GALA Roadshow - Montreal, Canada

Maryse M. Benhoff is the Founding President of BG Communications International Inc. a renowned provider of translation services founded in 1994 and based in Montréal. Her distinguished career in translation standards began in 2003 when she was appointed as Canada’s official representative to the Comité européen de normalisation (CEN Committee). In 2007, she served on the Canadian General Standards Board (CGSB) where she collaborated on the development of a national standard for Canada’s corporate translation sector (CAN/CGSB 131.10). She joined the Canadian Mirror Committee to ISO TC 37 in 2009 and served as its Chairperson for nine years before continuing as vice chair from 2023 onwards, a post she maintains concurrently with her functions as International Committee Manager of ISO/TC 37/SC 2 and Chair of ISO/TC 37/S C5 (2018–2026). Maryse also serves on the Board of CLIA and is Chair of the CLIA Standards Committee.

With a 10+ year track record in the translation and localization industry and a career spanning global LSPs, the government sector, and SMBs, Sophia Dias excels at building, growing, and leading cross-functional teams. As a Certified Translator and Chartered Administrator, she is currently Head of Language Services at OXO Innovation, a Montréal-based, fast-growing LSP. A tireless intrapreneur, Sophia fosters leadership and excellence at the operational and strategic levels, enabling her teams to deliver tailor-made solutions and expert language consulting services to a vast portfolio of clients.

Arnaud Franco was appointed Director of Economic Research at Business Development Bank of Canada (BDC) in January 2024. He leads a team of brilliant economists, tasked with providing real and actionable insights to Canadian Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs). Additionally, he keeps senior leaders informed about critical developments in the economic landscape. Mr. Franco has nearly 20 years of analytical experience and a decade of management and leadership training. He is also a seasoned public speaker, having presented at numerous global conferences.

Tino Melita's entrepreneurial mindset has led him into different industries. His background is sales & marketing and he has had several companies in the early Dot Com era of the Internet. Since 2016, he has been in the language industry and is now a partner & CRO at Go Global Consulting. Tino has been active with the ALC since his beginning in different sub-committees and is now in his second term as a Board Member. Tino brings high energy and passion everywhere he goes and makes it his mission to help people to better communicate. His passions are traveling, football-soccer, hockey, golf, skiing, and cycling.

A seasoned industry leader and CEO, featured by Financial Post, Global News, BDC and others, André has over 25 years of experience, where he has empowered multimillion-dollar companies with competitive business strategies. His unwavering commitment to innovation and business excellence has consistently placed him at the forefront of his industry. At NATIONS Translation Group and Language Marketplace, André is spearheading a new era of innovation and evolution. His strategic business expansion plan is transforming both companies, ushering in a phase of unprecedented growth and investment in cutting-edge capabilities and technological solutions. This commitment ensures the delivery of high-quality, professional linguistic services and exceptional client experience. André has served as a board member of the Canadian Language Industry Association since 2017 and has served as its chair. In 2022, he took a role as a member of the technical committee of the Canadian General Standards Board (CGSB), representing NATIONS and contributing to the federal government's standards and regulatory initiatives.

A firm believer in the power of language in business, Anik Pelletier has developed extensive expertise in corporate francization, language compliance, translation and inclusive writing in French on the Canadian market. Throughout her career managing corporate linguistic services, she has spearheaded the implementation of language compliance policies in a number of large companies, among which The Hudson's Bay Company, Target and Rogers. Two of her former employers have won French Merit awards from the Office québécois de la langue française, Quebec’s language authority. She also co-wrote a guide on language compliance in retail for the Quebec Retail Council and hosted webinars on the subject of francization. She is now an independent consultant in language compliance and inclusive writing, helping businesses from various industries to implement linguistic best practices.

Oleksandr Pysaryuk is a localization leader with experience in building and growing successful teams and disciplines focused on internationalization, software development, localization and internationalization technical program management, and global product management at the enterprise scale - in sports technology, telecommunications, human capital management, ecommerce and engineering organizations.

I am the CEO and president of Terminotix, a company that develops and sells computer-aided translation tools and services. I have been leading Terminotix since 2010, when I acquired the company through a management buyout process. I have over 30 years of experience in the field of computer-aided translation, with a background in automated productivity and electronics. My core competencies include expertise in translation memory systems, terminology extraction tools, terminology management, machine translation, full text, bitexts, AI and project management systems. I have developed and improved SynchroTerm, a bilingual terminology extraction tool that allows to feed terminology databases from translated documents. I have also conducted research on generating automatically high quality alignments in any language pair and developed a bilingual website search engine called WeBiSearch and the Terminotix plugin for Windows. My mission is to provide innovative and user-friendly solutions for translators, linguists, and language professionals.

Pascale is a seasoned globalization leader with an extensive track record, boasting expertise in orchestrating a multitude of successful localization initiatives throughout her career. She now advises and develops language capabilities initiatives for growing companies, including organizational development, strategy, and technologies. Her most recent role, as the director of localization at Gap Inc., exemplifies her achievement in this field. She is deeply passionate about injecting fresh ideas that catalyze transformative change and foster innovation, thereby facilitating sustained growth within organizations. Pascale is based in the Seattle area.

A visionary entrepreneur, Fardad has founded and placed two companies among the fastest growing business in America. He has also expanded to key markets over Europe and Asia. Fardad is no stranger to big challenges. In 2012, he was part of the design and roll-out a complete makeover of the United Nation’s meeting facilities, including the general assembly hall in New York. 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. in 2017, Fardad founded KUDO, where he now takes the meeting experience beyond the room to connect business and people in true border-less fashion, without language or geographic constraints.