Fiona Agnew Originally an Arabic–English translator and interpreter working in the localization industry since 1995, Fiona currently serves as production director for Idea Factory Languages. Previously a vendor manager for IBM (Lotus) and vendor development manager for Novell, Inc., in both Ireland and the United States, Fiona has sourced providers for a multitude of localization solutions across product, web, education and legal content in up to 26 languages. She is deputy vice president for TILP and has been recognized in the industry with awards for localization professional and localization vendor manager. As one of the first Dublin-based project managers to attend Silver Bullet (ETP) project management training, Fiona's own translation project management experience includes the management of Windows CE for Microsoft, Lotus Notes (three million words) in five languages and Lotus Freelance in 17 languages. In a bid to advance the flourishing localization industry in the region, Fiona provides localization training workshops at both beginner and advanced level through the Colegio de Traductores and IMTT.
Alejandro Aguirre Alejandro Aguirre is the chairman and CEO of GRUPO TECNETRON, a private equity investment group based in Guatemala and Panama that he founded in 1993. One of the portfolio companies, Omni Technologies, Corp., has provided translation and localization services since 1990. Alejandro graduated summa cum laude with a systems engineering degree in 1985 from Francisco Marroquín University (Guatemala) and earned his MBA at the Jones Graduate School of Management, Rice University (Houston), in 1987.
Teddy Bengtsson Teddy Bengtsson is CEO and founding partner in Idea Factory Languages (IFL).
Before starting IFL in 2003 he gained over 15 years of localization
experience from management roles with major IT companies, most recently as
director of vendor and language services at Oracle Corporation. He previously
had management assignments with Microsoft Corporation and Aldus Europe
Limited.
Renato Beninatto Renato Beninatto is the chief connector at Common Sense Advisory, a market research and consulting company specializing in the language services industry. Renato has over 25 years of executive-level experience in the localization industry and since 2002 has been conducting research and leading the consulting practice of Common Sense Advisory.
Christian Buratto Christian Buratto began his career in 1996 as a translator in the Rio de Janeiro office of IDOC, which was later acquired by Bowne Global Solutions (BGS). During his tenure at BGS, he graduated from Universidade Federal Fluminense with a degree in communications. Shortly thereafter, he was drawn back to the localization field, and, in 2001, he founded Loquant where today he is a managing partner. The company has grown to an internal staff of 10, and is specialized as an SLV for Brazilian Portuguese, providing services to mainstream, multilingual localization companies such as Moravia and Lionbridge. Loquant has been involved in the localization of major products such as Peregrine Service Center/HP Service Manager, Microsoft Exchange and many other Microsoft products. Christian also develops internal tools to automate Loquant’s workflow, standardize processes, and extract terminology on large projects. His dream is a world of SOAP, XLIFF and open standards.
Charles Campbell Charles Campbell is the president of spanishbackoffice SA, a mid-sized provider of project management, translation and localization services. Originally from New Zealand, Charles has traveled widely over four continents and has lived for the last 10 years in South America. Charles is a frequent speaker at public events and conferences, having made presentations at ATA TCD, ProZ, ASLIB in 2006, at ALC and ATA-TCD in 2007, and at ALC and Tekom in 2008. Charles recently published two articles in MultiLingual magazine on the future of the localization industry in Latin America and also authored an article on vendor management in the ATA Chronicle. Charles has a bachelor of arts degree in Spanish from the University of Auckland, New Zealand, where he graduated at the top of his class in 1997.
Carter Chen
Carter Chen is the director of production at LinguaGraphics. He has expertise in tools such as Trados, S-Tagger, StoryCollector and CopyFlow and has devised advanced CAT-specific production strategies that he has taught and formulated in various desktop publishing (DTP) workshops. Before LinguaGraphics, he was DTP client lead at Berlitz GlobalNET, Bowne Global Solutions and Lionbridge where he managed and grew multimillion dollar accounts.
Fabián Chol Fabián Chol, LinguaGraphics’ South American bureau chief, has wide-ranging experience working with online and printed documentation, web localization, e-learning courses, Flash, voice-over and advertising brochures. His production, management and quality assurance skills have been sought out by language service providers such as thebigword, Locatech and Lionbridge. Before joining LinguaGraphics, he was the managing partner of Digiworkers, a provider of multilingual DTP and localization services, located in Argentina.
