Speakers’ Biographies - Annual Conference

Colleen Beres
Terra Translations

Steve Chu | 朱浩文
President, Treehouse Strategy
Founder and Executive Director, Glocalization Organization of Asia Pacific

Diego Cresceri
CEO, Creative Words
His clients include: – Multilingual translation agencies
– Italian companies aiming to internazionalize – Foreign companies aiming to enter the Italian market Graduated in Translation and Interpreting at the University of Genoa, before founding Creative Words he was a translator, Project Manager and Chief Operation Officer in a local translation agency. He is currently a member of the Board of Directors of ELIA, the European Language Industry Association.
At Creative Words he is responsible for the company’s strategy and growth.
With a strong inclination to share, when not involved in his company he holds workshops and seminars on innovation, artificial intelligence and machine translation at universities, training schools and language associations nationally and internationally.
He enjoys spending his (little) free time with his two kids.

Rodrigo Cristina
Loving localization since 2005, Rodrigo is t’works’ customer experience localisation champion. With a background in business administration, and a limitless passion for all things localization, Rodrigo’s at heart a customer localization champion that believes that technology is, more than ever, shaping our industry.

Olivier Debeugny
Founder, Lingua Custodia

John Di Rico
Wordfast

Eugenia Echave
CFO, LatamwaysChief Financial Officer at Latamways, a Latin American translation and communications company located in a tech hub offering language quality at industrial scale and competitive prices. With more than 15 years of experience in language services, I have been involved in areas such as administration, process development, customer service and complaint resolution, team leadership, multilingual content coordination and project management not only in Argentina but also in companies in England and Spain.

Bryan Forrester
CEO Boostlingo

Shelley Halaba
Sales Specialist, Qwerty Works
Shelley is an industry young gun who jumped in the language service world fresh of the University of the Philippines – Visayas with a major in Communications and Media Studies. She has been working with QwertyWorks, the pioneer language service provider in the Philippines which has been operating for 18 years now.
In almost 7 years, she has experience working with different role from Project Management, Vendor Management, Account Management and acts as a back-up Linguist for Philippine local languages. Currently a Sales Specialist for Qwertyworks coordinating with partners across the globe helping them reach South East Asian market.
She is eagerly and continuously learning, navigating through the Language Industry sphere advancing the just cause to bridge different global markets through language.

Sophie Halbeisen
Director of Business Development, Plunet
Sophie Halbeisen is the Director of Business Development at the Plunet office in New York. She is responsible for new customer acquisition and account management in North and South America. Sophie uses her expertise daily, advising existing and prospective Plunet customers on process automation and optimization. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in Business Management and Master’s degree in Finance; and has more than 10 years of professional experience in B2B sales, marketing, and consulting in the USA and Germany. Outside of Plunet, Sophie is involved in volunteer work, loves traveling, and has a great passion for the city of New York

Sara Maria Hasbun
Founder, Meridian Linguistics

Noel Hillman
Vice President of Sales, Kudo
Marina Ilari
CEO, Terra Translations
Marina Ilari, CT is an ATA certified translator with over 16 years of experience in the translation industry. She has worked as a translator, editor, and quality assurance specialist for many companies around the world with a special focus on creative translations and video game localization. She is the chief executive officer of Terra Translations and co-host of the podcast about translation, En Pantuflas. Contact: marina@terratranslations.com. Colleen Beres is the Director of Business Strategy for Terra Translations. She earned a Bachelor of Business Administration from Loyola University Chicago in Operations and an MBA from Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management in Finance and Management & Organizations. Colleen has spent the past 15 years of her career utilizing qualitative insight and quantitative data to help safeguard businesses and organizations while promoting successful growth. Contact: colleen@terratranslations.com.

Lucrecia Jarab
Translation Back Office

Ioannis Kassios
Managing Director, TECHNOGRAFIA LTDIoannis co-founded Technografia in 2007. As the Managing Director, he is principally responsible for setting the direction and executing the strategy of the company. Prior to founding Technografia, he worked for many years as a professional translator and brings his wealth of industry experience to his leadership position at Technografia.
Ioannis has studied in Athens and Cologne and holds a diploma in German Studies with expertise in translation. He translates from German and English into Greek and his main fields of expertise are automotive, heavy industry, engineering, mechatronic and electrical/electronic systems. When he is not busy managing and directing, Ioannis enjoys running marathon races and spending time with his family.

