Hameed Afssari is a multi-disciplinary globalization veteran with a long history of leadership in the localization industry. His focus is on improving the localization process and tooling to provide service to millions of users worldwide in their own language. Hameed currently serves as head of globalization at Uber and has also led effective teams of onsite and remote engineers in raising the quality bar of internationalization and localization at Microsoft for over 100 languages. Hameed not only defines software product requirements globally but also educates and empowers teams through training and tools while measuring progress via metrics to empower data-driven decision-making.

Sham Albdour is the MENA Operations Manager at Gamester Kids, one of the leaders in Turkey, MENA, America, and Latin America in kids gaming. Sham discovered her love for crafting edutainment games for kids early on when she was still at school. For seven+ years, she has been working to create and polish great Arabic content within games and create fun, immersive experiences for kids to learn in an interactive and engaging way. Sham was chosen as one of the 50 inspiring individuals at Future Class 2023 by the Global Games Awards. She was also honored with the Rising Star Award 2021 by Pocket Gamer Games Awards.

PMI-certified Program Manager with expertise in SaaS and localization. I began my career in translation and conference interpreting and have over 15 years of experience across technology, linguistics, marketing, editorial, and localization. My roles have spanned both client and vendor sides, where I’ve worked as a translator and project/program manager. Nearly two years ago, I joined Braze as Operations Lead, where I design workflows, optimize processes, and implement new tech solutions to support our global expansion.

As a solutions consultant, Amanda Alvarado brings 15 years of localization industry experience to bear in helping clients set up and optimize content globalization programs that achieve cost-effective quality at scale. Amanda is also passionate about universal inclusivity and accessibility, supporting organizations as they address the diverse content needs of worldwide audiences across hundreds of languages, cultures, and abilities.

As a dedicated and results-driven international growth specialist, Andy brings a unique blend of cultural acumen and business focus to the table, with a passion for all things international and a drive to help companies grow organically and sustainably internationally. With 10+ years of experience in ASO, SEO and product localization/internationalization, he’s developed a strong foundation in understanding challenging market dynamics and a proven track record of efficient operations and scalability. Andy likes to connect with like-minded professionals and explore new opportunities.

– Experience working with over 100 languages; and in-market teams across 20 countries.
– Built international programs from scratch into 50+ languages
– Created, optimized and actively managed ASO portfolios for organic user acquisition into more than 70 languages and 7 different app stores.
– Hired, trained and coached teams with 15-20 direct reports managing over 100 people

Sofia Andrianakou is a seasoned business development and strategic partnerships executive with over 15 years of experience at leading technology companies, including Snap, Meta, LinkedIn, and Google. Currently, she oversees partnerships at DeepL, a leading AI translation company based in Germany.

At Snap, Sofia worked with large telecommunications partners to create innovative augmented reality experiences, as well as develop the go to market strategy for Spectacles and Snapchat+. During her tenure at Meta, Sofia played a pivotal role overseeing business development for the company’s messaging platforms, including Messenger, Instagram, and WhatsApp. Prior to that, she managed consumer product and strategic partnerships at LinkedIn, where she spearheaded new product integrations across Profile, Messaging, Growth, and oversaw new venture initiatives.

Tim Arata has over 18 years of hands-on localization management experience. His expertise spans the entire global content workflow and the technologies that support it. Tim has a passion for building holistic localization strategies and international teams. Prior to cofounding Locale Solutions, he was at Apple where he helped pioneer and manage Apple’s localization processes, technologies, and quality assurance programs. Other experience includes WhatsApp (1 1/2 years where he grew and managed the content and localization teams); Localize Technologies (multilanguage vendor); and Idiom Technologies (the original enterprise translation management system). Tim has long been curious about the ubiquitous us/them aspect of the localization sales process.

Luciano Arruda is an experienced professional focusing on scaling platforms and globalization initiatives to support international growth. His technical expertise spans various roles, including direct interaction and/or management of Internationalization Engineering Teams at prominent companies such as Adobe, Google, Uber, and Automation Anywhere. Currently, he is leading efforts in applying Generative AI and Automation to globalization workflows, contributing to an exciting era of innovation in our industry. It’s a thrilling time to be at the forefront of this transformative technology.

Pedro is the Senior Vice President, General Manager of Contractors at Remote. He started his career in investment banking and strategy in technology, media, and telecommunications. Over the last several years, Pedro has been focusing on high growth tech companies. He was previously VP of Finance at Codacy. He now leads the Contractor Management unit at Remote, an HR tech company solving global organizations’ biggest challenge: employing anyone, anywhere, compliantly. He is the dad of two girls and a boy.

Localization visionary and professional contrarian, Renato Beninatto has done it all – freelance translation, vendor management, sales and marketing, CEO, and everything in between. He has a passion for passing on his extensive industry knowledge to others and helping companies grow. Renato is a co-author of  The General Theory of the Translation Company, an adjunct professor at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies in Monterey (MIIS), and a co-founder of Nimdzi Insights, a market research and advisory firm specializing in the language industry, and co-owner of MultiLingual Media, publisher of MultiLingual magazine.

Alex Bernet is the co-producer of LocWorld’s Process Innovation Challenge and previously served as the exhibits manager for LocWorld. Currently, he manages the Master Class Program and online educational offerings for The Localization Institute. Alex graduated with a BA in history from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2007 and joined both LocWorld and the Localization Institute in 2012. He lives in Denver, Colorado, where he loves to hike and spend as much time as possible in the great outdoors.

