Board Elections 2024 Candidate
Daniela D'Amato
Operations Manager, Creative Words | Italy | LinkedIn
"GALA’s mission reflects my values of learning, collaboration and partnership. I’m passionate about driving growth through shared knowledge and empowering our industry to innovate together."
In your view, what are the most important challenges and opportunities facing GALA?
Our industry is facing undeniable challenges due to economic uncertainty, budget cuts and rapid technological advancements. Many LSPs are struggling to adapt, or worse, to survive. I believe GALA’s primary challenge is to strengthen its status as the “go-to” conference for LSPs, no matter how low their travel budgets and reduced event attendance may be.
GALA is in a position where it should enhance its support for LSPs—the majority of its members—by delivering tangible ROI from its conferences. Offering valuable training, fostering strategic partnerships and promoting best practices are essential, especially these days. The Program Committee should have the most important job: ensuring that each and every attendee comes home with actionable insights that can be immediately applied to their businesses. Think of organizing hackathons, for example, or providing more hands-on workshops, with ready-to-use tools to come home with.
At the same time, an important growth opportunity for GALA lies in expanding its audience to include more localization buyers than today. The feedback I heard from LSPs currently not going to GALA is that the conference is not too attractive for them, because there are not enough buyers at GALA to make business with.
This diversification could boost overall engagement. If attracting more buyers presents a challenge, I believe the focus should still be that of shifting to delivering practical, hands-on content that ensures every participant (no matter the origin, LSP or not) gains actionable takeaways
How have you engaged with GALA as a member?
I've actively engaged with GALA by attending and speaking at previous conferences, while regularly tuning into webinars and industry news on the website. I also encourage my team to contribute articles, ensuring they have the opportunity to shine. For me, it’s about sharing knowledge and elevating everyone in our community.
Besides your work with GALA, how do you engage with our industry (associations, conferences, speaking, publishing, community events, etc.)?
I’m actively volunteering as the Program Director for Women in Localization’s Operations & Metrics Program, working closely with the Board and managing diverse teams. I also manage Sponsorship for the Italy Chapter. As a LocLunch ambassador for Genova, I also connect local professionals on a monthly basis. Lastly, I actively contribute to conferences where I have valuable insights to share, by replying to call for papers and being a speaker or a panelist.
What superpowers can you bring to board service? Describe previous board experience, leadership training, or strategic leadership you’ve had.
I am the “what-could-go-wrong” thinker who brings grounded insights to the table.
Which segment(s) of GALA's membership do you represent? What perspective will you bring?
I represent LSPs, particularly those people in Operations and Production. I bring the perspective of the people in the front line, ensuring their voices and challenges are heard. There’s a real need to amplify their/our input and drive solutions that work for those that make things happen every day.