logo image
  • News
    • People Moves
    • Deal Wins
    • Demand Drivers
    • M&A and Funding
    • Financial Results
    • Technology
    • Academia
    • Industry News
    • Features
    • Machine Translation
    • — Divider —
    • Slator Pro
    • — Divider —
    • Press Releases
    • Sponsored Content
  • Data & Research
    • Research Reports & Pro Guides
    • Language Industry Investor Map
    • Real-Time Charts of Listed LSPs
    • Language Service Provider Index
  • Podcasts & Videos
  • Events
    • SlatorCon Remote May 2021
    • Email Marketing for Freelance Linguists
    • Preparing for the Critical Google Update Coming in May 2021
    • — Divider —
    • SlatorCon Coverage
    • Other Events
  • Directory
  • RFP Center
  • Jobs
MENU
  • News
    • People Moves
    • Deal Wins
    • Demand Drivers
    • M&A and Funding
    • Financial Results
    • Technology
    • Academia
    • Industry News
    • Features
    • Machine Translation
    • — Divider —
    • Slator Pro
    • — Divider —
    • Press Releases
    • Sponsored Content
  • Data & Research
    • Research Reports & Pro Guides
    • Language Industry Investor Map
    • Real-Time Charts of Listed LSPs
    • Language Service Provider Index
  • Podcasts & Videos
  • Events
    • SlatorCon Remote May 2021
    • Email Marketing for Freelance Linguists
    • Preparing for the Critical Google Update Coming in May 2021
    • — Divider —
    • SlatorCon Coverage
    • Other Events
  • Directory
  • RFP Center
  • Jobs

Register For Email Marketing for Freelance Linguists and Learn How To Win New Clients.

  • Slator Market Intelligence
  • Slator Advertising Services
  • Slator Advisory
  • Login
Search
Generic filters
Exact matches only
Advertisement
Lilt Hires Lionbridge Veteran Roberto Sastre in Bid to Expand Enterprise Business

2 years ago

June 4, 2019

Lilt Hires Lionbridge Veteran Roberto Sastre in Bid to Expand Enterprise Business

People Moves ·

by Florian Faes

On June 4, 2019

2 years ago
People Moves ·

by Florian Faes

On June 4, 2019

Lilt Hires Lionbridge Veteran Roberto Sastre in Bid to Expand Enterprise Business

Translation productivity startup turned tech-centric language service provider Lilt has added Roberto Sastre to its growing ranks of enterprise sales executives as Head of Revenue EMEA.

Dublin-based Sastre was brought to Lilt by fellow Lionbridge veteran Paula Shannon, who joined the San Francisco-based company in early 2019. Shannon and Sastre had worked together since their days at Berlitz’ Softrans in 1992, which, via Bowne, was acquired by Lionbridge in 2005.

Sastre held a number of senior sales positions until he was tasked with overseeing Lionbridge sales and operations in Western Europe before leaving the company in March 2019. At Lilt, he will report to Zack Kass, VP of Revenue.

Advertisement

Sastre’s addition comes as Lilt executes on its strategy of selling into large enterprises. Lilt started as a technology company marketing its translation productivity tool to linguists and language service providers; but, in early 2018, shifted to what the company calls a managed service model.

Slator 2020 Language Industry Market Report

Data and Research, Slator reports
55 pages. Total market size, biz dev and sales insights, TMS & MT review, buyer segment analysis, M&A, Covid impact & outlook.
$480 BUY NOW

The company hopes to use its software, a clever blend of adaptive and predictive machine translation and an interactive user interface, to boost human translation productivity and change industry economics by offering low unit rates to clients, but attractive hourly rates to professional translators. VP Kass told Slator in a phone interview that Lilt’s translators now average around 1,000 words per hour.

Lilt operates mainly from its headquarters in San Francisco and a research hub in Berlin, where the company has added a number of developers to its ranks. Kass said that while hiring Sastre gives Lilt a presence in Dublin, one of Europe’s most active localization centers, the recruitment of European sales and business development executives will not be restricted to the Irish capital.

All that hiring does not come cheap. Asked if Lilt is funding its current recruitment drive primarily from funds raised in its October 2018 Sequoia-led Series A, Kass simply responded that Lilt has had “profitable months this year.”

