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.

Ayman El Badawy

Lead Globalization Solutions Architect - Global Software Practice

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.

Chang (Karen) Long

Project Manager, Chinese Language Lead

Karen is a native Chinese speaker with an MA in Translation and Localization Management from Monterey Institute of International Studies in California, US, and a BA in Teaching Chinese as a Foreign Language (specializing in Translation) from East China Normal University in Shanghai, China. She has been working in the localization industry since 2008 as project manager/coordinator, freelance translator and interpreter. She has experience in a range of translation and localization tools including Trados Studio, SDL WorldServer, memoQ, Wordfast, XTM Cloud, MultiTerm and TermWiki.

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.

Federico Pascual

VP - Global Production

Federico has over 10 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 Director

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.

Julia Arzhakova

Assistant Project Manager and Russian Language Lead

Julia is a native Russian speaker with three years of project management and translation experience. She holds a Master’s degree in Applied Linguistics from Moscow State Linguistic University. Based in Moscow, Julia has worked with leading global brands as a project manager and Russian language lead. She has lived in Germany and is fluent in German as well as Swedish. In Julia's free time, she enjoys traveling, reading, movies and music.

Kevin Blake-Thomas

Lead Globalization Solutions Architect - Global Website Practice

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.

Lauren Nemec

Global Client Services Manager/Business Development Manager

Lauren holds a BBA in International Business from The University of Texas at Austin (Hook ‘em Horns!). She began her localization career at a small translation firm in Prague, Czech Republic, where she specialized in Sales & Marketing. An Illinois native, Chicago called her back home and Lauren spent the next four and a half years bringing on exciting new clients as an Account Director at Capita Translation and Interpreting (formerly Applied Language Solutions). She joins GPI as a Business Development Manager based in the Chicagoland area. Lauren enjoys cooking, baking, crocheting, crafting, traveling and spending time with family and friends.

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.

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.

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.