SlatorPod
224 episodes - English - Latest episode: 4 days ago - ★★★★ - 5 ratingsSlatorPod is the weekly language industry podcast where we discuss the most important news and trends in translation, localization, and language technology. Brought to you by Slator.com.
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Episodes
#120 Academic Translation and Author Services as Growth Markets With ALE CEO, Avi Staiman
June 03, 2022 07:00 - 58 minutes - 40.5 MBWe are joined by Avi Staiman, CEO of Academic Language Experts (ALE) to discuss translation for the academic publishing sector. Avi shares his background studying and working in the education sector and how this led to him founding ALE. He delves into ALE’s services, which range from editing and translating materials for scholars before they pitch their book or article to big research institutions and funding agencies. The CEO talks about the role of English as lingua franca in academia an...
#119 RWS Chief Language Officer Maria Schnell on the Value of Linguistic Expertise
May 26, 2022 14:00 - 31 minutes - 21.6 MBIn this week’s SlatorPod, we are joined by Maria Schnell to discuss her recent appointment as Chief Language Officer at RWS — pointing to the Super Agency’s investment in linguistic expertise. Maria begins with her journey as a trained translator and how she worked her way through commercial and operational roles at SDL, before the company was acquired by RWS. She then talks about what the new role of Chief Language Officer entails, specifically leading the Language eXperience Delivery (LXD...
#118 Welocalize CEO Smith Yewell on Scaling a Language Industry Super Agency
May 20, 2022 07:00 - 53 minutes - 37 MBSmith Yewell, Co-founder and CEO of Welocalize, joins SlatorPod to talk about how the team built the company from the first order, translating a single word 25 years ago, into what is now a global Super Agency. Smith talks about co-founding Welocalize with wife Julia Yewell in 1997, and how they did not have a common language when they first met. He recalls how he navigated the many complex end-client industries and enterprise functions, especially with the maturation of technology. The CE...
#117 Jeenie CEO Kirsten Brecht Baker on Raising a Series A for Healthcare Interpreting
May 13, 2022 07:00 - 46 minutes - 32.2 MBIn this week’s SlatorPod, we are joined by Kirsten Brecht Baker, Co-founder and CEO of Jeenie, an on-demand healthcare interpreting platform that recently raised USD 9.3m in Series A funding. Kirsten begins with her journey as a daughter of linguists and how she transitioned from working in international education to co-founding Jeenie. She tells us about the pivot to servicing healthcare in the US and how they grew in one of the most competitive spaces in the industry. The CEO shares her ...
#116 Leading the World’s Largest Interpreting Service With Genoveva Ruiz Calavera
May 06, 2022 07:00 - 28 minutes - 19.9 MBIn this week’s SlatorPod, we are joined by Genoveva Ruiz Calavera, Head of the Directorate-General for Interpretation (SCIC) at the European Commission, the world’s largest employer of conference interpreters. Genoveva reflects back on her 30-year journey working for the European Commission in an array of different roles; and what led her to switch to leading SCIC. She shares SCIC’s mission to provide high-quality conference interpretation to institutions and organize corporate conferences....
#115 Dispatch From GALA San Diego 2022
April 29, 2022 07:00 - 16 minutes - 11.4 MBIn this week’s episode, Slator’s very own Andrew Smart joins us from sunny San Diego for a report on what took place at GALA 2022 and to discuss the language industry news of the week. Florian talks about how RWS’ shares jumped after Baring Private Equity Asia confirmed that it is in the “preliminary stages of considering a possible offer” to take over the Super Agency. This announcement comes a month after RWS unveiled its new strategy at the LSP’s Capital Markets Event. Meanwhile, ZOO Di...
#114 Amazon’s Professional Translators, Transifex, Seprotec, BIG
April 22, 2022 07:00 - 21 minutes - 14.9 MBIn this week’s episode, Florian and Esther discuss the language industry news of the week, with shares in Netflix taking a 35% dive after the streaming giant lost 200,000 subscribers. The company continues to push international content and is currently building capacity in gaming faster than when they entered film. Amazon announces the release of 51 language datasets, which will help Alexa add more low-resource languages to their current 8 languages. They created this 100-million-utterances...