Fabiano Cid Fabiano Cid started his career as a freelance translator in 1996, which was further developed when he moved to London that same year. Upon his return to Rio de Janeiro in 1999, Fabiano opened Ccaps, a Brazilian Portuguese localization services company. In 2003, Fabiano was elected a member of the board of milengo Inc.; he later became the chairman, a position that he still holds today. With several articles written for leading industry publications, Fabiano is also the editor of the Ccaps Newsletter and content supervisor of the Ccaps Blog.
Karen Combe As vice president of localization at PTC, the product development company, Karen Combe is responsible for product localization as well as localization support for global services, technical support and marketing. She was previously the president of Combe Consulting, LLC, offering consulting services in the fields of internationalization and localization. Prior to establishing her consulting practice, Karen worked for nearly ten years for one of the foremost localization companies in the field, International Language Engineering, Inc. (ILE). While at ILE, she led the development of each of the company's production departments during its years of intensive growth from 12 people to a staff of over 125. As senior vice president, she managed both the client services and sales and marketing departments, and served on the executive committee. Karen holds a BA in linguistics from the University of California at Berkeley and a post-graduate degree in social anthropology from Cambridge University. She spent two years in the Peace Corps in Senegal, West Africa, and two years with International Voluntary Services in Algeria. Other work experience includes two years in the financial services industry and eight years working as a cowboy on a ranch in northwestern Colorado.
Nerina Debat Nerina Debat leads the software engineering department at Ushuaia Solutions, a translation and localization company dealing with Brazilian Portuguese and all varieties of Spanish. She is an advanced engineering student at Universidad Tecnológica Nacional (Rosario extension) and works daily with projects involving file preparation of different formats, software testing and computer-assisted translation tools training.
Linda Islas Durham Linda Islas Durham was born and raised in the California-México border area. She holds a BA and master of education from the University of México. She has working experience in México in the education field with teaching, administrative and research experience at the University of Sinaloa. In the United States, she worked in the health care field in marketing services, developing educational programs about emerging medical procedures, via satellite video for physicians practicing in 17 cities in México. While working for Sharp Hospitals in this area, she was responsible for the production of health education material and developed the community education program ¨El Buen Uso de los Antibióticos¨ for which she received the Latinos con Vision Award from Telemundo, a Spanish language television network in southern California. Linda has more than 10 years of experience as a translator, and during the last six years, she has been active in the translation and editing of technical treatises, procedures, histories and educational instructions, from English to Spanish, primarily in the health field.
Eduardo González Germán Eduardo González Germán (Barcelona, 1966) es Licenciado en Filología Hispánica por la Universidad de Barcelona (UB). Como formador ha impartido cursos de Técnicas de Redacción y Lengua Castellana en la Universidad Politécnica de Cataluña (UPC), en la Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona (UAB) o en Aula de Lletres, Escola de les arts escrites, etc. Como asesor de estilo y redactor colabora con empresas tales como Seat o Volkswagen, así como con editoriales técnicas como, por ejemplo, Euromedice Ediciones Médicas.
Ulrich Henes Ulrich Henes is the president of The Localization Institute which he founded in the fall of 1996 because he saw a serious lack of quality training and learning opportunities in this important area. He has been involved with localization, first as an international sales and marketing manager (also serving as a localization manager) for a US software company and then as president of the American office of a British localization agency. He is a co-organizer of the Localization World conferences.
Eva Klaudinyova Eva Klaudinyova is localization manager in the globalization program at VMware, Inc., responsible for managing localization in Asia, Europe and Latin America. Apart from managing international localization teams in these three major geographical areas, she is also responsible for linguistic quality and localization processes. In the past, she was localization manager at VeriSign, Inc., managing localization projects, vendors and processes for the company. Her localization experience also includes translation, quality assurance and project management. Eva is from Slovakia and has a master's degree in foreign language teaching (English and German) from Slovakia, as well as a master's degree in translation from the Monterey Institute of International Studies in Monterey, California.
José Eduardo De Lucca José Eduardo De Lucca is associate professor at the Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, Brazil. He joined the faculty of Informatics in 1988, teaching to computer science and information systems undergraduate courses. He is currently director of the innovation laboratory called GeNESS at Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, which provides incubation facilities for technological spin-offs. GeNESS is considered a reference regarding software internationalisation and localisation in Brazil due to Jose's group work on these subjects. His primary areas of work are software internationalization and localization, and global software development, especially how it can be adopted or adapted to the reality of Brazilian small software development companies and their software quality/productivity processes. He is also interested in tools, techniques and approaches adopted in free and open source software development regarding internationalization and localization.
