Language Industry Hires at thebigword, Localex, Omniscien, and Literra

Thebigwords has promoted Paul Evans to Global Sales Director effective September 2017.

“As global sales director, I am the clients’ voice on the board of directors and it is my job to ensure that our sales team have the tools to deliver the language solutions that our clients need,” he told Slator.

Evans joined the language service provider (LSP) based in Leeds, England as Program Director in May 2016. He was then responsible for the implementation and performance of the group’s GBP 120m interpreting contract with the Ministry of Justice.

Since then, he has led the development of the group’s revenue generation plan and has been assigned various roles in global sales functions, according to thebigword.

“Paul has impressed us with his commercial leadership. I am delighted to welcome him to the board. I am confident he will be a great success in his new role as global sales director,” Larry Gould, Founder and Chief Executive, said in a media statement.

Evans started his career as an avionics apprentice at the Ministry of Defense. He went on to hold senior project management positions at BAE Systems and Pearson Group. Prior to joining thebigword, he worked as project manager of various business and commercial development programs in the private sector.

He sees language services as a good business. “The need for effective communication has never been greater. People around the globe rightly expect to buy products and communicate in their own language,” he said.

As a sales director, he considers display ads, direct marketing campaigns, trade shows, and exhibitions as important lead generation methods for expanding the business. “Getting out and meeting people and building networks is also vital,” he added.

Bekir Diri — Localex Translation

Turkish language service provider (LSP) Localex Translation has appointed an international marketing manager responsible for the overall leadership of marketing activities in Turkey and Europe.

Bekir Diri is joining the company from the London-based language technologies company Nubuto, where he worked as Translation Technologies Manager. He had also worked for other LSPs based in Istanbul.

His professional experience is enhanced by a degree in Translation Studies from Trakya University and he is now in the process of completing his MA degree in Translation Studies at Istanbul 29 Mayıs University, where he is also a lecturer.

Diri translates and edits from English to Turkish and has specialization in localization and testing of websites, software, games, mobile apps, and multimedia materials. For his Master’s thesis, he is working on game, software and web localization gaps in Turkish.

“When I was a freelancer, I was involved in game, web, and software localization projects. However, when I started working in the industry, I see so many localization mistakes in Turkish. So, I decided to write my thesis on this three main localization branches to show how to eliminate these mistakes easily,” he said.

“I see a great future in both game localization and machine translation. These two main areas are growing so fast and I believe that in the near future the demand will increase, too,” he said.

Martine Massiera — Omniscien Technologies

Martine Massiera has joined Omniscien Technologies as Sales Director, EMEA, in August 2017. Based in Nice, France, she reports directly to CEO Andrew Rufener.

Prior to joining Omniscien, Massiera has worked for various multinational companies and startups in very diverse areas: IT localization, telecoms, and Intellectual Property, among others.

“In the past 10 years, I was responsible for commercializing Intellectual Property (patent, design) data, including machine translation for providers of patent information research products: LexisNexis and Questel,” she shared.

At Omniscien, she said she is responsible for developing the company’s business in Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA).

What attracted her to join the company? “In my previous roles, both at LexisNexis and later at Questel, I was able to directly experience the productivity gains that an Omniscien Technologies Machine Translation Solution could provide to the business,” she disclosed.

She added, “Intellectual Property data is one of the most complex content to translate: millions of patents have to be translated every day around the world. Their content spans a wide range of languages, a broad variety of domains, with a lot of formulas, references, and tags.”

Asked to comment on the language services industry in general, she said access to enough computing power to process gigantic amounts of data and Artificial Intelligence could open possibilities for a wide range of new applications.

“Neural machine translation, AI, and language processing technologies are game changers and I am excited to be part of the change with a leading global specialized solution provider,” she concluded.

Cary Lichtman — Omniscien Technologies

As the new Sales Director (Americas) of Omniscien Technologies, Cary Lichtman is responsible for developing and expanding business opportunities in the region through direct clients, channels, and partnerships.

Based in Herndon, Virginia, he directly reports to CEO Andrew Rufener.

“Omniscien interested me in their approach to providing advanced language solutions with a customized vertical market emphasis instead of the one-size-fits-all approach that I have seen from other vendors,” he said of his move to the company.

Prior to joining Omniscien, Lichtman had seven years experience selling MT and NLP solutions with SYSTRAN and SDL, primarily in the US Federal market. He had also been involved in several director level sales roles in multiple companies providing geospatial solutions.

He said some of the key business challenges he sees in the American market for language services and technology providers like Omniscien is how to “extend MT and NLP into vertical applications, derive greater value from data mining and analytics, and rapidly customize the processing of language to reflect changing requirements.”

“How would technology play a role? I think business prospects are excellent and there is ongoing growth. MT and NLP requirements will also grow at the same rate as data velocity,” he shared.

Maria Romanenko — Literra Translation Company

Russian language service provider (LSP) Literra Translation Company has a new division which offers corporate language training to large Russian and international companies.

In May 2017, the company appointed Maria Romanenko as Training and Development Specialist. She will head the new department, handling corporate training and will be responsible for the teachers and trainers.

“We help translators improve in their profession and assist other employees of our customers in acquiring new skills that are in demand in the labor market,” Romanenko said.

Based in St. Petersburg, she reports to Dmitriy Pavlov, Literra’s Sales Director.

Romanenko has a degree in English and French from Pushkin Leningrad State University and  has extensive experience in teaching foreign languages.

“In my first position as Secretary of the Teachers’ Development Department at Nekrasov Teacher Training College, I helped organize college events. I prepared teachers’ documents for state certification and organized postgraduate courses,” she said.

She has also tried corporate training, online teaching, methodology development, and e-learning.