#113 Translation and Localization Industry Grows 11.8% in 2021 to USD 26.6bn
April 14, 2022 07:00 - 28 minutes - 19.3 MBSlator’s very own Anna Wyndham joins the pod to share key insights from our flagship Slator 2022 Language Industry Market Report. Totalling 100 pages, the report covers language industry growth, the LSP competitive landscape, core language industry technologies, and market outlook. Anna starts off by breaking down market size by vertical, geographic region, and buyer intention. She also touches on spotlight topics, such as remote interpreting, media localization, and expert-in-the-loop. An...
#112 Scaling Website Localization with Weglot CEO Augustin Prot
April 08, 2022 07:00 - 50 minutes - 34.4 MBAugustin Prot, Co-founder and CEO of Weglot, joins SlatorPod to talk about the startup’s journey as a no-code website localization technology provider. Augustin discusses his not-so-typical professional background in M&A and how he got into the language services and tech industry. He talks us through the transformation of their client segments, from self-service SMBs to large enterprises, and how Weglot aligns its product with these sectors. The CEO talks about raising EUR 45m with partne...
#111 Boostlingo CEO Bryan Forrester on Fundraising, M&A, Scaling Interpreting Technology
April 01, 2022 07:00 - 49 minutes - 34.1 MBIn this week’s SlatorPod, we are joined by Bryan Forrester, Co-founder and CEO of Boostlingo, a Texas-based interpreting software and technology provider. Bryan begins with his journey to co-founding Boostlingo; from selling his first tech startup, Anchor Software, to entering the interpreting space. The CEO shares his experience partnering with growth equity firm Mainsail Partners in order to scale the business through hiring and M&A. He addresses the VoiceBoxer and Interpreter Intellige...
#110 A New Way to Post-Edit MT and News on RWS, Weglot, DeepL, Boostlingo, Acolad
March 25, 2022 08:00 - 1 hour - 42.8 MBNico Herbig and Josef van Genabith join SlatorPod to talk all about their project, called MMPE, a multi-modal interface for post-editing machine translation. Nico shares the motivation behind starting MMPE and how they aim to improve the collaboration between human translators and language technology. Josef explains how they geared the project toward a human-in-the-loop model. The duo reflect on the early research behind the project, where they gathered input from professional translator...
#109 Meta VP Iris Orriss Announces Shift from Community Translation to Single-Language Vendors
March 18, 2022 11:00 - 38 minutes - 26.8 MBIn a guest solo, Meta’s VP of Internationalization, Product Quality, and Product Experience, Iris Orriss, joins SlatorPod to talk about the company’s mission to give people the power to build communities, bringing the world closer together. Iris recounts her journey to joining the language industry, from training as a geologist to working in big tech, from Microsoft to Meta. She also reveals her motivations for working in the field of internationalization. The VP shares Meta’s strategy to ...
#108 Low Resource, High Potential — NeuralSpace CEO Felix Laumann on Democratizing NLP
March 11, 2022 09:00 - 49 minutes - 34 MBFelix Laumann, CEO of NeuralSpace, joins SlatorPod to talk all about the no-code, low-code natural language processing (NLP) platform for low-resource languages. Felix recalls his journey to startup CEO in the NLP milieu after coming from a computer and mechanical engineering background; plus the origin story of NeuralSpace. He discusses the difficulty behind building models for low-resource languages when faced with less than 1% of data available. The CEO recounts his experience connectin...
#107 Automating Language Evaluation With Emmersion CEO Brigham Tomco
March 04, 2022 08:00 - 43 minutes - 29.9 MBBrigham Tomco, CEO of Emmersion, joins SlatorPod to talk all about automating language evaluation and the underlying tech behind it. Brigham begins with his journey into the language education and tech industry, where he started two venture-backed companies. He recounts the early days of Emmersion, where they offered language tutoring and how they evolved into building language assessment tech. The CEO shares the importance of language learning in the age of AI with language tech like mach...
