Date and place of birth? Gothenburg, Sweden—October 6, 1958.

Greatest professional success? I tend to prefer the present to the past, so it has to be leading the development of the current Vendor & Language Services organization in Oracle WPTG. We have come a lot further in the past three years than I would ever have expected at the outset. The biggest credit for this goes to my fantastic team, but it has been a real privilege to be part of our success.

Greatest professional mistake? Taking on more responsibility than I was ready for in an early stage of my career, by accepting a people management role before knowing what to expect or how to deal with it. My advice to those who encounter similar prospects is to ensure they can expect appropriate support from their company.

Most embarrassing professional moment? Probably displaying some awful presentation skills in the early days of my career—quite possibly at a LISA forum somewhere… I used to have a real fear of public speaking (I’ve heard it ranks as number one of people’s greatest fears—outstripping even death…!), but decided to tackle it head on by putting my name forward to do them all the time. It helped, and nowadays I actually get a lot of enjoyment out of giving presentations.

There was also the occasion just after moving to Oracle when I recorded my voice-mail message with; “Hi, you have reached Teddy Bengtsson at Microsoft…”. Definitely not the right approach to further your career at Oracle!

Most likely to say? “Enlighten, enable, enjoy…”. In order to be successful in a client/vendor partnership, we must enlighten ourselves about what it is we aim to achieve. We must then enable all involved to make it happen. And, last but by no means least, we must create an environment we all enjoy working in.

Least likely to say? “Sorry, I won’t make that round of golf you invited me for…”

What do you like most about the business? Approaching 15 years in the business, I can honestly say there hasn’t been a single day when I’ve dreaded going to work in the morning (which happened frequently in my prelocalization days…). This says a lot about how I feel about the business, but probably even more about the people in the business. It seems to attract dynamic, intelligent people, who are enjoyable to do business as well as socialize with.

What do you like least about the business? It is sometimes frustrating to operate in a large organization where localization and translation are not core functions, and subsequently get overlooked in planning. The downstream pressure to reduce costs and improve quality and time to market is all too common, when we should be looking upstream to really make a positive impact on these important objectives.

Who do you most admire in the business, and why? Since my wife, Fiona, is also in the localization business, the chances are I would get into all sorts of trouble if I didn’t mention her name… By the way—imagine the fascinating dinner conversations we have…! There are really so many great people in the business that I would struggle to mention one over another. I consider myself extremely fortunate to have many of them as friends and colleagues.

What advice would you give to someone just starting out? Try to gradually work out what area you want to specialize in—language, technical, process, management, etc. You’re likely to change your mind somewhere along the way, so be open to developing skills broadly. Getting into project management in a vendor organization may be the ultimate way to learn about the business!

What is your favorite industry fantasy? I think it is important to fantasize, and the wonderful thing about fantasies in this industry is that you do it for real. Things change so much and so quickly that what you can only imagine one year, may be reality the next. Currently I’m fixed on the concept of a single, fully integrated, international product development process.

Where will the industry be in five years time? Somewhere along the lines of the fantasy above. I truly believe that software publishers developing products for an English speaking market who aim to translate these as a separate, subsequent step will perish. They simply will not be able to compete in the truly international marketplace the world is rapidly becoming. We will see an even stronger emphasis on outsourced translation and localization services, but have real partnerships forming between publishers and vendors.

If I had my time over again I would… As much as I enjoy this business, it would have to be something completely different if I got a second bite at the cherry. Working with words, language and communication is still a great passion, and I would love to be a professional writer—either as a journalist or novelist. Maybe in my retirement …?

How would you like to be remembered? For honesty and integrity. I would also be truly delighted if some people feel they have learnt something from me which has helped them to develop either personally or professionally.

Teddy Bengtsson
Director of Vendor & Language Services
ORACLE Worldwide Product Translation Group
Block C, East Point Business Park
Fairview
Dublin 3, Ireland
Tel +353 (0)1 803 9108
Fax + (353) (0)1 803 9101
Mobile + (353) (0)87 248 8207
e-mail:tbengtss@ie.oracle.com