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).

Adam Bittlingmayer is CEO and co-founder of ModelFront – AI for accelerating human-quality translation which provides private custom models for automatic post-editing and machine translation quality prediction. Adam brings engineering experience from Google Translate as well as other products such as Android and Adobe Creative Suite. He founded the Machine Translate Foundation – open information and community to make machine translation more accessible.

Pia Bresnan is a seasoned globalization strategy leader with experience both on the client and vendor side, building and managing global teams, optimizing localization workflows, pushing innovation and championing best practices. She excels in strategic program and process management, ensuring efficient GTM operations in complex environments. A dedicated volunteer and mentor across various organizations including Women In Localization, Pia drives change and fosters cross-functional collaboration across the localization and the wider tech industry.

Tom Bridges is the CEO and founder of CaptionHub, the platform for multimedia localization at scale. Prior to CaptionHub, he founded and led multiple post-production and motion graphics studios in London.

Ivan Buchanan leads the program management team that supports the localization of Reality Labs products within Meta, across exciting verticals such as the Metaverse, Virtual, Mixed and Augmented Reality, Wearables, and The Future of Work. His career originally started in the energy industry and, while building a startup, he stumbled upon the wonderful world of localization and discovered his true career passion. Since then, he has been in the localization industry for over twele years in companies like Blizzard Entertainment, Netflix, and Meta.

Junjun Cao is a seasoned localization professional with over 10 years of experience on both the vendor and client sides. She has served as a localization manager for both scale-ups and large-scale corporations. Passionate about culture, language, and process optimization, Junjun focuses on scaling localization programs to fit fast-paced product rollouts to global markets. In the past two years, she built the localization strategy and program from the ground up at Chegg.

Michele Carlson is a globalization leader with over twenty years of experience in the industry. She is currently working at Apple as a senior marketing localization manager. Previously she served as the globalization director at SurveyMonkey where she spearheaded localization and international growth from the ground-up. She was also the director of localization for Sony Computer Entertainment America where she led the PlayStation localization team. Before Sony, Michele spent eight years at Yahoo! where she held various positions including the director of localization. She is also involved in Women in Localization, where she served on the board, director of global expansion, and the Silicon Valley chapter manager. She holds a BA in international relations from the University of California, Santa Barbara, and an MBA from Thunderbird School of Global Management.

Shirley Coady has over 20 years of experience in language technology. Starting her career as a software developer, she moved to a start-up company, where she took on additional roles including technical support and professional services.

As the company grew, building products remained her passion and she moved into the Product Management role. Through various mergers and acquisitions, she has managed both greenfields and existing products in small, medium and large companies.

In 2022, she took over the leadership of the Language Technology Product Management team at RWS, where alongside a very talented team, she’s responsible for the portfolio of traditional as well as cutting-edge technologies for the largest technology company in the industry.

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).

Ben is an esteemed global business leader with over thirty years of experience in international operations, content design, globalization, localization, and leadership in diverse business contexts. Specializing in global business and communications, he offers innovative solutions in process, organization, and technology to foster growth and enable effective global communication. With a rich background in technology, global business management, and process optimization, Ben’s work focuses on driving efficiency and growth in global settings, making him a visionary leader in the international business landscape.

Craig Cornelius has worked in internationalization (I18N) at Google since 2007. He is a member of the I18N libraries team and contributes to open source for Unicode and the Common Locale Data Repository. As part of his work at Google, he has been privileged to work with a number of language communities that are beginning to use their languages and writing systems on the internet with modern computing and mobile platforms. These include Cherokee, Osage and other Native American languages, the writing systems of Myanmar, and Pular/Fulani in the Adlam script. Craig serves on the governing council of the Endangered Languages Project and is a member of the advisory board of the Australian Centre of Excellence for the Dynamics of Language. He is an occasional presenter at IMUG — The International Multilingual User Group. Prior to joining Google, Craig worked in medical research at Stanford University as an engineer and scientist in medical imaging, and was a college professor in the departments of computer science and chemistry at Luther College in Iowa. He holds a PhD in chemistry and an MS in computer science from Stanford University and a BA from Luther College (chemistry and mathematics.) Among other things, he loves science fiction, history, cats and bicycling.

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.

Anna Rita de Bonis is a software accessibility specialist and trainer for the visually impaired at RWS. Her role is to ensure that all RWS products and services are accessible to blind users. Anna Rita is currently engaged in the third year of a three-year PhD research project at University of International Studies of Rome – UNINT, focusing on making Trados Studio accessible for screen reader users. She holds a three-year degree in translation and interpreting from the University of Trieste. She furthered her education with a two-year master’s degree in Translation and Interpreting at UNINT. She is a JAWS Certified user.

Denisa Despa is a seasoned professional with over a decade of experience in digital sales and marketing across B2C and B2B sectors. In her current role, Denisa leads globalization management for IBM Marketing, where she played a key role in transforming and modernizing the practice. She specializes in managing content globalization, ensuring customer journeys are tailored to local needs while aligning with global strategies. Denisa excels in fostering collaboration among diverse teams, driving best practices, and streamlining global marketing efforts. Her leadership is characterized by her ability to work effectively with stakeholders at all levels, creating unique and impactful customer experiences.