#106 Ranking the World’s Largest Language Service Providers
February 25, 2022 07:00 - 17 minutes - 12 MBIn this week’s episode, Florian and Esther discuss the language industry news of the week, kicking off with some key stats from the Slator 2022 Language Service Provider Index (LSPI). Florian talks about the latest in M&A news, where the low-resource language API platform NeuralSpace raised USD 1.7m in a seed round led by Merus Capital. To cap off the episode, the duo unpacks a recent post from Meta titled, “Teaching AI to translate 100s of spoken and written languages in real time”, whe...
#105 Healthcare Interpreting in the US and Beyond With Marco Assis
February 18, 2022 07:00 - 53 minutes - 36.9 MBIn this week’s SlatorPod, we’re joined by Marco Assis, CEO of Propio Language Services (Propio), a US-based interpreting and language technology company. Marco begins with his unusual route into the language industry where he spent most of his career in finance and M&A before taking over Propio from its long-term owners in 2017. He talks about Propio’s highly specialized healthcare domain and outlines the similarities and differences between servicing public vs. private sector clients. The...
#105 Healthcare Interpreting in the US and Beyond With Marco Assis
February 18, 2022 07:00 - 53 minutes - 36.9 MBIn this week’s SlatorPod, we’re joined by Marco Assis, CEO of Propio Language Services (Propio), a US-based interpreting and language technology company. Marco begins with his unusual route into the language industry where he spent most of his career in finance and M&A before taking over Propio from its long-term owners in 2017. He talks about Propio’s highly specialized healthcare domain and outlines the similarities and differences between servicing public vs. private sector clients. The...
#104 Audio Localization in Video Games With Alessandra Vincenzi
February 11, 2022 08:00 - 40 minutes - 28.1 MBAlessandra Vincenzi, Head of Audio Localization at Keywords Studios, joins SlatorPod to talk about the ins and outs of audio localization in the video game industry. Alessandra starts with her route into the audio localization space with Binari Sonori and her transition to Keywords Studios. She shares the differences between localizing for mobile versus Triple-A games. She also talks about casting, onboarding, and categorizing voice-acting talent and how actors are matched to different cli...
#103 The Machine Translation Literacy Project with Lynne Bowker
February 04, 2022 09:00 - 57 minutes - 39.5 MBIn this week’s SlatorPod, we are joined by Lynne Bowker, Professor at the University of Ottawa to discuss the Machine Translation Literacy Project, whose eye-catching infographics have proven very popular on Twitter. Lynne shares her background working in higher education and how this led to her running the MT Literacy Project. She talks about the evolution of machine translation (MT) systems and how this inspired her to teach users in the wider population about the dos and don'ts of using ...
#102 Björn Lifvergren on Subtitling, Dubbing, and Launching LinQ Media
January 28, 2022 08:00 - 48 minutes - 33.1 MBBjörn Lifvergren, Executive Chairman of LinQ Media Group, joins SlatorPod to talk about dubbing, subtitling, and the media localization industry. Björn starts with his route into the media & entertainment and language space; where, after two decades of leading (and eventually selling) BTI Studios, he founded LinQ Media. He gives his take on delivering localized content at scale and reacts to Netflix revealing its subtitling and dubbing stats for the first time. Björn talks us through LinQ ...
#101 The World of Japanese Game and Media Localization With Katrina Leonoudakis
January 21, 2022 07:00 - 1 hour - 47.9 MBKatrina Leonoudakis joins SlatorPod to discuss her experience as a Japanese-to-English Localization Specialist in the world of anime, manga, and video games. Katrina recounts her early years as a freelance translator and her experience breaking into the entertainment and media space. She shares the main cultural and linguistic challenges when localizing a Japanese game to adapt to a Western English-speaking culture. Katrina talks about how she deals with balancing the needs and preferences...
#100 The Social Impact of Language Technology With Andrew Bredenkamp
January 14, 2022 09:00 - 1 hour - 43.5 MBIn SlatorPod’s 100th episode, Andrew Bredenkamp, CEO of CLEAR Tech, joins the Pod to talk about the evolution of CLEAR Global, formerly known as Translators without Borders (TWB). Andrew recalls his path to joining CLEAR Global, with leadership roles at content governance platform Acrolinx and TWB, and why he stepped in to drive the tech piece of the puzzle with CLEAR Tech. He also defines how CLEAR Tech works with TWB and CLEAR Insights, the research and data branch of the organization. T...
