#119 RWS Chief Language Officer Maria Schnell on the Value of Linguistic Expertise

In this week’s SlatorPod, we are joined by Maria Schnell to discuss her recent appointment as Chief Language Officer at RWS — pointing to the Super Agency’s investment in linguistic expertise.

Maria begins with her journey as a trained translator and how she worked her way through commercial and operational roles at SDL, before the company was acquired by RWS. She then talks about what the new role of Chief Language Officer entails, specifically leading the Language eXperience Delivery (LXD) platform.

She breaks down the role of the LXD platform, where a large, linguistic network supports clients looking to venture into more remote markets and long-tail languages. She also shares the importance of technology in optimizing operations, from translation productivity to quality assurance.

Maria discusses RWS’ approach to machine translation, where human post-editing is necessary if clients want true engagement with their end customers. She also talks about plans to simplify the technological complexity the Super Agency inherited as a result of past acquisitions.

The pod rounds off with Maria’s initiatives for the next year as she continues to nurture localization talent at RWS Campus and analyze language trends in their language labs.