GALA Champion Márta Balázs

In this series of interviews, GALA members share their insights on the pursuit of globalization & localization brilliance.

Today’s GALA Champion is:

Márta Balázs, co-owner and MD of EDIMART

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Márta Balázs is the co-owner and managing director of EDIMART, founded in 2004 with her sister, Edit. She lives and works in Budapest, Hungary. After graduating in German and Italian languages at the Faculty of Arts at ELTE, she also obtained an MB in conference interpreting at the Technical University of Budapest (BME) and University of Strasbourg.

Before founding EDIMART, she had been working as a conference interpreter for 10 years. Her role in the company is that of business development, strategy and interpreting. She believes in collaboration, in thinking together and passionate about interpreting. 

In this interview with GALA Global, she talks about starting out in localization and building a language service company, joining a non-profit trade organization, and her outlook on the localization industry.

00:33 Starting out in the translation industry and building a translation company

I'd been working as a conference interpreter (HU-IT-DE) for 10 years. When my son was born in 2004, I decided to stop working as a freelancer and I founded with my sister a tinny little home office based translation agency.

03:18 Joining GALA

I wanted to learn more about the industry. Hungary is a small country, if you only get information from the Hungarian industry fellows, you won't see the big picture. We also wanted to reach the level of the international LSPs in terms of quality. So GALA seemed to be a great platform.

06:37 What could the ideal price model be for the localization industry?

10:02 What does it take to persuade an organization that localization is really a worth investment?

Localized content is the new voice of an organization abroad. We try to help organizations to understand, that their voices in foreign languages cannot be managed without having a professional, sustainable plan and a very experienced team for it.

13:23 Professional accomplishments

I was told once that I manage a Hungarian LSP at an international level. I am proud that in 18 years we reached a leading position in Hungary and we are part of a great international network.

16:41 Best career advice

You don't have to justify every decision with data - real leaders make great instinctive decisions too.

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