#99 Lokalise’s USD 50m Series B; 2021 Industry Highlights and 2022 Outlook
December 17, 2021 08:00 - 18 minutes - 12.8 MBIn SlatorPod’s final episode for 2021, Florian and Esther are joined by Slator’s very own Andrew Smart to share the top industry highlights over the past year. Florian looks back on 2021, which saw approximately 60 M&A transactions and 25 funding rounds announced this year, with big moves such as TransPerfect acquiring Semantix. For 2022, Florian predicts additional competition as the likes of DeepL engage in a direct battle for enterprise account ownership, with tech continuing to develop ...
#98 Lionbridge CEO John Fennelly on the Language Industry’s Growth Trajectory
December 10, 2021 08:00 - 51 minutes - 35.7 MBJohn Fennelly, CEO of Lionbridge, joins SlatorPod to talk about the Super Agency’s journey over the past 25 years since its founding by Rory Cowan. Fennelly recalls his path to joining Lionbridge in mid-2017 after leadership roles at Thomson Reuters and Hireright — and why he stressed the theme of simplification and relentless customer focus in his first years as Lionbridge CEO. He discusses how the 6,000-person company adapted quickly to a remote-first world. The CEO shares his views on ...
#97 Smartling Mega-Round, Avantpage CEO on Serving LEP Populations
December 03, 2021 08:00 - 51 minutes - 35.3 MBLuis Miguel, CEO of Avantpage Translations, joins SlatorPod to talk about the LSP’s mission over the past 25 years of helping immigrants and other limited-English-proficient (LEP) populations. Luis walks us through his journey in the language industry, from immigrating from Mexico to founding and leading a California-based LSP. He introduces Avantpage’s leadership team and highlights the importance of developing talent within the company as it grows. The CEO discusses the key differences b...
#96 The Creativity of Transcreation with Tag Collective Arts’ Rik Grant
November 26, 2021 08:00 - 1 hour - 45.2 MBRik Grant, Transcreation Partner at London-based Tag Collective Arts, joins SlatorPod to talk about all things transcreation as well as multi-language content creation. Rik discusses his route into the language industry; from working as a Lead Account Manager to entering the creative industry. He outlines the careful process behind recruiting transcreation talent and their varied copywriting, agency, or client-side background. Rik shares the challenges involved in localizing for different ...
#95 Launching the Most Comprehensive Open-Source Globalization Strategy Playbook
November 19, 2021 08:00 - 1 hour - 42.4 MBNatalia Levitina and Karen Combe, Members of the GILT Leaders’ Forum, talk about GILT’s Globalization Strategy Playbook, arguably the industry’s most comprehensive, open-source guide to globalization, internalization, and localization yet. The co-authors recall the various stages of their career in the localization industry and their journey to becoming part of the GILT Leaders Forum. They reflect on their experience writing the 30,000+-word, six-chapter playbook with 10 co-authors from th...
#94 Diego Cresceri on Pricing MT Post-Editing and Becoming President of Elia
November 12, 2021 09:00 - 54 minutes - 37.4 MBDiego Cresceri, CEO of Creative Words, joins SlatorPod to talk about his journey in the language industry, from founding the language service provider (LSP) to becoming President of Elia. Diego recounts his beginnings as a Translator, Project Manager, and eventually branching off on his own to create Creative Words. He also shares the motivation behind the founding of Creative AI for multilingual data services and how it functions alongside Creative Words. The CEO discusses the evolution o...
#93 Véronique Özkaya on Why Argos Multilingual Acquired Venga Global
November 05, 2021 08:00 - 53 minutes - 36.7 MBVéronique Özkaya, CEO of Argos Multilingual, joins SlatorPod to talk about the recent acquisition and integration of language service provider (LSP) Venga Global. Véronique Özkaya walks us through her extensive career in the language industry and taking up her new role as CEO at Argos amid the pandemic. She also shares insights into the acquisition of Venga merely three months after announcing the acquisition of linguistic quality assurance provider Chillistore. The CEO discusses meeting V...