Marilyn Dickinson is a senior program manager at Dell Technologies. She is an accomplished localization professional with a reputation for leading successful strategic programs within dynamic and demanding environments. Currently at Dell, Marilyn utilizes her communication, relationship management, and leadership skills in the areas of Accessibility, AI, and event program management. She holds a BA in English and communication as well as a PMP certification. Some of her interests include traveling, volunteering for adults with disabilities, sports,

Francesca Di Marco spearheads Pinterest’s internationalization and global development program, where she fuels her passion for crafting multinational organizations from the ground up. Dedicated to implementing scalable globalization and localization strategies, Francesca excels at connecting teams across functions and regional offices. A lifelong language enthusiast and former lecturer on the history of modern Japan, Francesca channels her curiosity into documentary filmmaking during her downtime.

Karina Drosenos is a seasoned localization program manager with a remarkable journey in the industry. Hailing from Peru and armed with a degree from Kent State University, Karina began her career as a localization project manager for LSPs.
Her expertise grew as she served as an in-house scientific translator at the United States Pharmacopeia and later led software localization at GoPro. Committed to giving back, Karina served as coaching program manager for Women in Localization. Currently, she is a localization program manager at Salesforce, driving localization efforts for Platform and Commerce Cloud into 34 languages. In her spare time, she actively supports the Los Angeles Latin community and volunteers with No Us Without You, bringing food to Latin families in need.

Georg Ell is the CEO of Phrase, a global leader in localization technology with over 300 employees and prestigious clients such as Uber, Shopify, Zendesk, and Deliveroo. Backed by The Carlyle Group, a global private equity firm, Phrase thrives under Georg’s extensive experience in the tech industry. With over 17 years of leadership experience, Georg has held significant roles, including CEO of Smoothwall, an education safety-tech business that gained recognition as a Top 100 UK employer under his tenure. He also served as Director for Western Europe at Tesla, leading a team of over 330 people to promote sustainable energy adoption.

Founder and CEO of Bureau Works, Gabriel Fairman is the father of three and a technologist at heart. Raised in a family that spoke three languages and having picked up another three over the course of his life, he has always been fascinated with the role language plays in identity and the creation of meaning. Gabriel loves to cook, play the guitar, tennis, soccer, and ski. As far as work goes, he enjoys being at the forefront of innovation and mobilizing people and teams together toward a mission.

Colleen Feng has seven+ years of experience in localization and international product management. She obtained her MA degree from the TLM program at MIIS and has worked at companies such as PlayStation, Branch Metrics, Invitae, and now Adobe. She’s passionate about mentoring students and helping them identify their career paths.

Carrie Fischer is the globalization services manager at Subway, headquartered in Milford, CT, and Miami, FL. She is responsible for all globalization-related strategies for the company. She has over 30 years of localization experience and has held previous localization positions at Bodybuilding.com, Hyperion/Oracle, and Transparent Language as the managing editor. She owns her own consulting company, Carrie Fischer Consulting, LLC which helps businesses with their localization needs. She is also the 2023 President of Women in Localization and a mentor.

Todd Flaska has been at Lingoport since 2017 and his career has been focused on technology. His first decade was in aerospace specializing in thermodynamics, nuclear effects, and cryogenic space systems. He has experience in startups and multibillion dollar companies in payment systems, ankle bracelets for electronic home arrest, and enterprise computing and storage, In his free time he enjoys golf, mountain bikes, dirt bikes, fly fishing, and racquet sports.

Marianna Guedez Forgiarini is a localization consultant, author, and project manager from Venezuela. She graduated summa cum laude as valedictorian with dual bachelor’s degrees in classical and Hispanic languages and literature. After relocating to the U.S. in 2017, she provided localization consulting services for Fortune 500 companies nationwide. In 2022, she earned a master’s in translation and localization management from the prestigious Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey. Her acclaimed debut bilingual book, Desde El Exilio, published in 2019, received international press and vividly portrays the experiences of the Venezuelan diaspora, highlighting her commitment to multilingual storytelling and cultural advocacy.

Carolina Freire has over 20 years of experience helping businesses scale across borders. She has solid experience developing and executing global content marketing and growth strategies as well as managing global teams and programs to drive user acquisition and engagement in international markets. She is currently a Senior Localization Program Manager at Uber, leading the LQA team and driving the Localized User Experience for the US&C and LATAM regions.

Shivali Goel, a prominent figure in NLP and AI, leads AI initiatives within Adobe’s globalization team, skillfully merging traditional localization practices with cutting-edge AI solutions. Her accomplishments include a patent for quality evaluation in machine translation, numerous international publications, and the prestigious Tech Excellence Award. An advocate for AI ethics, Shivali shared her insights as a guest lecturer at Santa Clara University and presents pioneering research globally. With a Master’s Degree in computer science from Columbia University (NLP specialization) and a Bachelor of Technology in information technology from Delhi Technological University, Shivali combines expertise in AI, localization, and ethics, establishing herself as an industry standout.

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.

Patrick Görtjes is an audio producer at Massive Entertainment. An international communication graduate, he started his journey in games localization twenty years ago as a translator. In 2017, he joined Massive Entertainment as a localization project manager on Tom Clancy’s The Division and Tom Clancy’s The Division 2, before moving on to Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora, where he has managed the audio, narrative, VFX and localization teams.

