Ask LISA
Profile of Speakers Presenting at the LISA Forum Europe
An international businessman with over 25 years experience in the IT sector, Michael Anobile received a Bachelors of Science degree in communications at Syracuse University, and participated in the Masters degree program in political communications at the University of Maryland.
After relocating his family to Switzerland in 1980 to become European Training Manager for Exxon Office Systems, he subsequently held a number of European and Swiss management positions in the IT and language-technology industries, focusing on global business development and marketing.
A founding member of LISA, and the Managing Director from its inception, he is responsible for the day-to-day management of the Association including outreach programs to other standards organizations (E.g., ISO Category A liaison member, IdeAlliance, Unicode, Openi18N, W3C, OASIS, etc.) and government agencies (E.g., US Department of Commerce, the European Union's Directorate General for Translation along with various Asian, Canadian and European language technology and national standards and trade bodies) as well as its international forums, training programs and industry marketing & public relations projects.
Donald Barabe began his career in Canada's public service as a translator with the Canadian Government Translation Bureau in 1978. He acquired extensive management experience as the head of translation units for several departments and agencies, notably the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade and the Department of Justice of the Government of Canada.
Mr. Barabe has studied translation at Universite Laval and was a lecturer at the University of Ottawa School of Translation and Interpretation.
As Vice-President, Professional Services, he is responsible for the delivery of translation and linguistic services to the various departments and agencies of the
Canadian Government. He also represents the Bureau in dealings with language industry stakeholders both nationally and internationally. He has been invited to speak on the translation/localization industry to numerous organizations in Canada and abroad.
Claude Lamoureux is Multilingual Information Services Manager at PerkinElmer Life and Analytical Sciences. He is responsible for localization of PerkinElmer's Genetic Screening products and for multilingual content management solutions.
Under his direction, PerkinElmer has successfully addressed the life science industry's need for highly regulated multilingual instructions for use while integrating high-quality and standardized processes.
Mr. Lamoureux has served in several positions on the multilingual service providers' side and also in developing similar services within PerkinElmer. Mr. Lamoureux holds a B.A. degree from Concordia University in Montreal, Canada as well as a Masters degree in translation studies from Turku University in Finland.
Alison Toon has worked for Hewlett-Packard in 1991, originally as a usability engineer and technical author with localization responsibilities, for a networks division in Grenoble, France. After several years in this role, Alison moved on to creating, designing and introducing services such as web-based distribution of documentation and software to HP's support engineers.
Alison has been managing her localization program and team since 1997, growing the scope of responsibilities and increasing the team from one to many, and introducing centralized localization workflow tools to HP. The WW Operations CMS Translation and Localization team is now seen as an HP center of expertise for translation workflow.
Since July 2000, Alison has been based in Roseville, California. She manages a worldwide team responsible for the localization of web portals and services, and provides consulting to other HP organizations and program teams.
Before joining HP, Alison worked as an analyst-programmer and as a technical documentation consultant in various companies in the UK and the Netherlands.
Rebecca Ray is a highly accomplished Globalization Consultant and Author with a very successful track record of turning international expansion dreams into reality. Throughout her 27-year career, she has been a pioneer in managing worldwide product design, localization, marketing and distribution for successful products sold internationally by such companies as IBM, Netscape Communications, Symantec and Sun Microsystems.
Ray is the co-author of the book, Doing Business in the USA: Marketing and Operations Strategies for Success. She is currently Managing Editor for the Globalization Insider. Ray is fluent in English, French, Portuguese, Spanish and Turkish.
Andrzej Zydroń was born in England. Educated in France he started working in IT in 1976. His experience has covered all aspects of computing, with in depth knowledge of Software Engineering, SGML, XML, encoding methodologies and translation memory. Highlights of his career include:
* The design and architecture of the European Patent Office patent data capture system for Xerox Business Services.
* The design and architecture of the Xerox Language Services XTM translation memory system in 1996.
* Author of XML and SGML filters for SDL International's SDLX Translation Suite.
* Assisting the Oxford University Press, the British Council and Oxford University in work on the New Dictionary of the National Biography.
Andrzej Zydroń is a member of the LISA OSCAR Steering Committee. He is the technical architect and editor of the GILT Metrics proposed specification suite, as well as editor of the proposed TBX Link specification. Zydroń also sits on the OASIS technical committees for Translation Web Services, XLIFF and XLIFF segmentation. He is also a W3C invited expert sitting on the W3C ITS technical committee.
As CTO for XML-Intl, he is currently developing the next generation of XML-based text memory systems to reduce authoring and translation costs for documentation. Zydroń is fluent in English, Polish and French.
