Anna Woodward Kennedy: Founder of Chilistore, Language Quality Assurance Pioneer

In this episode Anna Woodward Kennedy reflects on fundamental issues of relevance to all entrepreneurs. How her challenging childhood home environment in Brazil made her hypervigilant to the moods of others, and how she had to take responsibility early in life. She shares how important it was for her to find mentors and other women as role models, and the way in which her “hard work and lifelong learning ethic gave her an edge, and helped her to believe in herself. Other lessons she shares include:

How important it is to “get out there and show up”, to network and meet people.

How she learned the importance of self belief, without which one can lose the battle before even starting to try to fight.

She shares the hard side of the entrepreneurial journey, how it can be lonely, how she had to take responsibility for tough decisions. She very much underlined how the process of running a business forces one to get to know yourself.

When sharing the Chillistore story, the podcast moves into epic mode. She describes how she became aware of there being something profoundly wrong with the way quality control worked in the translation industry, and created an entirely new approach, not just recording errors, but developing feedback loops and process changes in a complex adaptive system. She wanted Chillistore to “right a wrong”, as Guy Kawasaki put it in “The art of the start”. The validation that the market gave her confirmed her that her vision was correct, though there is a long way to go. She reflects on the process of selling her company and becoming part of Argos Multilingual - how the time may come for an entrepreneur to “get out of the way”, and that in Argos, she felt she had found her tribe - an organisation with similar values of quality and innovation. And finally she encourages entrepreneurs to be aware of ego and reflect on their relationship with money.

The hosts of the E&L channel, Kimon and Richard are shareholders in Argos, the company that acquired Chillistore.

About our guest

Anna Woodward Kennedy is a proactive, entrepreneurially-driven and highly accomplished localization specialist with 20+ years of experience in the localization service industry. She is the Founder & Managing Director of ChilliStore Technologies (CT) – a Software, Localization & Globalization Service company specializing in driving Language Quality Assurance (LQA). Linkedin. More about Chillistore here https://www.chillistore.com 

The NBN Entrepreneurship and Leadership podcast aims to educate and entertain, sharing insights based on the personal story of our carefully selected guests aiming for the atmosphere of an informal conversation in a bar or over a cup of coffee. 

About Kimon Fountoukidis Twitter Linkedin

Kimon is the founder of both Argos Multilingual and PMR. Both companies were founded in the mid 90s with zero capital and both have gone on to become market leaders in their respective sectors. Kimon was born in New York and moved to Krakow, Poland in 1993. Listen to his story here,

About Richard Lucas Twitter Linkedin

Richard is a business and social entrepreneur who founded or invested in more than 30 businesses, including investments in Argos Multilingual, PMR and, in 2020, the New Books Network. Richard has been a TEDx event organiser, supports the pro-entrepreneurship ecosystem, and leads entrepreneurship workshops at all levels: from pre- to business schools. Richard was born in Oxford and moved to Poland in 1991. Read more here. Listen to his story in an autobiographical TEDx talk here,

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