Maria Maldonado Maria Maldonado is managing director and cofounder of IMTT, a translation and training company based in Cordoba that provides translation and localization solutions to clients around the world. She holds a degree in translation from the School of Languages, Universidad Nacional de Córdoba, Argentina. Her experience in the industry has always been related to IMTT, from freelance translation to project management to general management tasks.
Gabriela Moirano Gabriela Moirano has been working as a graphic designer for 10 years. Her experience as a free lancer was complimented by her work at the La Plata Museam and at Globant. She has specialized herself in improving the communication of the on-line tools, making special focus on usability. During these years, she has gain wide experience in the design of websites, e-mails and other internet marketing collaterals. As Globant´s Creative Studios Manager, Gabriela is in charge of supervising the quality and the delivery of the different sub-areas. She manages a team of 40 professionals, providing services like Internet Marketing and Localization, Web Art & Development, Interactive Art & Development and Graphic Design.
María Gabriela Morales Gabriela Morales has a degree in both English > Spanish and French > Spanish translation. She is the founder and director of Rosario Traducciones y Servicios S.A., an innovative translation and localization company based in Rosario, Argentina, specializing in Latin American languages.
In 1995, Gabriela opened the office of Lazoski, Beninatto & Associados, the first translation company in the region. After that, she managed the South American Spanish operations of LMI and Berlitz in Argentina and Chile.
She is now serving as board member of the Globalization and Localization Association (GALA), and she is also one of the founding members of Translated in Argentina, a cluster of Spanish translation bureaus from Argentina.
Francesc Morelló Francesc Morelló is an industry veteran who has been in the localization and translation world for more than 20 years. He started his career at IBM Translation Center in Barcelona where he worked as project manager for several years. He joined iDisc in 1992 as a partner and has taken on several different roles, from IT manager to project manager on complex and critical projects involving new technology. He is currently the language services operations manager at iDisc and supervises a team of project managers and takes care of vendor management. He brings his extensive experience in technical translation to the Tradumática Master at Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB) in the Faculty of Translation and Interpreting. He holds a graduate degree in physics from the UAB.
Romina Pandiani Romina Pandiani has worked for more than five years as an internet marketer specializing in localization. At E-volution she was in charge of developing the content of websites, microsites, e-mails and newsletters. She also focused on the localization of several products for different clients, such as Microsoft Mexico. At Globant, she manages and coordinates the internet marketing team. She is also in charge of supervising designers and developers in the delivery of products, thus making sure that they meet the clients' needs. During her time at Globant, Romina has deepened her experience in marketing and localization by being in charge of different projects such as the analysis and definition of the content needed to localize a client´s website in 22 different countries.
Donna Parrish Donna Parrish is co-organizer of the Localization World conferences and publisher of the magazine MultiLingual. Prior to her work at MultiLingual Computing, Inc., she was a computer programmer for 25 years. Donna holds a BS in mathematics from Peabody College of Vanderbilt University.
Angélica Pérez After obtaining her university degree at the School of Languages, Universidad Nacional de Córdoba in 1999, Angélica Pérez worked as an in-house translator for the Secretary of Student and Foreign Affairs of the University. Later on, she got her first-hand experience of the translation business in an internship at Precision Translating Services, Inc. Back in Argentina, in 2002 she founded Delsurtranslations in partnership with Virginia Minhondo, with the aim of providing Spanish localization services to translation companies worldwide. Her company became part of Translated in Argentina in 2005.
Cecilia Piaggio Cecilia Piaggio is the managing director and localization group manager of the Argentinean subsidiary of Moravia Worldwide. Cecilia has more than 12 years of experience in the localization industry with a linguistic and business administration background. During 2006, she lived in the Czech Republic where she supported the set up of the subsidiary and training of the staff who traveled to the Czech Republic. The Argentinean subsidiary is becoming one of the pillars of Moravia Worldwide with a team of 42 individuals, providing localization services into 98 languages.
Juan Martín Fernández Rowda Graduated as a technical, scientific and literary translator, Juan Martín Fernández Rowda manages Idea Factory Languages'
Argentina IT translation team. Juan specializes in technical
translation, translation technology and tools, and he is a conversant
localization professional. He lectures at the Colegio de Traductores de la
Ciudad de Buenos Aires on an array of topics such as Trados usage and
localization since 2005. Juan is also a Proz.com professional trainer and a
member of the Computer Applications Commission of the Buenos Aires
Translators' Association.
