SlatorCon Remote March 2022

Anna is a language services industry professional with expertise in project management, management and quality systems, and a special interest in the life sciences sector. Starting her career in data annotation in Sydney, she then gained 10 years’ experience in London and Madrid with major LSPs before joining Slator as a research contributor. She holds a B.A. (Hons) in Linguistics from the University of Sydney.

Prior to founding Straker in 1999, Grant served in the British Army as an elite paratrooper. As a co-founder of Straker, Grant has extensive experience in the language translation market. He was appointed to the board on 21 December 1999.

Grant’s wide-ranging technical, sales and business skills, combined with his strong entrepreneurial drive, have placed him in an ideal position to help accelerate the growth of Straker. Grant is a member of the NZ Institute of Directors. Along with Merryn Straker, Grant was the winner of the 2018 master category for NZ Entrepreneur of the Year.

Alphie is a localization technology specialist with 20 years entertainment industry experience, most of which was focused around the technology driving media and content localization. Working as technical lead at some of Europe’s top post-production and dubbing studios as well as business lead for VOD and television localization in South East Asia.

At SDI Media he oversaw EMEA regional standards for subtitle and dubbing deliverables to Netflix. At iflix he built-up 14 international subtitle teams leveraging MT. At Astro Malaysia he drove content automation and the launch of their cloud-based subtitle production platform where his subtitle and metadata business host production.

Dion Wiggins is a well-known pioneer of the Asian Internet Industry, a respected innovator and founder of Asia Online, one of the first Asian Internet Services Providers. He was also founder of The ActiveX Factory, where he was recipient of the Chairman’s Commendation Award presented by Microsoft’s Bill Gates for the best showcase of software developed in the Philippines and he has been recognized by the U.S. Government as being in the top 5 percent of my field worldwide.

He advises various governments across Asia/Pacific on elements of ICT strategy and e-government, including China, Thailand, Singapore, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Australia and New Zealand.

Dion is an experienced business executive, consultant and project manager with more than 25 years in the computer and online industries where he has gained a wealth of experience in both his own companies and as a consultant to various companies worldwide. Visa, Mindscape, Lucent Technologies, Gilead Sciences, Louis Vuitton Moët Hennessy and Intuit are just a few of the numerous companies with which he has provided services to. He has served on the board of the Silicon Valley Association of Software Entrepreneurs and is also a frequent speaker at various conferences and seminars and regularly featured in radio, television and print media articles.

Andrew Smart is the Commercial Director at Slator responsible for product development and pricing, online ad and research sales, and event sponsorships.

Prior to co-founding Slator, Andrew has worked in the media, internet and finance industries including managing media businesses for Thomson Reuters, Fairfax Media and The Economist Group. He has an MBA in Finance and Investments from The George Washington University in Washington DC and has been based in Asia for over 25 years.

As CEO of Australian headquartered language service and language technology provider 2M Language Services, Tea Dietterich provides executive leadership to the 2M Management Board and its Australian and international business units delivering innovative language solutions into 300+ languages to the Public Sector, Healthcare, Resources & Mining, Defense and Creative Industries. Languages include also Indigenous, Pacific Island and other low resource languages.

A Graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors, Tea has extensive board experience. President and Chair of the Australasian Association of Language Companies (AALC), previous Board Director of GALA, Fellow of AUSIT, Tea is one of Australia’s industry leaders in the localisation and international trade sector.
On the Board of the German Australian Chamber of Industry & Commerce and the Australia France Business Association, Tea works daily with global brands assisting them to enter international markets successfully and manage their multilingual assets.
Tea is a sought after speaker and MC at industry conferences & international trade events and was recently featured in the Australian Financial Review.

Dieter is a Co-Founder and VP of Business Development and Marketing at Boostlingo, a language software and technology company based in Austin, Texas. Boostlingo are focused on defining the next generation of interpretation and language access technology solutions. Its software is device agnostic, infinitely scalable and compliant across all common regulatory and security requirements.

Melanie Heighway leads product localization and internationalization at Atlassian, managing localization of Atlassian’s range of products including Jira, Confluence and Trello. She is a passionate advocate of international customers and enjoys evangelizing localization within organisations. Over the past 15 years, Melanie has worked on both client and language vendor sides in Australia and the UK. She has managed a diverse range of language tasks, including speech and language technology projects, mobilization and management of face-to-face speech and sign language interpreters, and software and medical device document localization at companies such as Cochlear, Invoice2go, Appen and SDL.

