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