#92 Blazing-Fast Machine Translation With Kenneth Heafield
October 29, 2021 07:00 - 1 hour - 45.9 MBIn this week’s SlatorPod, we’re joined by Kenneth Heafield, Reader in Machine Translation (MT) at the University of Edinburgh. We originally connected with Kenneth on Twitter in a discussion about Slator’s coverage of a research paper on Carbon Emissions in MT. Kenneth talks about his experience going back and forth between academia and industry, reflecting on the pros and cons of working for Big Tech. He discusses his recent research with efficient translation and language modelling as wel...
#91 Judging Google Translate, TransPerfect’s Road to the Billion, Media Loc Hub Spain
October 22, 2021 07:00 - 26 minutes - 18.6 MBIn this week’s episode, Florian and Esther discuss the language industry news of the week, with continued disruption to subtitling, caption and audio description on UK’s Channel 4, after water damage at Red Bee Media’s broadcast center ruined a large number of hard disks. In media localization news, Esther talks about Spain’s plans to invest EUR 1.6bn into the audiovisual sector from now through 2025, with the aim of expanding the industry by 30%. Meanwhile, Florian shares key findings fr...
#90 On XTRF and Scaling a Translation Management System with Andrzej Nedoma
October 08, 2021 07:00 - 54 minutes - 37.6 MBAndrzej Nedoma, Co-founder and CEO of XTRF, joins SlatorPod to discuss the journey of the translation management system (TMS). Andrzej begins with XTRF’s early days as a spin-off of family-owned LSP Lidolang and building the company with Co-founder, Dominik Radziszowski. He talks about the rationale behind pivoting from licenses to SaaS in 2014 and the funding decisions with Experior Venture Fund. The XTRF CEO unpacks the process behind investment firm K1 acquiring a majority stake in the ...
#89 How the Pandemic Changed Interpreting Forever With Anja Peschel
October 01, 2021 07:00 - 1 hour - 42.2 MBIn this week’s SlatorPod, we’re joined by Anja Peschel, Managing Director of Peschel Communications, a Germany-based boutique languages service provider (LSP) that offers translation and interpreting. From the perspective of a practicing interpreter, Anja discusses her initial experience of providing consecutive interpreting via Zoom when the pandemic first prevented in-person meetings and conferences from taking place. She also talks about the learning curve with remote simultaneous interp...
#88 Dubbing, Subtitling, and the Future of Media Localization with VDMS’ Simon Constable
September 24, 2021 07:00 - 1 hour - 43.4 MBSimon Constable, Global Language Services SVP of Visual Data Media Services (VDMS), joins SlatorPod to talk about dubbing, subtitling, and the pandemic-induced transformation of media localization. Simon starts with his route into the media & entertainment and languages space, where his international experience spans 25 years. He delves into VDMS’ localization services and the dynamics between owning a studio versus working with the best fit for a specific project. The SVP discusses the co...
#87 Inside DeepL and Welocalize VP Olga Beregovaya on Language Tech Evolution
September 17, 2021 07:00 - 1 hour - 47.1 MBOlga Beregovaya, AI Innovation VP of Welocalize, joins SlatorPod to talk about all things AI, natural language processing (NLP), machine learning (ML), and machine translation (MT) related. Olga begins with her journey into the language services and technology industry, where she currently leads AI innovation for Welocalize. She unpacks some of the broader applications of AI, ML, and NLP outside the language industry. The AI Innovation VP recounts the early days of implementing NLP algorit...
#86 Fake Interpreters, Fake LinkedIn Profiles, SlatorCon Highlights
September 10, 2021 07:00 - 21 minutes - 15.1 MBFirst up, Florian and Esther share key takeaways from SlatorCon Remote, which hosted 13 guest speakers and drew in over 300 attendees. Esther talks about the Video Localization panel, where Chris Reynolds, Tom Livne, and Fardad Zabetian explored the similarities and differences between speech and text outputs. Next, Florian follows up on the Content in the Age of AI panel, where Konstantin Savenkov, Jochen Hummel, and Michel Lopez covered the landscape of AI-generated content. Speaking abo...
