Lori Thicke is co-founder and CEO of Lexcelera (Eurotexte Group). Established in Paris in 1986, Lexcelera was the first localization company in France to receive ISO 9001:2000 quality certification. Today, Lexcelera is an innovator in translation technology. In 1993, Lori and her partner, Ros Smith-Thomas, founded Traducteurs sans Frontières to provide free translations to humanitarian organizations. Today Translators without Borders and Traducteurs sans Frontières are making a significant contribution to the work of humanitarian organizations. Lori, who holds an MFA from the University of British Columbia, is a frequent speaker on bridging the knowledge divide to fight information poverty.

Simon Andriesen is founder and CEO of MediLingua, a linguistic services company based in The Netherlands specializing in pharmaceutical, clinical trial, biomedical, medical technology, and other health-related information. He also manages Leesbaarheidstest.nl, which is a business unit specializing in readability testing of patient information, and is involved in an ongoing project for the Dutch government concerning translation quality of patient information. He coordinates and teaches a series of courses on medical and pharmaceutical translation, and is involved in training courses for authors of patient information leaflets. He has been part of the translation and localization community since 1980.

Renato Beninatto, CEO & Chief Instigator of Milengo Ltd., is a corporate strategist and market research evangelist with nearly 30 years of executive-level leadership in the localization industry. Renato has forged a reputation for visionary leadership, most recently as the co-founder and former Chief Connector of Common Sense Advisory, the industry’s foremost market research firm. Prior to CSA, Renato served as the Vice President of Sales at both ALPNET and Berlitz, where he drove global growth and profitability. A native of Brazil, Renato is an active member of several industry groups worldwide, including the American Translators Association (ATA), the European Language Industry Association (ELIA), the Association of Language Companies (ALC), and the Globalization and Localization Association (GALA).

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.

Cornelia Buttmann-Scholl is a freelance translator who has founded her company Cbstrad in 2010. Before, she has been working as International Sales Manager and Localization Project Manager at Andia photo agency where she has set up, developed and manged for over 8 years the international business. She holds a French Master’s Degree (summa cum laude) in Localization & Multimedia and a bachelor’s degree (cum laude) in Translation. As a volunteer, she has initiated and partly created TWB’s website. Cornelia speaks German, French and English.

Henry Dotterer is the founder and president of ProZ.com, the world’s largest human translation portal. An MIT graduate and former translator, Henry lives with his wife and three children in his hometown of Syracuse, New York.

Salvatore (Salvo) Giammarresi is currently Localization Director at Yahoo where he is responsible for localization strategy and process, localization program management, vendor management, localization engineering, functional localization testing and linguistic quality assurance across all of Yahoo’s products and services. Previously he was Vice President of Products at HomeGain.com ; an independent Localization Consultant ; Director of International Product Management at Move.com ; Senior Localization Manager at Kana Software ; and Engineering Program Manager at Electronics for Imaging. Salvatore holds a PhD in Applied Linguistics from the University of Palermo (Italy) where he has been a Visiting Professor teaching Localization, Computer Assisted Translation (CAT) Tools and Global Product Marketing. He is the author of a University-level textbook on CAT Tools and has published several papers on Localization and Applied Linguistics.

Daniel Goldschmidt is a senior internationalization program manager at Microsoft in the business platform division. Prior to joining Microsoft, Daniel co-founded RIGI Localization Solutions, a venture in the domain of visual localization. Previously, he served as a senior software engineer for the Google Internationalization Team, working on the Google Localization Framework. As a senior professional in the field of software and content globalization, he has extensive experience in the internationalization and localization of large-scale enterprise applications and projects. Daniel serves as vice chair of the Localization World program committee, chairs the Worldware Conference program committee and presents frequently in international events. He holds a B.Sc. in computer sciences and mathematics (cum laude) and an M.Sc. in computer sciences, both from the Hebrew University, Jerusalem.

Ghassan Haddad is the Director of Internationalization and Project Management at Facebook. In his internationalization role he focuses on defining and implementing the company’s translation strategy and crowdsourcing model. Before joining Facebook, he was Director of Software Engineering and Localization at PayPal where he was responsible for implementing PayPal as a payment solution in almost 200 countries, 30+ currencies and 20 languages. Haddad has over 20 years of experience in language research and technology, management, and software development and has held several middle and upper management positions at Intergraph, Berlitz, eTranslate, PayPal and Facebook. He has a Ph.D. in Linguistics from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Françoise Henderson is the co-founder and COO of Rubric. She is responsible for strategic corporate development, localization methodology, office expansion and human resources. Under Françoise’s guidance, Rubric has generated one of the most reliable production records in the industry. Françoise has over 15 years experience in the localization industry, with positions in corporate management, project management and translation. Prior to Rubric, Françoise was General Manager of Berlitz’s London office. Her background as a professional translator is invaluable when addressing linguistic issues and she has written extensively on the topic of translation quality. Her highly developed ability to identify opportunities for process improvements has allowed Rubric to develop its high level of automation leading to effective customization of Rubric’s clients’ processes.