Suzanne de Santamarina Suzanne de Santamarina is cofounder, president and chief operating officer of Omni Technologies, Corp., a Latin American localization services provider. Originally from Panama, she holds a computer science engineering degree from Universidad Francisco Marroquín, Guatemala and an MS in biomedical engineering from The Ohio State University. She has directed internationalization and localization projects for over 18 years.
Gene Schriver Gene Schriver is the executive vice president and general counsel of Language Services Associates (LSA). LSA’s telephonic interpreter service, InterpreTalk, provides instant outsourced foreign language capabilities to contact and support centers. Gene has led the team that has developed LSA’s own call center into a cutting-edge operation that combines technology and human capital to create the ultimate customer experience. He has been with LSA for nine years and has helped steer its growth to nearly $20 million in revenue in 2008. Gene received his B.A., cum laude, in economics from Temple University and his Juris Doctor from The Villanova University School of Law.
Richard Sikes Richard Sikes has been immersed in localization since 1989, having held senior localization management positions at several industry-leading software publishers. Through his company Localization Flow Technologies, he now works as a globalization management consultant and technology trainer. As well as his ongoing association with The Localization Institute, Across Systems and Plunet, Richard is a Certified PASSOLO Trainer. During 2007 and 2008, he also served as director of sales and marketing for KCSL. He holds a BA in fine arts from the University of California, Irvine, Diplom Betriebswirt FH from the Fachhochschule Heidelberg, and an MBA from the University of Toronto. Richard has presented frequently on a wide variety of topics at the Localization World and Gilbane conferences, and his articles appear with regularity in MultiLingual magazine.
Natalia Tsvetkov Natalia Tsvetkov, Project Management Professional, is an international project manager for the Windows Localization group at Microsoft. She has more than 20 years of experience in the IT and localization industry. Natalia started her career as a translator and interpreter and then transitioned to project management. She successfully delivered more than 100 complex products in 35 languages for HP. She holds a BA in linguistics; an MA in Italian, French and English; and a diploma in business administration. She is a member of ATA and STC.
Djali Valois Working in the localization industry since 1997 with the major IT and electronic entertainment companies, gathering a large experience in these areas, Djali Valois's interests are computing, languages and international relations. In 2004, she engaged in a Brazilian national project to spread the word about localization to software companies in Brazil. This project is led by GeNESS, a high-tech company incubator at Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina. As project manager, she performed many activities such as setting up a translation tools lab for local use; lecturing to localization and internationalization courses and consulting; and organizing in 2004 and 2005 the symposium “Localization and Internationalization for Software Exporting”(LISE Brasil), the first of its kind in Brazil.
Elena Vilalta Elena Vilalta has 20 years of experience in the translation and localization markets. She held several positions in the translation industry until she joined Oracle Iberica in 1997, initially as a Spanish language specialist. Elena currently works as senior manager in vendor and language solutions and has language management responsibility over translation into Spanish of the widel range of Oracle products, managing a team of five language specialists based in Spain and Argentina, and a group of vendors translating Oracle applications and technology products.
Rosana Wolochwianski Rosana Wolochwianski holds a licenciate degree in translation from the National University of Rosario, Argentina and has been accredited by the American Translators Association for the English > Spanish pair since 2001. She is the founder and director of CEIT (Centro de Estudios e Investigación sobre la Traducción), a local center for translation studies and research, and is also a member of the International Association for Translation and Intercultural Studies. Rosana is doing research on machine translation and has published and presented her preliminary findings in recent years.
Angelika Zerfass Angelika Zerfass holds a translation degree for Chinese and Japanese language from the University of Bonn, Germany. After 1.5 years at the Japanese embassy in Bonn, she joined TRADOS Germany and was sent to Tokyo, Japan, to support the new office there. Her responsibilities during her 13-month stay included TRADOS training all over Asia and project support for all localization projects at the Asian Microsoft subsidiaries.The next year was spent onsite for Microsoft in Dublin, Ireland, and Redmond, Washington, as a TRADOS expert. She now works as a freelance localization consultant and trainer for translation tools technology; creates interactive training material; and gives lectures in the translation departments at the Fachhochschule Cologne and the University of Bonn.
