#79 Women in Localization President Cecilia Maldonado on Translation in Latin America

Cecilia Maldonado, Director of Strategic Accounts at Latamways, joins SlatorPod to talk about the language industry landscape in Latin America and her term as President of Women in Localization.

Cecilia recounts her path to joining the language industry and the many hats she wore over the past 20 years. She touches on the two-year process of merging SpeakLatam and Two Ways Translation Services, and how they managed to double in size in a highly fragmented, competitive industry.

She shares her perspective on how business is centered around Argentina and Brazil in the Latin American language industry, and LSPs competing for talent with global Super Agencies operating local production hubs.

Cecilia also talks about Women in Localization and navigating the challenges of leading a not-for-profit organization. She closes with a market outlook on multimedia and as well as the potential for growth of machine translation post-editing (MTPE).

First up, Florian and Esther discuss the language industry news of the week — where DeepL met its match in a Bloomberg crypto article. The duo talk about RWS’ latest acquisition of Japanese patent translation agency, Horn & Uchida, for a cash consideration of GBP 2.3m. Before news of the acquisition broke, Berenberg released a report that noted how RWS shares took a dip the day Richard Thompson stepped down as CEO.

Meanwhile, Nicolas McMahon stepped up from COO to CEO at United Language Group, which saw previous CEO Kristen Giovanis return to her role as President. Esther also reviews Lionbridge and its acquisition of Rocket Sound, a company that provides audio and voice-over localization services for gaming.