#85 Advocating for Interpreters in Afghanistan with Red T Spokesperson Rebecca Petras
September 03, 2021 07:00 - 38 minutes - 26.8 MBRebecca Petras, Spokesperson for non-profit Red T, joins SlatorPod to bring awareness to their advocacy for the protection of translators and interpreters in high-risk settings. Rebecca shares details of her professional background in journalism and discusses how she began her journey in the language industry through the humanitarian sector. She talks about the current situation of interpreters in Afghanistan and explains how the rising danger for linguists over the past few months led to h...
#84 M&A Shakes Up Nordic Language Industry, New Language Operations Pro Guide
August 27, 2021 07:00 - 37 minutes - 25.9 MBSlator’s very own Senior Research Analyst Anna Wyndham joins the Pod to give a sneak peek into the latest Slator Pro Guide: Language Operations. The 40-page guide is packed with data from public and proprietary sources, including 11 interviews with language service providers (LSPs) at different stages of growth across Europe, Asia, and North America. Anna unpacks the five key areas of the report that cover how LSPs structure operations, linguist supply chain models, an analysis of the globa...
#83 Smartcat CEO Ivan Smolnikov on Translation SaaS and Marketplaces
August 20, 2021 08:00 - 51 minutes - 35.7 MBIn a guest-centered episode, Ivan Smolnikov, CEO and Founder of Smartcat, joins SlatorPod to talk about the company’s journey as a tech-powered SaaS platform. Ivan discusses his not-so-typical professional background and how he got into the language services and tech industry. Since 2016, he has been focused on building Smartcat into an accessible SaaS platform with a marketplace of suppliers. The CEO talks about the complex ecosystem that comes with servicing three different client segmen...
#82 LanguageLoop CEO, TikTok’s Dutch Translation Penalty, SME Website Localization
July 30, 2021 07:00 - 57 minutes - 39.8 MBElizabeth Compton, CEO of LanguageLoop, and Claire Mullins, National Translations Manager at the Australian language service provider (LSP), join SlatorPod to talk about the company’s digital and organizational transformation. Elizabeth recalls the LSP’s early days from 1978, and the decision to rebrand to LanguageLoop. She touches on the role of the Victorian State Government as shareholder. She shares the impact of the pandemic as they saw an immediate shift from on-site to remote interp...
#81 TransPerfect Blowout Q2, Welocalize Buyer NLG, Reframing Video Localization
July 23, 2021 10:00 - 23 minutes - 16.4 MBIn this week’s solo episode, Florian and Esther discuss the language industry news of the week, kicking off with a sneak peek into the brand new Slator 2021 Video Localization Report. Months in the making, the report provides an innovative look at the high-growth medium of video. Florian shares news of TransPerfect’s best quarter ever (Q2 FY21), which saw the US-based Super Agency reel in an extra USD 70m in revenues compared to the same period in 2020. The duo also unpack the acquisition ...
#80 TAIA CEO Marko Hozjan on Scaling a Translation Startup
July 16, 2021 08:00 - 51 minutes - 35.1 MBMarko Hozjan, CEO and Co-founder of translation startup TAIA, joins SlatorPod to talk about his company’s journey from launch to their recent series A. Marko discusses what brought him into the world of translation from a background that spans everything from economics and leadership, to language teaching and…sailing. He talks about automation and machine translation and the need to remain focused and disciplined when developing translation products. First up, Florian and Esther discus...
#79 Women in Localization President Cecilia Maldonado on Translation in Latin America
July 09, 2021 07:00 - 1 hour - 45.2 MBCecilia Maldonado, Director of Strategic Accounts at Latamways, joins SlatorPod to talk about the language industry landscape in Latin America and her term as President of Women in Localization. Cecilia recounts her path to joining the language industry and the many hats she wore over the past 20 years. She touches on the two-year process of merging SpeakLatam and Two Ways Translation Services, and how they managed to double in size in a highly fragmented, competitive industry. She shares ...
