Engaging with clients
Facilitators
- Dr David Orrego-Carmona, Reader in Translation Studies at the University of Warwick
- Jo Durning, Chair, Professional Development Committee
- Lena Marg, Linguistics and World Languages club
This session brings clients and professional translators and interpreters together for an honest conversation about what each side needs, and what everybody gains when we collaborate better.
Panel discussion with Q&A: Working with clients and building partnerships for a changing world
Chair: Lena Marg
Panellists
Dr Samuel Läubli
Sam Läubli graduated with an MSc in Artificial Intelligence from the University of Edinburgh and a PhD in Computational Linguistics from the University of Zurich, with a dissertation titled Machine Translation for Professional Translators. Following tenures at US tech companies Autodesk and Lilt, he co-founded Textshuttle, an AI translation company focused on data security. Sam currently leads a team of 100 Language AI experts in Zurich and Berlin as the CEO of Supertext.
- Website:
- supertext.com/
- LinkedIn:
- https://linkedin.com/in/laeubli/
Jennifer Vela-Valido
Jennifer is a Localisation Strategist with more than a decade of experience in Localisation Program Management and end-to-end language quality solutions. She currently serves as Localisation Quality & Innovation Program Manager at Spotify, where she leads multilingual AI evaluation, Iquality frameworks, and global-scale localisation initiatives.
Jennifer holds a PhD in Localisation Quality Management and is an active researcher and speaker focused on localisation strategy, linguistic quality governance, and applied AI evaluation methods. A long-standing advocate for ethical and effective technology in language services, she has presented at GALA, TAUS, and LocWorld, and serves as Program Director for WeShape AI at Women in Localisation.
- Website:
- www.spotify.com
- LinkedIn:
- https://linkedin.com/in/jennifervela/
Participants will hear directly from our panel of clients from diverse sectors, from global tech to humanitarian organisation, about what they truly need, value, and expect from translators and interpreters they work with. Find out more about the working relationship from the client perspective to help you navigate your own client relationships with confidence and provide a clearer sense of the unique value you bring to every project.
Got a burning question? Participants will have the opportunity to pick the brains of the panellists.
Keynote speaker: What do we need to do with our clients?
Christophe Fricker loves a question, but in his keynote, he will argue that this is not a great one, and that it has skewed both the self-image and the self-presentation of translators for too long. He told us, with a straight face: “I will gently prod the question and see which bits have legs.” Any guesses?
Christophe Fricker
Collective conversations
Session lead: David Orrego-Carmona
In facilitated groups, participants will work through the ideas raised, exploring practical strategies: How do we articulate our value? How do we raise our profile and professional status? How can we take ownership of our roles while working collaboratively with clients? Ideas and key points will be collected on a Padlet for sharing after the session.