Ulrich Henes is the president of The Localization Institute which he founded in the fall of 1996 because he saw a serious lack of quality training and learning opportunities in this important area. He has been involved with localization, fi rst as an international sales and marketing manager (also serving as a localization manager) for a US software company and then as resident of the American office of a British localization agency. He is a co-organizer of the Localization World conferences.

Donna Parrish has been with the magazine MultiLingual since 1997, becoming owner and publisher in 2002. She is co-organizer of the Localization World conferences. Prior to her work at MultiLingual Computing, Inc., Donna was a computer programmer for 25 years, working for Digital Equipment Corporation as well as various clients. Donna is co-organizer of the local human right task force and currently works with Circles to alleviate poverty on a local and regional level. She holds a B.Sc. in mathematics from Peabody College of Vanderbilt University.

Uli Paulin is expert in bringing technology products to markets worldwide. His career in the software and Internet space evolved around localization, internationalization, international marketing, product management and E-commerce. Before starting his own consulting firm he held managerial and director level positions at Symantec, NetManage and Macromedia (now Adobe). Uli holds a degree in Electrical Engineering from TU Berlin, speaks English and German and is a dual citizen of the US and Germany.

Sergio Pelino is a Senior Localization Operations Manager at Google. 20 years of experience in the localization industry at large enterprise scale with focus on innovation, translation technology and global process. Before joining Google, Sergio held various roles in Microsoft and then Oracle ranging from language quality to infrastructure and business. University degree in Foreign Languages and Literatures (English, Spanish, French), Applied Linguistics, Textual Analysis, Università degli Studi di Roma ’La Sapienza. Diploma in translation, Institute of Linguists at DCU Dublin. BCS ISEB Requirements engineering certificate. Sergio was born in Italy and moved to Ireland some 20 years ago where he lives now with his wife and 2 children in the lovely town of Greystones Co. Wicklow.

Rebecca Petras is the founder of Petras Associates, a corporate and brand strategic communications consultancy based in Seattle, Washington USA. She specializes in creating public relations programs, messaging, customer case study programs and training for a wide range of technology and localization clients in the US and Europe. Additionally, she serves as public relations and marketing specialist for the not-for-profit Globalization and Localization Association.

Nico Posner is Principal Product Manager, International at LinkedIn, responsible for growing LinkedIn’s member base through internationalization and localization. Nico has been active with international charitable organizations for over 20 years through the Posner-Wallace Foundation. Nico received an MBA from Thunderbird, School of Global Management and speaks English, German and Spanish. LinkedIn Profile : http://www.linkedin.com/in/nicoposner

Paula Shannon, Chief Sales Officer, Senior Vice President and General Manager, co-manages Lionbridge’s $300M localization business and has over 24 years of experience in the language industry. Ms. Shannon speaks English, French, and Dutch, and is functional in German, Spanish, and Russian. Educated in the Massachusetts and Belgium, she holds a B.A. in Russian and German with a minor in Linguistics from McGill University, Montreal, Canada. Ms. Shannon’s profile, “A Knack for Languages”, appeared recently in the Wall Street journal. Ms. Shannon was honoured In January 2004, with the International Stevie Award as “Best Sales Executive.” In 2006, she won a Women in Business Stevie as “Best Canadian Executive.”

Michael Smolens had for the first 32 years of his career set up manufacturing facilities doing business in and with high-risk countries including Haiti, Mexico, Hungary, Romania, Turkey, Pakistan, India, Egypt, Jordan, Russia and Azerbaijan, creating in excess of 20,000 jobs and directly supporting the livelihood of more than 100,000 people. Since dotSUB’s launch in 2007, he has brought the concept of ‘language’ onto the radar screens of media, entertainment and all types and sizes of companies, organizations and users of video – by enabling web based video in any format with any source language to be subtitled into any other language using its browser-based platform, and then viewed in multiple languages on any video enabled platform, player or device, including mobile. dotSUB uses professional translators, the crowd, machines, and all combinations to help remove language as a barrier to cross cultural communications.