Kara Warburton is responsible for defining IBM's terminology strategy, including tools, processes, and data management. Her primary goal is to extend the focus of terminology management from translation to content management. She is also a published author and public speaker on the subject.
Kara is a Canadian delegate to ISO TC 37, which defines ISO terminology standards, and the chair of the LISA Terminology Special Interest Group. She holds a Master's degree in Terminology from Universite' Laval and has held positions as translator, information developer and university professor.
Marion Mordenti has worked for Hewlett-Packard since 1997, originally as a consultant for the creation & design of localized in-country gateways for HP products.
Marion joined the Translation & Localization team in 2000, as localization Project Manager. As part of this team, she is responsible for managing the localization of web portals and services, and providing consulting to other HP organizations and program teams.
Marion graduated from Grenoble University and holds a Master's Degree in Specialized Translations.
Volkmar Burke Siegemund is a software internationalization engineer and globalization project manager with IBM’s Tivoli division at Research Triangle Park, NC, USA. He is a foreign language professional with over 10 years’ experience in the industry, covering a variety of areas: translation, software localization and internationalization, project management, linguistic testing and internationalization testing, financial planning, and vendor management.
Lyra Spratt-Manning is the former President and Chief Executive Officer of ENLASO Corporation. She is the General Manager at Interverbum USA - West. Lyra is an experienced consultant to the medical, pharmaceutical, and manufacturing industry relative to CE marking, US government contracting requirements, and international regulatory issues.
Ms. Spratt-Manning's affiliations include: Advisory Board for the San Francisco Global Trade Council; consultant to Carnegie Group's Controlled English Program; Regulatory Affairs Professional Society and The University of California Linguistic Program Development Committee. Lyra is the LISA Advisory board member.
David Aponovich combines a background that includes business and technology journalism, online publishing and marketing in his position as director of marketing at Ektron.
Prior to joining Ektron in 2003, Aponovich was senior web editor at Aberdeen Group, a provider of information technology market research, market positioning and consulting services. He previously was an online editor at INT Media Group (now JupiterMedia), covering emerging technologies and Internet start-ups, as well as managing an interactive, community-based site for chief information officers.
Aponovich also spent several years as a business editor at The Telegraph, a daily newspaper in Nashua, N.H.
Karen joined oracle in 1998 and has been a key player in shaping the EMEA Knowledge Management and Professional Community programs resulting in collaborative learning and effective distribution of knowledge to over 4,500 community members. In 2006 when Oracle established the Global Industries Business Unit Karen took responsibility for the globalization of Industry Professional Communities, currently with 11,000+ members across the globe. This program is developing industry specialization and establishing consistent industry messaging globally for Oracle.
Vitaly Borok is CEO of Multilize Inc. He established this company in 2004 and now Multilize Inc. is one of the leading Russian localization companies. Mr. Borok has 10 years experience in translation and software localization.
Prior to establishing Multilize Inc. Mr. Borok for 6 years worked as Executive Director in STAR SPB – the Russian branch of the STAR Group. Earlier he worked on a number of software development projects in different companies. Mr. Borok holds an M.S. in Computer Science from St. Petersburg State University of Electrical Engineering, and an M.S. in Finance from St. Petersburg State University.
Lior joined Net-Translators in its infancy and has successfully led the effort to define the company as a leader in the field of Localization for the Software and Medical device industries. In addition to Lior's responsibilities for managing and directing the marketing and sales team, his duties also include creation and implementation of strategic plans. Lior has several years experience in localization and his familiarity with localization processes and ability to understand the clients' localization needs has enabled Net-Translators to experience extraordinary growth over the past few years.
A native of Romania, Irina Niculiu has started her career as an editor and translator at a major Publishing House in her homeland. With a background in foreign languages and multiculturalism, she spent the best part of her business years in Sales and Marketing, in the US.
Irina is currently Marketing Manager at altalingua EES, a nationally and internationally recognized MLV. Her major role is to promote the company’s solution driven services, to research international target-markets and to develop techniques of reaching prospects worldwide focusing her efforts to contribute to the growth of the business.
Dual national Swiss and Italian, Eric was born on 10 August 1962 and is a trained banker, with a degree in Swiss Banking, a specialization in IT and Processes Organizations techniques and project management certifications (PMI/IPMA) on going.
After 14 years on various positions in IT Organizations of Swiss and foreign banks and insurances, where he got his first "localization" issues (multilingual projects), he joined in 1997 Logitech Europe as Translation Coordinator for the EMEA Marketing Unit. He transferred in 1999 to the Control Devices Engineering Unit as Manager for Products Software Localization Services, where he spent 8 years, with the tasks of his group growing to be responsible for delivering, and sim-shipping simultaneously, in 20+ languages, all software projects for all business units of the Logitech group.