Zidian Guo is a ChatGPT prompt strategist and currently a member of LLM Technology Application Panel under the Minister of Education of China. Leveraging her research experience in a funded directed study on ChatGPT prompt engineering for localization, she is currently researching AI best practices in the language services industry.

Lucio Gutierrez is a seasoned globalization and localization engineering professional. He has led engineering teams to build state-of-the-art globalization and localization technology to support product and content development teams to be launched globally. Most recently at Workday, he led engineering teams to build the next generation of technology to support Workday’s global journey via platforms, teams, and content systems. He achieved this by bridging the gap between legacy and modern technologies with SaaS and platform strategies. His globalization experience spans the software development lifecycle in support of design, implementation, testing, deployment, and delivery. He’s currently working as a G11n & I18n consultant and looking for the next opportunity in his career.

Girish is an expert that is instrumental and vital to PayPal’s numerous transformation in the field of localization engineering. He has always been at the forefront of innovation, leveraging his unparalleled expertise to build localization tools and technologies that enable PayPal’s centralized localization org to run efficiently and at scale across localization lifecycle. In the journey to PayPal localization’s GenAI adoption, he remains to be at the forefront, shaping the future of localization.

Celine started her career as a translator and conference interpreter working for UNESCO, UNHCR, UNCTAD and many NGOs. In 2019, she switched to localization, first in the medical device industry and then at Canva. She has spent the past three years leading the Localization Quality and Operations team. She led the implementation of Canva’s AI localization strategy to expand product availability for LOTE users.

Celine graduated from ISIT (Paris) and holds 2 master’s degrees from UNSW that combine her passions for languages and social work (MA in Translation and Interpreting Studies and MA in International Social Development).

David Evan Harris is a Chancellor’s Public Scholar at UC Berkeley and faculty member at the Haas School of Business. He is also a Senior Research Fellow at the International Computer Science Institute, Senior Policy Advisor at the California Initiative for Technology and Democracy, Senior Advisor for AI & Elections to the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU, and Senior Fellow at the Centre for International Governance Innovation. He was named to Business Insider’s AI 100 list in 2023.

He previously worked as a Research Manager at Meta (formerly Facebook) on the Responsible AI and Civic Integrity teams. His writings and commentary have been featured by the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, CNN, Guardian, BBC, AP, Bloomberg, IEEE Spectrum, The Atlantic, Tech Policy Press and Adbusters. He has advised the White House, US Congress, European Union, United Nations, NATO, and California Legislature about technology policy.

Harris is formally trained in sociology and specializes in methods including ethnography, in-depth interviews, aggregation of expert opinion, survey design, scenario planning, signals scanning, multi-stakeholder workshop facilitation and content analysis. In 2004, he founded the Global Lives Project, a network of people building a video library of daily life around the world. Harris has conducted research, studied and given talks in person in 37 countries and speaks fluent English, Portuguese and Spanish, as well as intermediate French.

Aki Hayashi is a senior manager of Globalization Program Management Office (PMO) at Dell Technologies with twenty plus years of experience in the localization industry. In this role, Aki leads a team of project and program managers and oversees both localization and event globalization programs. She is passionate about learning new things for the future, elevating the role of PMO, and leading the team with a vision of building the Globalization Center of Excellence. Aki holds a master of science degree in international affairs from Northeastern University in Boston, where she resides with her family and two cats.

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.

Mimi Hills is a localization industry veteran. She teaches the Localization Teams Master Class for the Localization Institute. Mimi is the former director, global information experience at VMware, Inc., and has also led globalization teams at BlackBerry and Sun Microsystems. She comes from the software world with a background in project and engineering management. Mimi is active in the localization industry and in diversity and inclusion circles. In her spare time, she’s involved in the TechWomen program and plays guitar and bass, and runs a nonprofit music camp for adults.

As a senior product manager at OKX, Benzhen Hu directs AI driven strategies to boost localization program efficiency and enhance user experiences for non-English speakers. Outside of work, she enjoys playing fingerstyle guitar and exploring the wonders of nature.

Linn Hu owns the globalization platform and i18n tools at OKX that enable millions of users to explore the world of crypto in their own language. Before joining OKX, Linn has had various roles in localization with a focus on engineering and technology strategy.

Paula Hunter is a dynamic localization leader fueled by connecting, developing, and empowering people. Over the last ten years at Motorola Solutions, Paula built a high-performing, enterprise-wide localization team from the ground up; a revenue accelerating globalization strategy; and a scalable localization operations program. As a recognized leader and effective change agent, she was promoted into a Director of Business Operations and Chief of Staff role to scale and drive alignment across the growing video security organization. Paula now works as a globalization consultant for Nimdzi, volunteers as a mentor, and is an active speaker in the localization and tech leader communities.

Marina Ilari is an ATA-certified translator and CEO of Terra Localizations. She has two decades of experience in the translation industry, specializing in video game localization. Her leadership has propelled Terra to receive accolades like the 2017 Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation’s Rising Star Award and the 2020 Enterprising Women of the Year Award. In 2023, Terra was listed by Inc. Magazine among America’s Fastest-Growing Private Companies. Passionate about gaming and languages, Marina also co-hosts the translation podcast, En Pantuflas.

