#93 Véronique Özkaya on Why Argos Multilingual Acquired Venga Global

Véronique Özkaya, CEO of Argos Multilingual, joins SlatorPod to talk about the recent acquisition and integration of language service provider (LSP) Venga Global.

Véronique Özkaya walks us through her extensive career in the language industry and taking up her new role as CEO at Argos amid the pandemic. She also shares insights into the acquisition of Venga merely three months after announcing the acquisition of linguistic quality assurance provider Chillistore.

The CEO discusses meeting Venga CEO Kåre Lindahl at SlatorCon Francisco in 2019 and plans for integrating the core team and sectors. As a result of growth post-acquisition, Véronique gives her thoughts on build versus buy in language tech, integrating a sales force, and the future direction of the company.

First up, Florian and Esther discuss the language industry news of the week, with a bizarre case in Sweden where a British parent was trying to apply for child care leave when several mistranslations were discovered on the government’s website.

Florian talks about the US House Committee passing a bill called the TRANSLATE Act that would require multilingual signage in major American airports. Esther then gives an update on the Language Industry Job Index, which climbed 3.4 points in November.

Esther also gives a quick financial update from Down Under, where Ai-Media generated revenues of USD 11.2m for Q1 FY22. A quarter ahead, Straker Translations reported unaudited Q2 FY22 revenues of USD 8.6m.