Eric is a native mother-speaking french, with fluency in English, German and obscure swiss german dialectal forms. Passion for languages, scuba diving, sushis, astronomy, are some of his hobbies as well as being a dedicated fan of the Blackadder TV serie.
Christie Fidura is the Senior Product Marketing Manager for Terminology at SDL International. With over 14 years experience in Global and Pan-European software development, Christie brings a deep understanding of information technology and marketing to SDL. She is now combining these skills with multilingual strategies, helping global enterprises understand the importance of terminology as it fits within the realm of managing global information. She has successfully helped companies develop brand identity and customer loyalty, and launched new software products to a worldwide audience, garnering several awards throughout her career.
Mrs. Signe Rirdance is a true professional of the language industry, with over 10 years of management experience in localization, technical writing, terminology and translation. As the Director of EuroTermBank, a recently launched multilingual terminology portal, she is in charge of developing a new business line in Tilde, the leading Baltic IT company specializing in language technologies, multilingual and Internet software, and localization.
Prior to this, Mrs. Rirdance developed Tilde’s localization business from a single project to a prosperous business line with offices in 3 countries. Later, she returned to Tilde on part-time basis as a quality management consultant, establishing comprehensive quality procedures and processes across Tilde’s localization department.
In parallel, she held the position of Director, Localization, Documentation and Training, in Exigen Latvia, the software development center of the global Exigen Group, headquartered in San Francisco, US. While at Exigen Latvia, she set up and directed the production cycles and teams for localization, technical writing, and training of Exigen products.
As a language professional, she has been involved in a variety of linguistic projects, such as the development of Microsoft Style Guide and terminology for Latvian, and numerous translation, validation and editing assignments, including translation of novels into Latvian. She volunteers as a guest-lecturer on translation stylistics and localization at the University of Latvia.
Mrs. Signe Rirdance is a member of the ICT Committee of Terminology Commission of the Latvian Academy of Sciences. She has completed master’s degree in Business Administration, as well as bachelor’s degrees in English Linguistics (University of Latvia) and Political Science (University of Wisconsin).
Richard is a passionate entrepreneur who co-founded Celestone in 1995. In 1997, Celestone entered into translation market and soon got recognition from a number of leading Fortune 500 companies. The company started to offer localization service in 2003 and is now one of the leading translation and localization agencies in China.
Richard also serves as the board member of Embedded Software Systems Co., Ltd., a high-tech company focusing on developing embedded software products, and www.chinantique.com, an Internet portal for Chinese antiques.
Richard studied at Beijing Polytechnic University majoring in International Trade and at Beijing Foreign Studies University majoring English. He is a member of the Entrepreneur China Network, a consortium of young Chinese entrepreneurs.
Richard is 31 years old, married and has a happy family. He likes outdoor sports like ski, boating, fishing and traveling. He is also a fan of Chinese traditional culture and arts.
Mark Lancaster is the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of SDL International. After graduating with an HND in Electrical and Electronic Engineering, and later studying for an MSC in Software and Computer Architecture, Mark Lancaster established an early career as a design engineer at Satchwell Control Systems. He then progressed his career as Project Manager at Lotus Development Corporation and later held a senior management position with software developer Ashton Tate as International Development Director. Lancaster founded SDL International in 1992 when he identified the need for a high-level service provider for the globalisation of software. Mark was a founder member of LISA, the Localisation Industry Standards Association with which he continues his involvement. In 1997 he was a Southern region finalist for the Ernst and Young Entrepreneur of The Year Award. Mark is married with three children.
Karl-Johan Lönnroth has spent his entire career supporting international cooperation through the European Commission, the OECD, the UN, the ILO and various institutions in the Nordic countries. Prior to being appointed Director-General for Translation in 2004, Lönnroth was Deputy Director-General of the Directorate-General for Employment and Social Affairs at the European Commission. From 1991-1996, he was Director of the Employment Department at the International Labour Office in Geneva. Lönnroth has a Masters Degree in Political Sciences from the University of Helsinki (Finland), an MA from the University of Wisconsin (USA) and a diploma from the Ecole Nationale d'Administration (France).
Located at the T-Systems’ headquarters in Frankfurt am Main, Germany since 2001 as Globalization Services Initiative Director, Philo is responsible for the development, delivery and management of language procurement, translation and localization services, linguistic asset management as well as cross-cultural support services. Philo began his career in San Francisco, California with Apple Corporation Korea as head of operations for multilingual pre-press services in the early 90’s.