Sheriff Issaka is a PhD student at the University of California, Los Angeles, where he conducts state-of-the-art research at the Misinformation, AI & Responsible Society (MARS) Lab. His work focuses on critical areas in Natural Language Processing (NLP), including bias and fairness, low-resource languages, and multimodal models for enhanced language understanding.

As founder and lead researcher of the African Languages Lab (All Lab), Sheriff spearheads a global collaborative project that is revolutionizing NLP for African languages. This initiative creates comprehensive roadmaps, innovative methodologies, and open-source resources to democratize AI for underrepresented languages, addressing a critical gap in current language technologies.

Matthew Jackowski, based in San Jose, CA, US, is currently a Director Localization at eBay. Matthew Jackowski holds a 1991 – 1995 Bachelor of Engineering – BE @ University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. With a robust skill set that includes Management, Sales, Leadership, JavaScript, Testing and more.

James Jameson runs CaptionHub’s GTM team. CaptionHub is a team, product, and brand he is hugely proud of. He has been leading growth and positioning for what is now a world-leading enterprise multimedia localization platform since 2017, serving clients in every industry. Clients include TED, Ford, GSK, Flo Health, Pokémon, Amazon, and Stripe. Their ecosystem-first commercial approach delivers value to clients, partners, and the localization industry.

Katell Jentreau has 20+ years of experience in localization, both on the vendor and client sides. She led the globalization effort at Box from 2012 to late 2015, before joining Netflix’s Globalization team as the company was getting ready to launch globally. From 2013 to 2015, she was also on the board of Women in Localization.

Ilge Karancak brings decades of financial management experience to MediaLocate. Since 1999, she has directed all financial aspects of the business and managed human resources. She’s very involved in the community, currently serving as Rotary International’s Assistant Governor of Territory 2 (Monterey County and beyond) and as Youth Exchange Chair of the Rotary Club of Monterey Cannery Row. In addition, Ilge is an executive director at the Turkish-American Association of California and treasurer for Gathering for Women. Ilge is a certified hypnotherapist. She’s also a golden-throated singer and composer.

Gabriel is an industry researcher, consultant, and content producer. With over a decade in the language industry, Gabriel has worn many hats, from onboarding new clients as a business developer to hands-on work on projects in 100+ languages, from deconstructing industry trends to advising clients on how to talk to global audiences. Yet the biggest challenge lies ahead of us – how do professionals and companies grow and reinvent themselves while the industry is transformed by new technology? Through his varied projects, Gabriel has re-confirmed what we all know: global business is a people business. And our industry will continue to have a fundamental role to play in enabling it.

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.

Tim Kirby is the chief revenue officer at Smartling, where he leads efforts to help clients maximize their globalization strategies. With 25 years in the technology industry, he has held leadership roles at Boeing, Caterpillar, EMC, Documentum, Confluent, and KNIME. Tim began his career as a U.S. Naval Officer stationed in Southeast Asia, bringing a unique blend of military and corporate leadership experience to his current role. His extensive background in technology and leadership positions him as a key figure in driving Smartling’s revenue growth and customer success.

Industry veteran having held a number of roles over the last 24 years. If you’d like to meet or have any questions for me, feel free to stop by the Acolad booth, # 205.

Eva Klaudinyova has been working in the localization industry since 2000, first managing localization programs at Medialocate, then leading localization teams and implementing new globalization, quality, and vendor management strategies for companies such as VeriSign, VMware, and Apple. She is a cofounder and advisory board member of Women in Localization. Eva is currently the program chair of the Translation and Localization Management (TLM) program at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey, imparting her knowledge and longstanding localization and leadership experience to graduate students of localization management. She is from Slovakia, is multilingual, and holds MAs in foreign language teaching and translation.

Jordan Koene is CEO and Co-founder of Previsible, a search and content marketing firm. He leads the company’s strategy, fostering transformative growth for clients by empowering teams through continuous learning and development.

Previously, Jordan was the CEO of Searchmetrics, a search and content intelligence platform. During his time at Searchmetrics, Jordan led the growth of the company as a market leading SaaS platform for search marketing. In this role, he developed ways to leverage data and technology to best understand how to scale content and search traffic for various Fortune 100 companies and agencies.

Prior to Searchmetrics, he worked at eBay as the Director of SEO and various tech start-ups. Jordan is an active investor and advisor to many technology forward companies.

Josef Kubovsky serves as the CEO of Nimdzi Insights, a prominent consulting and market research firm specializing in the language services industry. With a background in language technology, localization strategy, and international business development, Josef brings over 20 years of experience, driving growth and innovation in the sector. He is renowned for his strategic vision and expertise in guiding organizations through transformative processes and has successfully led numerous projects for global clients. Passionate about using technology to solve complex challenges, Josef is dedicated to helping businesses navigate the evolving landscape of language services.

Yuka Kurihara is the senior director of globalization services at Scaled Agile, Inc., where she leads international expansion and localization. Passionate about bringing products to global markets, Yuka has successfully navigated the complexities of localizing software, hardware, and diverse content in numerous languages. Since joining Scaled Agile in 2020, she has been instrumental in expanding the company’s global reach and defining its localization strategies. With multiple SAFe certifications, including SAFe® Practice Consultant and Agile Product Manager, Yuka thrives in both the localization and agile worlds.

