Sorenson Communications Appoints Board Chairman Paget Alves As CEO

Sorenson Communications, a provider of communication technologies and services, has appointed Chairman of the Board, Paget Alves, to the role of CEO. 

Salt Lake City, Utah-based Sorenson got its start in 2003 by providing video relay services and creating a videophone for Deaf and Deafblind users. The company expanded into captioned telephone services in 2011. 

Among Sorenson’s more than 10,000 employees are “thousands of highly trained [American Sign Language] experts”. The company reportedly handles more than 140m conversations each year.

According to a November 13, 2024 press release, Sorenson’s current CEO, Jorge Rodriguez, has led the company since 2021. Rodriguez will act as a Board Advisor after the transition.

Alves said his predecessor’s three-year roadmap for Sorenson included driving R&D and tech advancements, exploring M&A opportunities, and strengthening outside partnerships.

The new CEO’s resume includes more than 30 years as an executive in telecommunications, most recently as Chief Sales Officer of Sprint Corporation. Alves, an alumnus of Cornell University and Law School, is also a Board Member of Ariel Alternatives, the private asset management firm that purchased a majority stake (52.5%) in Sorenson in April 2022. 

Sorenson’s services have historically focused on accessibility; beyond captioned calls and video relay services, these have included ASL interpreting, both on-site and by video (VRI). 

Now, Sorenson is expanding its offerings and setting its sights on the market for people with limited English proficiency (LEP). Its newest product, Sorenson Forum, provides remote simultaneous interpreting and captioning for events in more than 25 spoken languages (plus multiple dialects of Arabic, English, French, Portuguese, and Spanish).

Sorenson advertises it as “perfect for situations where you’re sharing a message with multilingual audience, including conferences and conventions, speeches, classes, assemblies, town halls, corporate meetings, and public forums,” adding that the product can replace traditional Communication Access Realtime Translation (CART) services for such events.

Both speakers and audience members can access the service through their own devices and select their preferred language. It makes transcripts available to the host in the languages used by participants during their session, and the host can then distribute those transcripts at their discretion.

Alves’ new role is the third in a series of recent appointments in the C-suite; namely, Wendy Adams, as Chief Relationship Officer in September 2024, followed by Maria Lensing, as Global Chief Information and Technology Officer, in October 2024.