Esther spent several years in France and Luxembourg for work and study, and has since returned to her native London. She has a strong languages background, having studied for degrees in French & Linguistics and Translation & Interpreting. She went on to pursue a career in the Language Services industry, where she gained PM, technology and management experience before joining the Slator team.

Florian is the Managing Director of Slator and host of the SlatorPod podcast. Based in Zurich, Florian Faes spent almost a decade in Asia before launching Slator in 2015. Slator is the most up-to-date source of news and analysis covering language services and technology and works as a distributed team based in Asia, Europe, and the US.

Vasagi joined the Executive Team in January 2024 as President of RWS’s Enterprise Services. In this role, she is responsible for overseeing Enterprise Services’ overall strategic direction, leadership and growth, with a focus on supporting global high-tech customers in complex programme delivery, solution architecture, AI data services, commercial operations and partnerships.

With over 27 years of global experience, Vasagi brings a wealth of knowledge from various leadership roles, including strategic planning and delivery, technology consulting, business development, client relationship management and engineering management in both product development and professional services organizations. Her extensive leadership experience involves supporting global technology clients in their AI initiatives.

Prior to joining RWS, Vasagi served at Appen, where she managed a substantial portfolio in AI data services for the company’s top global clients. Before that, she spent two decades at Cognizant Technology Solutions and CoreLogic, specializing in banking and financial services practice, where she managed several banking and fintech accounts.

Vasagi holds a Master’s degree in Information Technology from Kuvempu University, a Post Graduate Certificate in Artificial Intelligence from the University of Texas, and several industry certifications in Data Science, Architecture, Cybersecurity, and Business Strategy from MIT, Harvard, and HBS Online.

Beyond her professional endeavours, Vasagi is a dedicated reader and enjoys cooking. She cherishes spending time outdoors with her teenage daughter and husband.

Mark Lawyer is the President of Regulated Industries & Linguistic AI at RWS Group, where he holds overall responsibility for revenue and profit, operations, marketing, research and development, as well as client delivery across RWS’s Regulated Industries & Linguistic AI offering (including Evolve, Language Weaver and Trados). He also leads RWS’s strategic partnerships, developing cutting-edge AI solutions to support clients throughout their AI journey.

With an extensive career spanning over two decades, Mark has cultivated invaluable expertise, collaborating with prominent Fortune 500 companies.  His deep commitment to advancing global content and linguistic AI technologies is evident in his impactful contributions.  Mark’s leadership is characterized by unwavering integrity and a keen focus on excellence.  He has successfully assembled and led high-performing teams dedicated to overcoming communication barriers through cutting-edge solutions.  Based in New York, Mark is a graduate in communication and international business.  He resides with his family, embodying a truly global perspective in both his personal and professional endeavors.

Andrew Doane is Senior Vice President of the Execution/Debt Capital Markets team at K1 Investment Management, based in Manhattan Beach, CA. Prior to joining K1 in 2018, Mr. Doane worked as a Business Development Officer at PNC Bank.

Aditya Govil is a Vice President and joined VSS in 2021. He focuses on sourcing, evaluating, executing, and monitoring investments. Aditya is currently a board member of the following VSS portfolio companies – Specialty1, Ambulatory Management Solutions, GLOBO, and Olympus Cosmetic Group.

Prior to joining VSS, he was a Venture Capital Investor at Alumni Ventures Group and prior to that, he was an Operator and Consultant at Avant-garde Health (Sponsor-backed company), the Advisory Board Company (part of UnitedHealth Group, a Fortune 10 company), and Strata (part of Roper Technologies, a Fortune 1000 and S&P 500 company).

Aditya holds an MBA from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and BS in Computer Science and Mathematics from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.

Esther spent several years in France and Luxembourg for work and study, and has since returned to her native London. She has a strong languages background, having studied for degrees in French & Linguistics and Translation & Interpreting. She went on to pursue a career in the Language Services industry, where she gained PM, technology and management experience before joining the Slator team.

With 15 years of experience in localization and product development, Helena specializes in driving growth through human and AI collaboration. At TED, she helps bring TED Talks to life in 115 languages, working with a global network of 70K volunteer translators in over 160 countries. Her career spans LSPs and media across Hong Kong, Paris, Frankfurt, and New York, where she has led efforts in marketing, operations, and product innovation. Helena is driven by a passion for technology that connects people and simplifies global communication.

Georg Ell is the CEO of Phrase, a global leader in localization technology with over 300 employees and prestigious clients such as Uber, Shopify, Zendesk, and Deliveroo. Backed by The Carlyle Group, a global private equity firm, Phrase thrives under Georg’s extensive experience in the tech industry. With over 17 years of leadership experience, Georg has held significant roles, including CEO of Smoothwall, an education safety-tech business that gained recognition as a Top 100 UK employer under his tenure. He also served as Director for Western Europe at Tesla, leading a team of over 330 people to promote sustainable energy adoption. Before Tesla, Georg was General Manager for EMEA at Yammer, where he facilitated substantial growth and the company’s acquisition by Microsoft for $1.2 billion. Georg’s career began at Microsoft, where he was a pioneering salesperson for the company’s enterprise cloud business in Europe. In addition to his role at Phrase, Georg is a Venture Partner at LocalGlobe and Craft Ventures, and an Advisory Board Member at EQL. He holds a degree in Political Science and Management Studies from St. John’s College, Cambridge.