As the manager of marketing localization and optimization at Red Hat, Marcella Lage leads a dynamic team dedicated to crafting and executing impactful content localization strategies. She oversees a web data automation specialist and eight localization leads, guiding them in adapting Red Hat’s content to resonate with global audiences while ensuring cultural and linguistic precision. Her role encompasses not only program and project management but also optimizing global web content to enhance visibility, engage visitors, and drive conversion growth at scale. Leveraging deep expertise in localization and leadership, Marcella focuses on elevating user experiences across diverse markets, informed by market insights and a commitment to excellence in localized marketing content. Driven by a passion for delivering high-quality, culturally relevant content, she is committed to supporting the company’s global strategy and achieving outstanding results in content findability and user engagement.

Rain Lau is an experienced global localization manager with APAC expertise. She joined Workday in 2021 to develop and oversee the Tier 2/3 language program where she is responsible for creating a scalable solution for localization. Rain has been in the localization industry for over 18 years, with more than 12 years in leadership positions, both on the client and service provider sides. She has been in different roles from managing language quality to overseeing global language services for 70+ languages managing over 100 people. Rain has experience in product management, system migration, establishing/refining and running localization operations, and strategic account management working with some of the biggest clients in the IT and media/entertainment industries.

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.

Dr. Yun-hyang Lee is the Director of Office of Language Services in the U.S. Department of State and a member of the Senior Executive Service (SES) in the U.S. Federal government.

As the Director of the Office of Language Services, Dr. Lee is responsible for providing interpreting (spoken) and translating (written) services for the President of the United States, the Secretary of State, and Cabinet and working-level officials throughout the U.S. federal government in support of their conduct of diplomacy and foreign affairs as well as foreign assistance and exchange programs. Dr. Lee oversees a pool of over 70 full-time employees and 1,000 contract interpreters and translators covering more than 60 languages in bilateral and multilateral meetings for the United States.

As the Senior Diplomatic Interpreter for Korean, Dr. Lee interpreted for President Biden, President Trump, President Obama, President George W. Bush, and Secretaries of State as well as other U.S. senior officials. Dr. Lee has a M.A. from Hankook University of Foreign Studies, Korea and a Ph. D. from University of Geneva, Switzerland. She taught at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies (MIIS) in Monterey, California and at Ewha Womans University in Korea.

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.

Sonia Lu is a seasoned localization professional with decades of experience in the industry. She has a deep understanding of the intricacies involved in launching products globally and have successfully led complex programs such as expanding languages at scale. Her passion for advocating for localization and unraveling complex progress lead her to her role that builds a proper upstream engagement function to pave the way for better localization engagement and quality. As using AI to scale is becoming a focus, she is playing a key role in the localization organization to pave the way to build a scalable system with proper guardrails.

Mason Ma works as the marketing localization lead for Simplified Chinese at Red Hat, based in Brisbane, Australia. In his role, Mason has developed innovative tools aimed at improving localization processes, including a specialized content searching and filtering tool designed to enhance the findability of localized content. He possesses a strong interest in leveraging AI technologies to streamline localization workflows and boost the discoverability of localized content. Mason’s approach is centered on implementing practical solutions that precisely address the unique requirements of the localization use cases.

Cecilia Maldonado has 25 years of experience in the translation and localization industry that includes co-founding, managing and merging language service companies as well as co-founding the first language industry association in Argentina. She is a partner and CRO at Latamways, an ISO-certified, women-owned company focused on connecting businesses with global audiences through strategic language management. Cecilia has organized over 30 international training events and is an active member and supporter of industry associations.
Cecilia serves on the Board of Women in Localization.

Sara Bellver Mares holds a degree in Translation Studies from the University of Valencia. She has been with Amazon for over 12 years, after stints at the European Parliament and SDL. One of the first translators supporting the launch of Amazon.es, she led the Spanish translation team before working in the book publishing industry for several years. She now manages the localization team at Amazon Music, a program she established from the ground up in 2020 to support localizations for this service globally.

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.

Allison has been consulting and executing localization strategies with leading companies across multiple industry sectors for more than 25 years. She thrives on the supplier-side of the industry having worked with 3 of the Top 5 LSPs, bringing leading-edge technology and an AI-First approach to complex enterprise engagements. Allison is currently with G3, a women-owned, women-led global content agency that provides language AI and specialized post-editing. In addition to her leadership at G3, Allison is focused on ‘paying it forward’ as an Investor, Advisor at University of Colorado Leeds School of Business, a Mentor at Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey (MIIS), serving on the Board of Women in Localization, and teaching yoga. She is passionate about the intersection of global business, technology, wellness, and intergenerational human connection.

Fabio Minazzi is passionate about developing ideas and creating businesses for an inclusive society in a connected world. With a background in audio R&D, he has built a career in software and games localization, taking on roles as an entrepreneur, investor, and global business leader. Always learning, Fabio never stops reading technical papers and history books to understand how emerging technologies, like generative algorithms, impact society. He spent the past two years on speech synthesis projects, including “Voice for Purpose,” which he will present at PIC#17. Outside of work, he actively supports social causes and peace-building efforts.

