The Price and Value of Impact

Behavioral scientist and author. Formerly, he was a senior lecturer of international business administration, China relations, behavioral economics, and cross-cultural communication for international programs at different higher education institutions in China. His involvement with language as the means to influence and make things happen started during his years as a journalist in El Salvador and continued during his years as an Attaché to the Embassy of El Salvador in Taiwan where, among other functions, he was in charge of translating and interpreting for government negotiations and trade content. Entering international trade, he continued to translate and interpret as part of his duties in sales and market development. As an executive, he later partner up with LSPs for localization of materials that support globalization systems he had to implement, the core of which was language. He is currently Managing Partner at Verve focused on remaking strategies for fairer pricing and services enhancement through wider inclusion and multidisciplinarity.

I began my career in 2006 as an administrative assistant, responsible for collecting paper documents from clients' offices and sending them to translators via fax machine. Over time, I took on additional responsibilities as a project manager, overseeing the translation of more than 15 million words per year. For the past four years, I have served as the Managing Director, guiding the company through the advancements in Machine Translation, developing our employees, and planning for the future. Currently, I hold the position of President at the Brazilian Association of the Linguistic Industry - BLISS.

I am currently developing as Strategic Account Manager for the Americas at TBO. I have been working in the Language Services Industry since a very young age. I started at 18 as a Language Lab Assistant to move forward to coordinating a program of foreign languages at the University of San Martin in Argentina. After that, I continued my experience in other industries and returned as a freelance translator specialized in food and beverage. Ever since then, I have been a Project Coordinator and Team Leader for the application of AI in several linguistic projects and a Vendor Manager in both large-scale companies and small businesses, which gives me a broader view of the different actors within the industry of localization. Some years ago, I became a sommelier of Argentinian wines. Service and hosting have always been some of my biggest passions.

Jessica Rathke has 29 years of localization sales experience. She is currently Principal at FluentSales LLC, an Austin/London-based sales consultancy. She helps translation industry leaders around the world increase revenue through training and consulting services. She also helps business leaders improve cross-cultural management competencies in multinational LSPs and beyond. Jessica holds an MBA and a Bachelor of Arts in Foreign Affairs and in German from Miami University in Ohio USA. She also did post-graduate German studies at the University of Salzburg. Jessica has served in various roles in Women in Localization in the US and UK and is listed in the Nimdzi Top 100 Influencers in 2020.