Hameed Afssari has been involved in the globalization industry for more than 20 years mostly as software test engineering leader focusing on Internationalization at Microsoft. In 2017 he left Seattle, Microsoft and the testing world to become Globalization Product Manager at Workday in California. He joined Uber in summer of 2019 as Localization Operations Manager and led the effort to incorporate Machine Translation into Uber localization ecosystem. In 2021 he was entrusted to lead the Language Quality Program Management in addition to the Localization Operations team, and as of January 202 is the Head of Globalization.

Anna is a language services industry professional with expertise in project management, management and quality systems, and a special interest in the life sciences sector. Starting her career in data annotation in Sydney, she then gained 10 years’ experience in London and Madrid with major LSPs before joining Slator as a research contributor. Anna is today Slator’s Head of Research. She holds a B.A. (Hons) in Linguistics from the University of Sydney.

Silvio Picinini has been a translator for more than 20 years. He has worked with Language and MT Quality for more than 10 years. He is currently a Language and Data Quality Manager at eBay Localization. Silvio has a US patent on Data Quality. And he likes puns and dogs.

Pavel Soukenik is the Head of Global Solutions at Acolad. With extensive experience in technology and language services, he leads the development of innovative B2B services. His contributions to international growth of leading global companies and to nurturing future industry innovators were recognized with the Microsoft Supplier of the Year Award and the University of Washington Instructional Excellence Award. Renowned for leadership focused on partnership and excellence, Pavel excels in transforming strategic insights into effective global solutions.

Nitin is a technology & product leader with 25+ years of experience. Nitin is currently working at snaplogic as VP of engineering in pursuit of integrating the world of applications, data, and systems responsibly and seamlessly using generative AI, unleashing the power of data for everyone and everywhere. Before Snaplogic, Nitin was Sr. Director at Twitter. He bootstrapped & launched Twitter’s Data Management & Privacy Infrastructure functions, implementing auditing and observability across Twitter’s data life cycle.

Nitin also played various engineering and product leadership roles at Visa, PayPal, & JPMC. Nitin is passionate about data & likes to tell stories using data, and shares his perspective across various data conferences, universities, & industry events

Nitin loves to discuss politics (no specific inclination, though :-)), sports, and technology.

Nitin lives in Cupertino, CA, with his family.

As an Information Management Executive, Agustin excels in transforming complex data into strategic business solutions, leveraging his expertise in machine learning and AI to drive innovation and evidence-based decision-making. He leads global, cross-functional teams, ensuring alignment with business goals and data integrity, with a strong focus on governance and compliance.

With over 25 years in the software industry and about a decade leading data and applied science initiatives, his leadership in AI has been crucial in driving internationalization and localization efforts. He spearheads innovation in software development, addressing complex challenges and delivering global solutions.

His passion for internationalization aligns with the vision of empowering everyone. As a polyglot, he helps create accessible and culturally relevant technology experiences, driven by curiosity and a commitment to excellence in the ever-evolving tech landscape.

Alex has 10+ years experience in the Translation and Localization industry, primarily in pre-sales functions (bid management and consultancy), with roles such as Solution Architect, Team Lead – Bid Management, Project and Production Manager.

Oddmund is an experienced strategy and business development leader having held multiple leadership roles in the Hi-tech and Telcom industries. He has been leading Interprefy’s transition from startup to a global RSI leader since 2015. Oddmund lives in Zurich and can often be found cycling across the Swiss alps.

A purpose-led entrepreneur in communication technology, Fardad has founded and placed two companies among the fastest growing businesses in America.

Growing up in Iran during the Iraq invasion, his vision to bridge language barriers was rooted in his childhood. In his twenties, Fardad took this vision and moved to the USA, from where he began transforming global communication via the launch of several successful business projects and market expansions, spanning the Americas to Europe and Asia.

In 2012, he was part of the design and roll-out a complete makeover of the United Nation’s meeting facilities. He has also played a key supporting role as a high-end equipment provider to various iterations of the IMF/World Bank Annual Meetings, and several European Institutions. In 2016, Fardad co-founded AVAtronics, a Swiss technology company focusing on active noise canceling technology with applications in headphones, smart speakers, conferencing and smart TVs.

And in 2017, Fardad founded KUDO, where his combination of 12,000 professional interpreters and a ground-breaking, AI-powered Speech Translator are leading global organizations into a world in which everyone can understand and be understood in their own language.

Since joining CyraCom in 2008, Jeremy has led the Company to significant organic growth, achieved without taking on institutional investment. CyraCom has been recognized with multiple Inc. 5000 awards as well as multiple Inc. Magazine Hire Power awards for job creation, while Jeremy has been recognized with an Ernst and Young Entrepreneur of the Year award, as well as the Thomas P. Brown Excellence in Entrepreneurship Award and an Entrepreneurial Fellowship from the University of Arizona’s McGuire Center for Entrepreneurship.

Jeremy holds graduate degrees in Law and Public International Law from the University of Cambridge.

Florian Faes is the Managing Director of Slator. Based in Zurich, Florian spent almost a decade in Asia before co-founding Slator in 2015. Slator is the leading source of news and research for the global translation, localization, and language technology industry. Slator‘s Advisory practice provides independent industry analysis, sell- and buy-side M&A, and custom market research.

Florian is the Managing Director of Slator and host of the SlatorPod podcast. Based in Zurich, Florian Faes spent almost a decade in Asia before launching Slator in 2015. Slator is the most up-to-date source of news and analysis covering language services and technology and works as a distributed team based in Asia, Europe, and the US.