At the start of 1997 when the IT industry was rapidly growing in Latvia, Inese Auzina joined the ranks of young IT professionals being outsourced to the US and European IT enterprises. Fluent knowledge of English, Latvian and Russian, understanding of IT, and natural people skills allowed her to specialize in documentation and to lead a team of Technical Writers. From there Inese went on to Tilde - the leading software producer and provider of localization services in the Baltic countries - where she is now leading a constantly increasing team of translators, localizers, and technical writers across Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.
Michael Kemmann is Managing Director and owner of ADAPT Localization Services in Bonn, Germany, a localization service provider specialising in the fields of Life Sciences and IT / Telecommunications.
Involved in localization since 1996, he has worked in various roles as Senior Editor, translator, localizer and consultant, working (partly on site) for several large software, telecommunication and financial corporations before founding ADAPT.
At ADAPT, Michael is responsible for the company's strategies for offering reliable and compliant solutions for clients in the highly regulated, safety-related Life Sciences environment.
He holds a Master's degree in German and English literature from Bonn university, and is a member of the Regulatory Affairs Professional Society (RAPS) and The Institute of Localisation Professionals (TILP), among others.
Monique Floch is the Vendor Manager of the Application and Content Globalization (ACG) team in Hewlett-Packard Services.
Monique has been with HP-ACG since 1994. She worked as a Localization Project Manager until end of 2005, handling projects for a large panel of HP products. She has been in the position of Vendor Manager in ACG for almost 2 years.
Lisa is currently CEO of UB Access and a CTO of Aequus Technologies. Lisa is a world expert in web interoperability, accessibility and web protocols. She is a key member of the W3C Forum working groups on web accessibility and has been instrumental in creating the standards, which are accepted as the benchmark for accessibility worldwide. Over the last few months Lisa has worked for Fortune 500 companies and the European Commission.
Lisa is currently building techniques for W3C (WCAG) and is the author and editor of W3C, WAI accessibility specifications for the Accessibility for Rich Internet Applications (WAI-ARIA) Suite including AJAX, DHTML, and other application technologies and increased semantics for any XML based language to increase accessibility and interoperability. Lisa has authored strategic and technical roadmaps, policies and guidelines for both public and private sector uses.
Lisa’s vast experience and passion for making language accessible has enabled out-of-the-box thinking that empowers both localization and accessibility.
Kirti Vashee, VP of Sales and Marketing, directs worldwide marketing and sales strategy for Language Weaver. Vashee has more than 25 years experience in successful enterprise software marketing and product development, including significant background with small entrepreneurial as well as larger technology companies such as EMC, Dow Jones and Legato. He has extensive worldwide reseller channel building experience and excellent knowledge of the knowledge management and translation industries. An accomplished speaker who has addressed audiences all over the world, Vashee conducted his undergraduate work in international economics and finance at Bombay University, India and received his MBA from Case Western Reserve University in Ohio.
With a wealth of experience in International Business and International Professional Services, Paul has dealt with a range of Global 500 clients. Paul is fluent in a number of European languages having lived extensively in Spain and France. With over 10 years in localization Paul has developed a clear understanding of clients’ requirements on cost and service. As a Director and co-owner of Alpha CRC, Paul is a firm believer in relationship building and consultative sales. He has introduced a range of Software Top 500 clients to Alpha CRC. Paul has a Master's degree in English from Exeter University.
Dr. Andrew Bredenkamp is co-founder and CEO of acrolinx, the world's leading provider of content quality management software. Andrew has nearly 20 years' experience in multilingual information development. Before starting acrolinx, Andrew was Head of the Technology Transfer Centre at the German Research Centre for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI) Language Technology Lab. Andrew holds degrees in technical translation and linguistics and a Ph.D. in Computational Linguistics.
Chris Wong is a Senior Software Engineer at Idiom Technologies. A member of LISA's Terminology SIG, he is primarily responsible for WorldServer terminology management functionality. Wong has also served as the Idiom representative to the DITA Technical Committee of OASIS. He holds a Master of Engineering in Computer Science from Cornell University.
François Tardif tenure in the multilingual asset management industry includes over seven years in Sales & Marketing, Training and Implementation and Support roles. François is responsible for the overall leadership of MultiCorpora’s Customer Service and Support unit in Europe which is based in Brussels, Belgium. Earlier in his career, as an independent consultant, François’ engagement was to help companies and organizations overcome communication and client service barriers for improved efficiencies. He holds a B.A. in Communications and a B.Ed. from the University of Ottawa.
