About the bloggers

Amy Fang

Localization Project Manager

Amy Fang was born and raised in Taiwan where she earned an undergraduate degree in French from National Central University. She later earned her master's degree in French from Brigham Young University in the States. Amy’s linguistic experience extends beyond localization project management. She has a decade of experience doing freelance translation from French and English into Chinese as well as teaching both English and Chinese. She completed her Localization Project Manager Certification with California State University, Chico AND coursework in Localization Engineering from the University of Washington. Amy’s hobbies include collecting international art and running. She has completed a full triathlon in 2007 and half ironman in 2010. Amy also enjoys traveling extensively throughout Southeast Asia, Western Europe, and Northern Africa.

Ashley Pangborn

Business Development Manager

Ashley graduated from Bridgewater State University with a bachelors of science, with degree concentration in Mathematics. She has extensive knowledge of authoring and publishing formats such as Structured Framemaker, XML, DITA conversion tables, and Adobe Technical Communications Suites 2 and 3 including Framemaker, Acrobat, and Photoshop. She has over 4 years experience as an instructor/ consultant / author with these applications and formats. Ashley serves as a Business Development Manager with GPI based in Providence, Rhode Island helping clients with a variety of document, website and software translation needs.

Ayman El Badawy

Localization Engineer

Ayman is a native Arabic speaker with extensive expertise in Arabic software and website localization. He is both a Microsoft Certified Professional (MCP) and a Microsoft Certified Application Developer (MCAD). He has over 10 years' experience in software/websites engineering using Microsoft programming tools including C#, VB.NET, ASP.NET, Visual studio, and SQL Server.

Carolina I. Pérez

Localization Project Manager

Carolina is a native Spanish speaker and certified English-Spanish/Spanish-English translator with a degree in Sworn, Literary, Technical, and Scientific Translation. She currently is a project manager handling documentation, software and website globalization projects for an array of clients including retailers, hotel/hospitality, healthcare and ad agencies.

Daniela Bustamante

Localization Project Manager

Daniela has over 14 years' experience in language instruction and translation-localization project management. She holds several certifications in Document and Website Localization Project Management as well as a university degree in translation. She is currently a localization project manager working with clients and teams around the world completing documentation, software and website globalization projects.

Darrin Wittwer

Senior Business Development Manager

Darrin has over 18 years experience marketing Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) services and solutions to Fortune 1,000 companies. He has worked on a range of globalization projects specializing in translation, internationalization and localization helping companies with world-wide language & product launches, multicultural and multilingual marketing campaigns and content design & delivery. Darrin’s has worked for some of the largest language service firms including: ALPNET, Verbatim Solutions, Merrill Brink Int’l, and Lingo Systems / Language Line Services. Darrin is based in Bend, Oregon and when he is not working in translation services he is an EMT certified ski patrol professional.

Federico Pascual

Software Globalization Practice

Federico has over 8 years' experience as a globalization engineer managing a wide range of software and website globalization projects (internationalization I18n + localization L10n). His expertise spans software and website internationalization and localization processes, standards and tools as well as locale specific SEO. Federico has completed hundreds of successful globalization engagements serving as lead I18n architect involving different programming languages. He is a certified developer in several content management systems and helps clients create world-ready applications, utilizing development practices that are faster, more economical, and more localization-friendly.

Fotini Limes

Global Client Services Manager

Fluent in German, Greek, French and Italian (as well as English), Fotini has over 15 years of localization industry experience serving in a multitude of operational and sales roles. She has extensive experience in document, software, website and multimedia localization and manages day-to-day global production for GPI's project management and translation teams. She has lived and worked in Germany, Greece, France and the USA.

Gustavo Schuster

Global Application Developer

Gustavo is a Microsoft Certified Professional and Technology Specialist: .Net Framework 2.0: Web Applications and has 5+ years' experience in ASP.NET programming with C#, data access with ADO.NET, security, localization, managing classes, objects and controls, and XML web services in Visual Studio environment. He specializes in designing and creating web application projects, winforms, console and dynamic web sites using Microsoft .NET Framework.

Jackie Janeri

Global Client Services Manager

Jackie holds a bachelor's degree in German and political science and has more than 12 years' experience in the localization industry. She has worked with a variety of localization and translation agencies, including International Language Engineering (ILE), Encompass Translations, and Lionbridge Technologies. Jackie has lived and worked in Germany, Austria, the Philippines, Taiwan, Hong Kong and the UAE. Today she is director of Global Client Services for GPI based in Columbus, Ohio and serves as project manager on key accounts.

Kevin Blake-Thomas

Globalization Solutions Architect

Kevin helps drive website technology and architecture decisions across GPI. He has extensive experience implementing various Web Content Management Solutions for clients and has a wide range of experience in application development using C#, VB.NET, ASP.NET, ADO.NET, Web Services, PHP, JAVA, XSL, XML, SOAP/HTTP, MS SQL, MySQL and Oracle technologies. Kevin comes from Trinidad & Tobago, twin islands located in the southern Caribbean. He has a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science and Management Studies from the University of the West Indies. His hobbies include playing chess and mentoring University students with software projects.