#78 Zoom Adds Live Translation, Netflix Dubbing News, Toppan’s Christophe Djaouani
July 02, 2021 07:00 - 1 hour - 42.3 MBChristophe Djaouani, President of newly launched Toppan Digital Language, joins SlatorPod to discuss the Japanese corporate giant’s plans to become a leader in translation for regulated industries. Christophe shares his career journey; from his days as project manager at RR Donnelley to how he worked his way up to Executive Vice President at SDL. He introduces the members of the Toppan Digital Language executive team. In an exclusive, Christophe announces that Toppan Printing will be renam...
#77 Synthesia CEO Victor Riparbelli on Personalized Video in 40+ Languages
June 25, 2021 08:00 - 1 hour - 56.8 MBSynthesia CEO and Co-founder Victor Riparbelli joins SlatorPod to discuss the company’s approach to operating and developing the world’s first and largest platform for video AI generation. Victor talks about Synthesia’s journey and the rapid progression of media technology. He unpacks the role of academia in the company, where PhDs and professors make up nearly 50% of staff. The CEO goes over the evolution of text-to-speech in the last decade. He also discusses the difficulty of extending ...
#76 BLEND Enters Voice Services, Keywords CEO Retires, Propio Gets Growth Equity
June 18, 2021 07:00 - 19 minutes - 13.8 MBIn this week’s SlatorPod, Florian and Esther discuss the language industry news of the week, with BLEND’s acquisition of GM Voices, a voice and audio localization provider known for producing the original Siri for Apple. Following RWS’ appointment of a new CEO, Keywords Studios announced the retirement of CEO Andrew Day, with Jon Hauck (CFO) and Sonia Sedler (COO) stepping up as interim CEOs while Keywords searches for its new leader. In healthcare interpreting news, Esther talks about P...
#75 How Large Companies Buy Translation Services — With Procurement Cube’s Armand Brevig
June 11, 2021 07:00 - 52 minutes - 36.4 MBArmand Brevig, Managing Director of Procurement Cube, joins the pod to discuss how language service providers (LSPs) can work with Procurement at large enterprises. Armand touches on the rationale behind a consultancy firm like Procurement Cube. He talks about how they find clients and goes through the typical company profiles they assist. He then shares how translation services fit into the company's portfolio, both from a buyer and sales perspective. He briefly goes through the evolution...
#74 Remote Simultaneous Interpreting With Interactio Co-founder Simona Andrijauskaitė
June 04, 2021 08:00 - 1 hour - 41.8 MBInteractio Co-founder and Chief Business Development Officer Simona Andrijauskaitė joins SlatorPod to discuss the Lithuanian startup’s journey. Simona talks about how the pandemic boosted demand and changed their primary market, with institutions needing technology for multilingual communication. She relates how it was all hands on deck at the remote simultaneous interpreting (RSI) platform, as years of development were compressed into weeks. She also reflects back on their recent USD 30m ...
#73 What’s New in Machine Translation with TextShuttle CTO Samuel Läubli
May 28, 2021 08:00 - 1 hour - 42.7 MBSamuel Läubli, Partner and CTO at TextShuttle, joins the pod to talk about the ins and outs of a language technology provider, and the current state of machine translation. The CTO touches on his background in Computational Linguistics and decision to go back to the academe in 2016. He gives his take on the current state of machine translation, particularly weaknesses around sentence-by-sentence structure and limited control. Samuel discusses his thesis, which tackles three key challenges ...
#72 Vistatec CEO Thomas Murray on Agile Localization and Organic Over Acquisitive Growth
May 21, 2021 07:00 - 50 minutes - 35 MBVistatec CEO Thomas Murray joins the pod to discuss the company’s international presence, the tech and business environment, and managing growing content volumes. Thomas shares his insights on how geographic spread and the follow-the-sun model are important in serving clients. He explains why the language service provider (LSP) prefers organic growth over M&A, owing to the quality and longevity of customer relationships. He also discusses how globalization has changed the way the LSP tackl...