Richard Roocroft is a tech investor who lives on the beautiful island of Koh Samui in Thailand, with his wife and two daughters. He is the Head of Strategic Alliances at Interprefy, an organization that has been leading the trend of remote simultaneous interpreting for virtual, in-person, and hybrid events since 2015.

Simply put, Interprefy enables interpreters to work from anywhere, anytime. Interprefy’s alliance with Language Services Companies, PCO’s, AV and Web Conference / Virtual event platforms – means we can all come together and event participants can enjoy real-time interpreting in their chosen language, making your events truly multilingual. Interprefy is loved by teams at organizations of all shapes and sizes, no meeting or event is too little or too large. In his spare time Richard likes to explore the islands of Thailand with his family, whether that be on foot, bicycle, JetSki or buggies.

As the President of Simul International, Inc., a leading company in the interpretation and translation industry in Japan, he is committed to creating and providing innovative interpretation and translation services that combine advanced technology with the company’s over 50 years of language expertise.

Before joining Simul, he served as Executive Officer and CIO of Benesse Holdings, Inc., Japan’s largest education business group, and Director and President of TMJ, Inc., a company offering business process outsourcing services.

Marco is a regional leader for innovative event experience business units that connect and inspire people in venues across Asia.

The live meetings and events Encore creates have power. The power of human connection. When people come together, ideas take root, relationships are built, real change happens.

Andrew Smart is the Commercial Director at Slator responsible for product development and pricing, online ad and research sales, and event sponsorships.

Prior to co-founding Slator, Andrew has worked in the media, internet and finance industries including managing media businesses for Thomson Reuters, Fairfax Media and The Economist Group. He has an MBA in Finance and Investments from The George Washington University in Washington DC and has been based in Asia for over 25 years.

Andrew Smart is the Commercial Director at Slator responsible for product development and pricing, online ad and research sales, and event sponsorships.

Prior to co-founding Slator, Andrew has worked in the media, internet and finance industries including managing media businesses for Thomson Reuters, Fairfax Media and The Economist Group. He has an MBA in Finance and Investments from The George Washington University in Washington DC and has been based in Asia for over 25 years.

Florian is the Managing Director of Slator and host of the SlatorPod podcast. Based in Zurich, Florian Faes spent almost a decade in Asia before launching Slator in 2015. Slator is the most up-to-date source of news and analysis covering language services and technology and works as a distributed team based in Asia, Europe, and the US

In his role as Chief Executive Officer, Cyril Drabinsky oversees the direction, strategy, and vision for Deluxe and its business units which provide global distribution services for studios and content creators across the Media and Entertainment industry. Cyril originally joined Deluxe in 1993 to lead its North America business as COO. From 2001 to 2015 he was CEO of Deluxe Entertainment Services, Inc. where he spearheaded its transition from an analog film-processing business to become the world’s leading digital post-production technology and distribution service provider. He rejoined Deluxe in 2020 after founding Hollywood-based CineVizion in 2017. His passion for the entertainment industry has shaped his approach to leadership and to Deluxe’s peerless customer service.
Cyril serves on the Board of Directors of The Team Companies and is a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences, where he is on the Board of the Members-At-Large branch.

Laura has many years of experience working with international clients and knows just what it takes to make them happy. She has worked as a translator, interpreter, project and key account manager, and knows the translation industry inside out.

After graduating with a Master’s degree and a short stint as a conference interpreter, Nina decided to delve into the marketing world and worked for several years in executive market research positions, coordinating many international corporate accounts. With her combined expertise from the translation and marketing worlds, she then started building her transcreation business in the late 1990s and thus became one of the pioneers of transcreation in the language services space.
As a transcreation expert, Nina specializes in advertising, corporate communication, public relations and other texts that, due to their business-critical nature, require top skills in researching and writing for different B2B and B2C audiences. In that capacity, she is helping clients communicate effectively in the German market through transcreation – a service where translation and copywriting expertise come together in a cross-cultural process.

Over the last 20+ years, she has also been a perspicacious observer and analyst of the language services business and has become an author of articles and books on transcreation. She is also a frequent speaker and transcreation trainer, with conference presentations, seminars, and workshops for enterprises, language service companies, and professional associations around the world.
Find out more about her books, services, courses and blog at www.transcreationexperts.com

As a member of the board, Lindsay is responsible for setting the company strategy, owning the brand, and overseeing the people, process and tech evolution at Locaria. Prior to Locaria, Lindsay worked client-side in e-commerce, developing new businesses and expanding into international markets with some of the world’s leading brands. Lindsay is fluent in Mandarin Chinese, having lived and worked in the APAC region, and serves on the council of the Association of Translation Companies.