Rui Monteiro-Claro has been immersed in the localization industry since 1997, embarking on a journey that commenced as a recruiter and swiftly progressed through various roles in account management and sales, including a stint in machine translation. Currently at the helm of Beyont, Rui channels his passion for language quality management, guiding the company towards excellence in localization services. Emphasizing the critical importance of precision, he ensures Beyont maintains a leading position in the dynamic landscape of language quality management within the localization industry.

Gabriela Morales is the founder of Rosario Traducciones y Servicios S.A., an innovative localization company based in Rosario, Argentina, specializing in Latin American languages. In 1995, Gabriela was in charge of deploying the Lazoski, Beninatto & Associados branch in Argentina — the first translation company in the region. After a series of mergers and acquisitions, she managed the South American Spanish operations of LMI and Berlitz in Argentina and Chile. Gabriela served on the GALA Board from 2008 to 2009, and as an active member, she has represented the association at different events around Latin America. She is also a founding member and first President of Translated in Argentina, the leading non-profit association of language service companies. Gabriela has been in charge of the Program Committee of CLINT, TinA’s flagship event, now planning its fourth edition.

Jane Nemcova is currently the Chief Operating Officer at Veuu Incorporated, where they play a key role in developing an inclusive and sustainable FinTech ecosystem for healthcare. Through advanced AI technology, Jane and their team are solving problems in claims coding and long A/R days, helping providers optimize revenue and improve the quality of care. In addition to their role at Veuu, Jane is an adjunct professor at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey. Jane teaches an AI course for Localization graduate students, introducing principles of AI, Deep Learning, Data, and Natural Language Processing. Prior to their current positions, Jane served as the Managing Director, AI at Lionbridge. Jane was responsible for the profit and loss and general management of the AI division, which they started specifically to cater to the growing needs in data, natural language, and international sourcing for AI customers.

Linh Nguyen graduated in 2023 from Middlebury Institute of International Studies with a master’s degree in translation and localization management. She currently works as a localization program manager at a fintech company. Her passions lie in language learning, localizing across cultures, and understanding new technologies. She hosts the Localize the World podcasts, where she brings knowledge from localization professionals to newbies in the field.

Zak Nyberg’s career is as diverse as it gets, blending technical savvy with leadership and a knack for creative problem-solving. He’s been in the thick of it, from working Nyberg in the field of art and sculpture to diving deep into global language strategies and innovating with AI. Thanks to his Navy background, he’s cool under pressure and ready for anything. Outside of work, Zak switches gears to volunteer with Sanpete County Search and Rescue, proving he’s just as dedicated to his community as he is to his profession.

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.

Edmund Ovington leads global partnerships and business development at Phrase, bringing nearly two decades of experience in B2B SaaS, with the last eight years focused on localization technology at Phrase and Unbabel. He’s passionate about building strong alliances and ecosystems that drive success for the entire industry.

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.

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.

Axelle is a localization specialist with six years of experience in linguistics and project management. In addition, she has expertise in the luxury industry, sales, and content creation. Her work has focused on optimizing workflows and productivity in localization. Axelle is passionate about implementing creative solutions to automation challenges.

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.

Yelena Proskurin graduated from the Middlebury Institute of International Studies with an MA degree in Translation and Localization Management. She then worked as a program manager at SDL International. She then advanced to lead the Marketing and Website Localization Programs at GoPro, where she successfully managed global content strategies and ensured that the brand’s voice resonated across diverse markets. Then, as a program manager at Meta, Yelena built the Consumer Marketing Localization program at WhatsApp. Her work ensured that WhatsApp’s marketing efforts were effectively tailored to meet the linguistic and cultural needs of its global user base. She came full circle because she is now a professor at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies teaching international marketing, project management, advanced project management, and other courses that prepare the next generation of localization specialists.

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.

Jamil Raide, based in State of São Paulo, Brazil, is currently a Director of Product and Operations at Bureau Works. Jamil Raide brings experience from previous roles at Bureau Works.

Brandon Roddey is an expert in intelligent automation and multilingual technology solutions with 15 years of experience. As Senior Localizations Engineer at CNH Industrial, he leads software localization and testing for embedded in-cab displays, web, and mobile applications, ensuring seamless language support for precision technology and agricultural vehicles sold in 164 countries. Drawing on his background as a technical translator, Brandon’s work balances linguistic detail with the challenges of managing large-scale translations for a major industrial group. He studied AI and Natural Language Processing at Capital Tech University and Carnegie Mellon University and speaks English, French, and Arabic. Passionate about advancing global communication in technology, Brandon is dedicated to driving innovation in localization.

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.

Jonas Ryberg is head of Digital Globalization Services. He and his team provide artificial intelligence-infused language services, global data curation for artificial intelligence/machine learning, and global marketing services. Jonas has twenty years of experience in the language services industry in various roles from solutioning and linguistics to sales and management. In those capacities, he has served as both company founder and executive.

Iti Sahai has over 15 years of combined experience in international business and localization, delivering international growth through product-led localization strategy and best practices that fully engage targeted international audiences. Iti champions localization transformation into a strategic function and has been recognized for her ingenuity in identifying solutions that allow organizations to have a global mindset.

Tumi Samuel-Ipaye is a Data Engineer at the All Lab, specializing in transforming raw data from low-resourced languages into machine-ready formats for AI model development. Her expertise lies in developing efficient methods such as transfer learning-based data augmentation, multilingual embedding alignment, and unsupervised morphological segmentation to clean, ingest, and structure linguistic data. Tumi’s work is crucial in enabling the development of text-to-text translation, speech recognition, and chatbot systems for underrepresented African languages. She is passionate about overcoming the unique challenges of low-resource languages and bridging the gap between raw linguistic data and AI applications.

