The localization industry was supposed to be a temporary stop on my career journey while I took a break from music licensing and audio engineering. The daily four-hour commute was taking its toll on me, and GLS, a nearby LSP, needed a receptionist. That was 15 years ago. Yet, over the last decade and a half, I’ve had nine roles within Welocalize, which acquired GLS. I’ve been incredibly fortunate to have been adopted by so many mentors who saw potential in me that I hadn’t realized existed. A few in particular stand out, as they led to pivotal moments in my career.

While I was quite comfortable chatting up existing clients, I had a mediocre stint in business development and was eventually redirected into project coordination by Silvie Peric. Had that not happened, I would have returned to the music industry. While I technically failed at sales, the skills I acquired developed into a natural comfort zone when speaking with clients and stakeholders, which helped me grow within the production ranks. Shortly after Welocalize acquired GLS, Christy Conrad led me into the enterprise world to manage a new loc program where I learned about connectors, MT, in-depth data analysis, and everything else that comes with continuous localization programs. A few years later, Brennan Smith and Salim Catrina encouraged me to apply for an open role in interpreting, which offered the potential to build a specialized department. However, just a few months after my move to the interpreting space, the pandemic swooped in, and live events just stopped. Despite the uncertainty of this sector of the industry, it helped to flatten the learning curve, allowing time for me to dive into virtual technologies. Today, we have an incredible global interpreting services team that is crushing it!