Marcelo Volmaro

User Experience Specialist

Marcelo is an award-winning user experience specialist and is both an Adobe Certified Photoshop expert and Adobe Certified Flash developer. He works on information architecture, interaction design, usability engineering, visual design and prototype engineering. He is in charge of GPI's Website Globalization Practice and works with GPI's teams of top web designers, developers and localization specialists located all over the world helping clients design, develop, and deploy usable global websites that fully function for the world's markets.

Martin Spethman

Managing Partner

Martin has over 20 years' experience providing documentation, software and website globalization services. Throughout his career he has held numerous production and business development positions, including project manager, operations manager, web master, account executive, VP of sales and marketing and owner/managing partner. Martin has established and managed translation offices in Argentina, Brazil, Switzerland, the United States and the UAE. He has overseen hundreds of successful globalization projects every year since 1987, ranging from large volume, multi-million word documentation sets to complex, high-profile websites for Fortune 500 companies.

Nathalie Hodgson

Global Client Services

Nathalie is originally from the Seychelles, an island country spanning an archipelago of 115 islands in the Indian Ocean. She serves as global account services manager based in Dubai, UAE, managing multilingual projects for customer accounts in the MENA region as well as Europe. Nathalie holds a degree in PR, marketing and French and has extensive background in the hotel/hospitality fields. She speaks English, French and Creole and her hobbies include raising a beautiful girl, travel, safaris, sailing, yoga and online marketing for humanitarian companies as a volunteer.

Nicolás Cárcano

Desktop Publishing Specialist

A native speaker of Spanish, Nicolás has expert skills on both Mac and PC platforms with many DTP applications including Adobe Tech Comm Suite, specifically structured and unstructured FrameMaker, InDesign, Illustrator, Photoshop and others. He also has advanced skills in Microsoft Office products like PowerPoint and Word, as well as Quark.

Oana Diaconu

Senior Desktop Publishing Specialist

Oana has extensive experience in multilingual publishing and document analysis for translation projects for content authored with Microsoft and Adobe publishing applications. She is an expert user of Trados linguistic software and has managed many DTP translation projects with source documents that exceed 1,000 pages in length in over 20 languages. Oana is originally from Iasi, Romania and speaks English, Romanian and some French and Italian.

Ornella Viele

Localization Project Manager

Ornella is a native Spanish speaker from Rosario, Argentina and is a certified English-Spanish/Spanish-English translator with a degree in Literary, Technical, and Scientific Translation. She is currently a localization project manager managing documentation, software and website globalization projects for an array of clients including retailers, eCommerce, hotel/hospitality, restaurants and ad agencies. Ornella has extensive qualifications as a translator, gaining expertise in software and website localization, along with providing medical, financial and technical translation services for clients worldwide.

Reham El Kabary

Localization Engineer

Reham was born and raised in The Netherlands and speaks Dutch, English, German and Arabic. She previously studied Tourism and Management and holds a bachelor’s degree from Business School Notenboom. She has a keen interest in localization and is interested in different cultures and countries. She has traveled extensively through Europe including cities like Paris, Barcelona, Berlin, Aachen, Koln, Antwerp and Liege. Her hobbies include reading and swimming. She has been trained in and works with an array of localization project management and engineering skills including pre and post engineering for MSWord, Excel, PowerPoint, FrameMaker, InDesign, etc…as well as translation memory set up and management.

Tricia Soogrim

Global Client Services Manager

Tricia is originally from Trinidad & Tobago, a lovely twin island located in the southern Caribbean. She now resides in another sea-side city halfway around the world in Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates. She has a bachelor’s degree in Computer Science and Management Studies from the University of the West Indies. Tricia is a highly driven, results-oriented client services professional who has a passion for helping clients design, develop and deploy multilingual websites for worldwide use. She has extensive experience implementing various Web Content Management Solutions for clients and is an Ektron Certified Web Developer. One of her career highlights was working with a multidisciplinary team of project managers, designers and developers on the high profile “Summit of the Americas” website in 2009. She enjoys spending time with family and friends, travel, photography, cricket, football and exploring new technology.

Yasser Ahmed

SEO Specialist

Yasser is an Arabic web developer and SEO specialist for GPI. He is a native Arabic speaker originally from Cairo, Egypt. He holds a bachelor's degree in computer science and has 9 years' experience in localization, web development, SEO and desktop publishing. Yasser is a team leader with GPI's Global SEM Practice and is responsible for maintaining GPI's global SEM knowledgebase, which tracks developments in country-specific search engines, as well as the latest tactics and best practices for SEO.