Locaria is the multilingual content scaling agency at the heart of new challenger marketing network, Stagwell Inc. We build linguistic solutions to scale content and campaigns internationally, while carefully balancing efficiency, effectiveness, creativity and quality. Our focus is on supporting in-house marketing and e-commerce teams, media agencies and creative production houses.

Esther spent several years in France and Luxembourg for work and study, and has since returned to her native London. She has a strong languages background, having studied for degrees in French & Linguistics and Translation & Interpreting. She went on to pursue a career in the Language Services industry, where she gained PM, technology and management experience before joining the Slator team.

Sunil is an entrepreneur with a passion for creating new products and markets. He helps organizations and business owners to focus on their core business by helping them with Technology, Consulting & Implementing Business Solutions.

Fidel Technologies specializes in FinTech (eg: FIX based solutions, blockchain technology related development), IoT (RFID, M2M), mobile technologies. They also help companies go global through localization of products, websites and other collateral (specialize in Japanese (CJK), ASEAN & Indian locales).

Mandar has over 25 years of multi-functional experience in fast paced businesses of IT / ITES / Localization industry, in the areas of start up, operations, sales and business operations.

He has hands-on experience of setting up, nurturing and scaling up and diversify business operations for global companies.

Andrew Smart is the Commercial Director at Slator responsible for product development and pricing, online ad and research sales, and event sponsorships.

Prior to co-founding Slator, Andrew has worked in the media, internet and finance industries including managing media businesses for Thomson Reuters, Fairfax Media and The Economist Group. He has an MBA in Finance and Investments from The George Washington University in Washington DC and has been based in Asia for over 25 years.

Nic McMahon is the CEO of United Language Group (ULG). Nic is a 20+ year veteran of the Language Solutions industry and has held senior executive roles within ULG, Lionbridge and RWS. His experience in both senior sales and operational roles, provides him with an exceptional balance in the identification and performance of strategy.

During his career, Nic has also opened numerous global offices, completed several strategic acquisitions, and supported a successful public IPO. Nic drives success through a passionate commitment to culture and a belief in the value of the broader team that make up a business.

As a VP/Managing Director of AI Research at Salesforce, Caiming leads to build state-of-the-art AI technologies, publish in top academic conferences, innovate, collaborate and embed our work across Salesforce clouds to accelerate the building of AI products.

Pascale Tremblay is the Director of Localization at Gap, American worldwide clothing and accessories retailer. Gap was founded in 1969.
As a Globalization Leader, a language enthusiast and an adventurer, Pascale thrives in the localization industry.

An innovator at heart, she loves to bring new ideas to drive change and innovations that will enable continuous growth. Pascale has a wealth of experience designing innovative processes that simplify the complexity of globalization.

Theresa is a Senior Globalization Manager at Nike, an American multinational corporation engaged in the design, development, manufacturing, and worldwide marketing and sales of footwear, apparel, equipment, accessories, and services.

Jonathan is a Localization Team Lead and Supervisor at Esri, a leading location intelligence platform provider (Forrester Wave 2020). Esri empowers leaders with innovative tools to help create sustainable prosperity.

Mark Hjerpe serves as Vice President of Global Revenue at Intento. Hjerpe has played a pioneering role in the expansion of the global language services and technology industry. He has lived, worked, and led teams in Latin America, Asia and Europe, developing best practices in translation management and streamlining multilingual workflows for global corporations. Prior to joining Intento, Mark’s previous roles included serving as Chief Revenue Officer at Lingotek, and executive team member and Vice President of Global Sales and Marketing at RWS Life Sciences.

Nora Duong is a localization program manager at Coursera, a leading worldwide online learning platform for higher education. Her work is to make Coursera content be local at a global scale. By breaking the language barriers, her localization team provides the best possible experiences for global users in different regions and locales. During her 12 years in the localization industry across Sweden, Romania, China, Vietnam, and the U.S., she has held various roles on both vendor side and client side. As an explorer with growth mindset and passion for languages, she believes localization is the best way to share our stories to international audiences.

Andrew Smart is the Commercial Director at Slator responsible for product development and pricing, online ad and research sales, and event sponsorships.

Prior to co-founding Slator, Andrew has worked in the media, internet and finance industries including managing media businesses for Thomson Reuters, Fairfax Media and The Economist Group. He has an MBA in Finance and Investments from The George Washington University in Washington DC and has been based in Asia for over 25 years.