Lilt, along with fellow startup Unbabel, is one of the most interesting language industry companies to emerge from a crop of translation-focused startups launched in 2015–2016. The two companies target different end-markets. Unbabel is laser-focused on customer service content as opposed to Lilt, which targets the broader enterprise space.

SlatorSweep - Daily Market Intelligence

SlatorSweep

Data and Research, Market Intelligence
Curated news from thousands of sources, SlatorSweep’s daily news service gives you a competitive edge on time sensitive market intelligence.
BUY NOW

What both companies share are CEOs with a background in language technology, who have no legacy technology to replace, and are aggressively building the latest advances in neural machine translation into their workflows.

That said, hires like that of Sastre show that despite all that tech, there is still the need for a seasoned sales executive with deep client relationships to penetrate large enterprise clients — and have a change at winning against the biggest global LSPs, many of which have been in business for nearly 30 years.

TAGS

LiltLionbridgeneural machine translationPaula ShannonRoberto SastreSpence GreenTranslation ProductivityUnbabelZack Kass
SHARE
Florian Faes

By Florian Faes

Co-Founder of Slator. Linguist, business developer, and mountain runner. Based in the beautiful lakeside city of Zurich, Switzerland.

Advertisement

SUBSCRIBE TO THE SLATOR WEEKLY

Language Industry Intelligence
In Your Inbox. Every Friday

SUBSCRIBE

SlatorSweepSlatorPro
ResearchRFP CENTER

PUBLISH

PRESS RELEASEDIRECTORY LISTING
JOB ADEVENT LISTING

Bespoke advisory including speaking, briefings and M&A

SLATOR ADVISORY
Advertisement

Featured Reports

See all
Slator 2020 Language Industry M&A and Funding Report

Slator 2020 Language Industry M&A and Funding Report

by Slator

Slator 2021 Data-for-AI Market Report

Slator 2021 Data-for-AI Market Report

by Slator

Slator 2020 Medtech Translation and Localization Report

Slator 2020 Medtech Translation and Localization Report

by Slator

Pro Guide: Sales and Marketing for Language Service Providers

Pro Guide: Sales and Marketing for Language Service Providers

by Slator

Press Releases

See all
Marc Westray of Interpreters Unlimited Wins Rising Stars in Marketing Award

Marc Westray of Interpreters Unlimited Wins Rising Stars in Marketing Award

by Interpreters Unlimited

6CONNEX to Partner with Interprefy to Help Clients Host Large Scale Events in Any Language

6CONNEX to Partner with Interprefy to Help Clients Host Large Scale Events in Any Language

by Interprefy

BLEND Raises $10m to Fuel Global Growth with End-to-end Localization Services

BLEND Raises $10m to Fuel Global Growth with End-to-end Localization Services

by BLEND

Upcoming Events

See All
  1. Smartling - Global Ready Conference 2021

    Global Ready Conference

    by Smartling

    · April 14

    When you can't traverse the world, let the world come to you. Join our annual global event from home.

    More info FREE

Featured Companies

See all
Sunyu Transphere

Sunyu Transphere

Text United

Text United

Memsource

Memsource

Wordbank

Wordbank

Protranslating

Protranslating

Seprotec

Seprotec

Versacom

Versacom

Smartling

Smartling

XTM International

XTM International

Translators without Borders

Translators without Borders

STAR Group

STAR Group

memoQ Translation Technologies

memoQ Translation Technologies

Advertisement

Popular articles

Poland Rules on LSP Using Google Translate; Defines ‘Professional Translator’

Poland Rules on LSP Using Google Translate; Defines ‘Professional Translator’

by Marion Marking

The Slator 2021 Language Service Provider Index

The Slator 2021 Language Service Provider Index

by Slator

Behind the Scenes of the European Parliament’s Pivot to Remote Interpreting

Behind the Scenes of the European Parliament’s Pivot to Remote Interpreting

by Seyma Albarino

SlatorPod: The Weekly Language Industry Podcast

connect with us

footer logo

Slator makes business sense of the language services and technology market.

Our Company

  • Support
  • About us
  • Terms & Conditions
  • Privacy Policy

Subscribe to the Slator Weekly

Language Industry Intelligence
In Your Inbox. Every Friday

© 2021 Slator. All rights reserved.

Sign up to the Slator Weekly

Join over 13,500 subscribers and get the latest language industry intelligence every Friday

Your information will never be shared with third parties. No Spam.