The European Language Industry Association (ELIA) Board of Directors recently elected Anu Carnegie-Brown, Managing Director at Sandberg Translation Partners, to serve as its president. We caught up with her this week to ask about the association’s ambitions for the coming year, as well as her views on volunteer leadership.

What are ELIA’s main goals this year?

At the first ELIA board meeting under my presidency, we set out three key goals for the next twelve-month-period:

1. Firstly, we committed to maintaining and, if possible, improving our already outstanding event offering. ELIA is the only language industry association that organizes four annual in-person events for the benefit of its members, three of them tailored for specific segments of our member companies.
2. Secondly, we will build on our unique training offering for language industry professionals. It started with the online project management course we designed together with the Association of Translation Companies (ATC), and we want to create similar content for other industry roles in the coming year.
3. And thirdly, we will work on our internal processes and the collaboration between ELIA’s staff team and the board of directors to make it more streamlined and efficient.

How do you think members will see a difference six months from now?

There are many things that are already good in ELIA’s service offering, and I have no intention of changing those. But I want to increase the value that ELIA’s events, training programs, webinars, and social media content bring to our members and the language industry at large. Everyone in this industry recognizes the challenge of producing effective, helpful, original content because that’s what we talk to our clients about every day. I want to do the same with the association; I want our members to see new depth and value in ELIA’s event content, training content, website content, webinar content, and social media content in 2024.

Has this always been an ambition of yours?

To be a president of a language industry association? No. To make a difference in our industry? Yes. My contribution in this role continues Sandberg Translation Partners’ long tradition of volunteering time and skills in association leadership in the UK (ATC), Europe (ELIA), and globally (GALA) in an effort to promote and enhance the standing of our profession and industry.

Anything else you’d like to add? A message for the community?

The president of a membership association represents the members. The members voted me to the board, and the board’s job is to provide them with a space in which to interact, collaborate, and grow. But we can’t maintain this magical environment on our own; we need an engaged community in order to have a thriving, supportive association. I’d like to encourage all members of language industry associations to take time to think about why they are members, what works for them, what doesn’t, and what would work better. And then tell us.