With over two decades of experience in the gaming and entertainment industries, Elizabeth Sánchez León’s expertise lies in managing complex, high-value localization projects across global markets. Currently serving as a localization project manager, Elizabeth oversees localization projects across multiple locales, ensuring high-quality content delivery for one of the world’s leading entertainment companies. Between 2011 and 2023, she served as a localization producer, localization quality specialist and linguist, overseeing AAA titles and mobile apps at Nintendo of Europe. Elizabeth’s commitment to the industry extends beyond her professional roles. She actively volunteers as a Women Techmakers Ambassador and contributes to Women in Localization, showcasing her dedication to advancing the field and supporting fellow professionals.

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.

Eli Schwartz is an SEO expert and consultant with more than a decade of experience driving successful SEO and growth programs for leading B2B and B2C companies. He has helped countless companies and marketing professionals stop the guesswork and start asking the right questions to understand what their customer wants, where they’re looking for answers, and how to optimize their SEO to meet them where they are by going on an AVATAR QUEST.

Eli’s clients have included WordPress, Shutterstock, BlueNile, Quora, Getaround, Mixpanel, and Zendesk, all of which he has helped build and execute Global SEO strategies that dramatically increase their organic visibility at scale. He is also the author of the popular book Product Led SEO.

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.

As Senior Manager of Localization Program Management, Yoshimi leads localization efforts for diverse company content across Autodesk, including software products, company websites, marketing, sales, and customer success content. She joined Autodesk in 2000 and has worked at the U.S. headquarters and the Japan sales office, as a program manager and team manager. Yoshimi and her team support global product launches, implement scalable localization strategies for different regions and languages, and drive department initiatives, such as MT-AI, LQA, CSAT, Metrics and business strategies.

Heather Shoemaker is the mastermind behind Language I/O’s core technology, which eliminates the need for expensive and time-consuming neural machine translation engine training by dynamically selecting the NMT engine that will best translate a given piece of content and imposing company-specific terminology onto any of the many NMT engines. and LLMs integrated into the Language I/O cloud solution. Prior to co-founding Language I/O, Heather was well-known for globalizing code for Fortune 500s. She was also the senior director of Product Management and Globalization for eCollege, which was acquired by Pearson Education during her tenure. While at Pearson/eCollege, Heather and her team built a next-generation, online college education platform, which was launched globally. Heather holds a Master of Science from the University of Colorado at Boulder College of Engineering as well as a Bachelor of Arts in Latin American Studies from the University of Washington in Seattle.

Twenty+ years into localization, Kirill runs ContentQuo – a translation technology company that makes it easy for enterprise localization teams, government translation departments, and Global Top-100 LSPs to automate and scale their Language Quality Assessment (LQA) programs with the help of GenAI. Formerly a Global Director of Localization at a Unicorn tech company, he’s still traumatized by the experience and is compelled to keep helping fellow localization directors as a way to atone for his earlier sins. In his spare time, Kirill fathers an eight-year old boy and plays Irish traditional music on tenor banjo. He is based in Tallinn, Estonia, Northern Europe.

Mathijs Sonnemans is a software engineer, product strategist, writer, and musician with a background in theoretical computer science and philosophy. One of his personal slogans is that mixing language and technology is asking for trouble. Luckily, solving troublesome and complex problems is his hobby!

Pavel Soukenik is the head of global solutions at Acolad. With extensive experience in technology and language services, he leads the development of innovative B2B services. His contributions to international growth of leading global companies and to nurturing future industry innovators were recognized with the Microsoft Supplier of the Year Award and the University of Washington Instructional Excellence Award. Renowned for his contributions to education and leadership focused on partnership and excellence, Pavel excels in transforming strategic insights into effective global solutions.

Claudia Tebay, Diplomatic Translator at the U.S. Department of State, is a seasoned Language and Localization Specialist with over 20 years of experience. As co-chair of the AI Committee in the Office of Language Services, she explores the integration of AI and technology in diplomacy and localization. Claudia has conducted pilots on NMT and LLMs, trained custom MT engines, and oversees quality control for AI and human translations. She has also taught at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies and has a rich background in translation, and quality and project management for global companies.

Tex Texin is an industry thought leader specializing in business and software globalization services. His consulting company, XenCraft, provides global product strategy, Unicode and internationalization architecture, implementation and testing. Tex has created numerous global products, led internationalization development teams and guided both startup and enterprise-level companies in taking business to new regional markets. He is a contributor to several internationalization standards for software and on the web. Tex is a popular speaker at conferences around the world and provides on-site training on internationalization, localization and  globalization quality assurance worldwide. He is the owner/author of the popular, instructional www.I18nGuy.com site.

Andrew Thomas has been working in the localization industry long enough to have seen translation grow from manual, labor-intensive work to complex, highly automated systems management. Based out of Northern California, Andrew brings a wealth of knowledge and industry experience to his global team as VP of Linguistic AI Marketing at RWS.

Mette Tingey is a seasoned localization professional with a demonstrated history of working in the translation and localization industry across different verticals.

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.