe, Germany, where he drives employee satisfaction, employer branding, and GoTo’s charity and youth education program, GoTo Gives. Over the past three year’s, Hartmut has transformed the localization function at GoTo from a translation service into a globalization consultancy driven by his passion to serve GoTo’s international customer base with compelling localized experiences.

Peng Wang has been teaching, researching and practicing localization on three continents. She is the convener for EDUinLOC, a part-time professor at the University of Ottawa, and a freelance conference interpreter with the Translation Bureau of the Canadian government. Peng began conducting corpus-based translation studies at the University of Liverpool and later she worked in the Corpus Research Lab at Northern Arizona University. She is an expert in approaching technology in the context of culture and humanities. Peng’s current research interests include human learning vs. machine learning, machine translation risk management, terminology and multilingual data analysis.

Caroline Westberg has over ten years of experience in translation and localization. She leads scaled operations and grows high-performing localization teams across the globe at Booking.com, one of the world’s leading platforms for finding accommodation, from hotels to bed and breakfasts.

Johannes Widmann has a degree in linguistics and political science from Tübingen University, Germany. He has worked as a terminologist in corporate environments for ten years. Johannes’ focus is on making terminology data ready for the twenty-first century challenges. This includes increasing data quality and terminological consistency so that both machine learning algorithms and company users across different departments can profit. Over the past five years, he has explored the potential of concept maps as an additional data layer for applying terminology in use cases not related to translation.

Zeynep Yeğiner is experienced in global content creation and localization strategies to support company expansions in EMEA markets and beyond.

Roy Yokoyama is the founder and director of Mountain Edge. He has more than 20 years of experience in internationalization and localization. Before establishing his company, he was a principal globalization engineer at Motorola/Google and a senior browser software engineer at Netscape in Mountain View, California. Roy received his bachelor of engineering degree in 1989 from Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada.

Karina Zidan is a localization professional with a career of 20+ years in various roles that have consistently revolved around optimizing localized messaging. As a former marketeer for multiple global brands operating in Arabic-speaking markets and an independent translator, her experience spans both ends of the localization industry. Karina is part of the quality assurance team that ensures the quality of localized security awareness training content at KnowBe4 and is a certified Security Awareness and Culture Professional (SACP).