Anna Kozubek

Steve Lank

Istvan Lengyel
István Lengyel is the founder of BeLazy (www.belazy.cat), the project management automation company that makes continuous localization efficient across the entire supply chain, and also works as technology consultant for Nimdzi Insights (www.nimdzi.com). Previously, he was one of the founders of Kilgray, the makers of memoQ, but also worked as a translator, and at an LSP. He holds several degrees in economics and translation, including a PhD in translation studies. He is passionate about technology being a platform to align interests.

Arle Dr. Lommel
Senior Research Analyst, CSA Research
Bruce McLaughlin
Ceo, Sinogie Consulting
Daniel Milczarski
Vice-President, Process and TechnologyCQ fluency’s mission is to improve lives and as an industry leader in the translation of healthcare materials, CQ has focused on technology-enabled solutions for their customers. Dan leads CQ’s Process and Technology department – creating a harmony between project management methodology and technological implementations. His team aims to connect, automate and innovate by applying, customizing and developing a hybrid of technology solutions. With a focus on process efficiency and change management, the CQ Process and Tech Team has been a key differentiator in CQ’s rapid growth and customer-centric solutioning.

Giulio Monaco
Co-Founder, Ablio

Peggy Peng

Chrysostomos Psaroudakis
Founder, Creative People in Greece

William Rivers
President, William Rivers & Associates
Dr. Bill Rivers has more than 25 years’ experience in culture and language for economic development and national security, with publications in second and third language acquisition research, proficiency assessment, program evaluation, and language policy development and advocacy. Before joining JNCL-NCLIS, he served as Chief Scientist at Integrated Training Solutions, Inc., a small business in Arlington, Virginia, where he focused on strategic planning, management, and advanced technologies for language and culture programs in the public sector. In 2003, he was one of four co-founders of the Center for Advanced Study of Language at the University of Maryland. During his career, Dr. Rivers has also taught Russian (beginning through advanced), graduate courses in language policy, qualitative and quantitative methods, Russian linguistics, and second language acquisition at the University of Maryland and at several universities in Kazakhstan. He has worked as a freelance interpreter and translator. He received his PhD in Russian from Bryn Mawr College and his MA, BA, and BS (Aerospace Engineering) from the University of Maryland. He speaks Russian and French.

Dieter Runge
Vice President, Boostlingo
Luz Sanchis
Master Translations
Translator and interpreter from Spain specialized in Mandarin Chinese, English and Spanish at Master Translations (MTS). I have studied and worked in Spain, UK and China for the past 10 years. Currently, I am employed at Master Translations in Xiamen, China, as a translator and business developer and I very often take part in most of the events in our industry. 4 years at stunning and prestigious University of Granada (Spain) and artsy Merseyside Liverpool John Moores University (UK) planted the translation seed in my heart, which has grown and bloomed at picturesque Xiamen University (China), where I finished my 3-year MTI in 2019. XMU is where I met Frank Wei, professor, founder and CEO of Master Translations. His acquaintance opened the doors wide to my career growth in China and the US as part of the amazing team at MTS.

Gilbert Segura
Founder, Voxabot
Too many years in localization–Dell for a decade, Amazon, Lionbridge, Welocalize, and a few in between and thereafter; working for clients big and small. Gilberto has been practicing multimedia, Machine Translation, Automation, Knowledge Management and sorting out all the confused tools to get it to work. He has seen most if not all the complexities that stand in the way of reaching a global audience and in some ways worked to overcome them or learned a lesson by failing.

Jerry Song

Edward Valera

Frank Wei
Founder, Master Translation Services
Frank Zhonghe Wei is Founder and CEO of Master Translation Services (MTS), a language company headquartered in Xiamen, China. He founded MTS in 2000 and manages its growth into a company with over 100 in-house linguists and seven branch offices in mainland China, Taiwan and USA. MTS ranks among top Asia language service providers. Frank has been actively involved in the language industry for 19 years, managing the company and communicating with clients from USA and Europe. He also takes part in the activities of language associations worldwide.

Christine Xaysakda | 翁诗琪
Graduated from UCLA and ISEE Paris Business School, Christine has built her business development career in technical industries between France and USA. Following her American experience, she decided to work with LBS Suite as their International Account Manager. With her multicultural background, she is passionate about languages and cultures. She speaks fluently Mandarin, Cantonese, English and French.

Chunliang Zhang (Mr) | 张春良
Founding Partner & Senior Vice President, NiuTrans Co.
Associate Professor, Northeastern University, China
Chunliang Zhang is a NiuTrans founding partner, and the senior vice president of NiuTrans for operations of overseas markets and language service industries. He is also an associate professor in Northeastern University China working on translation technology.
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