Dr. Wasser is considered a world-class authority in the field of process-driven ERP implementations. He published several academic papers on BPM (Business Process Management), and has participated as speaker in the most important BPM and ERP international conferences. Dr. Wasser has been a research fellow at the Center for Dynamic Enterprise Modeling at the Technion, Israel's institute of technology, which is ranked as one of the worlds leading research organizations. Wasser serves as a process realization advisor to some of the world's largest enterprises, assisting to direct ERP rollouts, and to delineate global process infrastructures.
Dr. Rinsche has a PhD in Computational Linguistics from Bonn University, Germany. She founded LTC in 1992, a company based in London and Washington DC.
Dr. Rinsche implemented the commercial use of translation memory technology as early as 1994, trained corporate users and translators in this technology and designed the first and most mature business information system for the language industry - well known today as LTC Organiser across the world. She leads the design of LTC's software systems such as LTC Worx and LTC Communicator.
Simon is the Group Technology Manager at thebigword, with overall responsibility for the technology and the associated processes used in creating efficient, integrated, translation services. Simon previously worked with Ford Motor Company for seven years, creating localised public-facing software solutions. He is a Chartered IT Professional, Member of the British Computer Society and a Chartered Engineer
Yan joined Idiom Technologies in 2000 and has held positions in Engineering, Professional Services, and Business Development. As Director of Business Development, Yan works closely with Idiom's channel and strategic partners. In the early years at Idiom, Yan focused on designing and implementing translation automation solutions for many Idiom customers, such as Oracle, Adobe, eBay, McAfee, Baxter Healthcare, and Autodesk. Prior to joining Idiom, Yan was a Managing Principal Consultant at the New England Practice of Oracle Consulting. Yan holds a Bachelor's degree and a Master's degree in Mechanical Engineering from Louisiana Tech University. He also holds a Master of Business Administration degree from Louisiana State University in Shreveport.
Dirk Meyer is the Product Manager for Globalization Technologies at Adobe Systems, based in San Jose, California. In this role within the company's Corporate Product Management, Mr. Meyer provides guidance to Adobe products on improving their functionality in order to become "world-ready" and support a truly global customer base.
As the so-called "Web 2.0" technologies have started to make a profound impact on the software business in general, Mr. Meyer is particularly interested in the challenges and opportunities those technologies are presenting in the area of internationalization and how they are affecting development processes and distribution workflows of software companies.
Mr. Meyer's history at Adobe also includes performing work on and researching CJKV fonts and Asian encoding standards as a member of Adobe's Type Department. He was among the first to describe and analyze the Chinese standard GB 18030-2000. In addition, he has played key roles in the successful integration of shared technologies into the Adobe Creative Suite family, working with teams that spanned time zones and cultures.
Mr. Meyer studied in Germany and at Beijing University, China. He holds a masters degree in Chinese Studies and East European History from the University of Tübingen, Germany.
After graduating in Applied linguistics and Cultural sciences, she started working as language service coordinator and quality manager on the multilingual service providers' side.
Focussing first on translator recruitment and training, then more and more on translation and documentation process optimization, she held different management positions in her current company until taking over as Operations Manager in 2006. Having worked with a variety of customer requirements, her main field of expertise is process management in the rapidly evolving technical translation industry.
Michael Wetzel, M.A. (German linguistics, French linguistics, and Computational Linguistics) is Product Manager at SDL plc, the leader in global information management (GIM) solutions. Joining TRADOS in 1997, he began working as a Program Manager for the Translator’s Workbench & WinAlign applications. In 2000, he became the Product Manager for Terminology Management, looking after applications such as MultiTerm and MultiTerm Extract. With the corporate merger of SDL and TRADOS in 2005, Mr. Wetzel is now responsible for the SDL Terminology product portfolio.
Graduated from Moscow State University and joined ITI Ltd. in 2005 as a software developer to work on the internal terminology management system. Since 2006 takes an active part in the research & development of the integrated automated QA infrastructure developed by ITI for use on its localization projects.
Christine Hug is a Senior Terminotics Specialist of the Terminology Standardization Directorate of the Translation Bureau (Canada). She is responsible for providing training and technical assistance to terminologists for various terminology software applications, as well as for identifying and testing new terminology tools. Christine holds a Bachelor’s degree and Master’s degree, both in Translation, from the University of Ottawa. There she also taught a graduate level course on computers and translation. She has authored articles on the terminology workflow.
Ioannis Iakovidis is the general manager of Interverbum Technology in Sweden. Interverbum is one of the leading providers of terminology management systems. As founder of Nescit Systems he was instrumental in the development of the TermWeb software. Ioannis Iakovidis holds a M.Sc from the Institute of Technology, Linköping, Sweden.
